Task 6:
An Emoji Story
My Emoji Story
Process
For this task, I jotted down a summary of the movie I most recently watched in single sentences, only hitting on the points that I thought were crucial and that I would be able to represent with emojis.
I didn’t select the movie strictly based on how easy it would be to represent in images, although I did reflect on how easy it would be to summarize and what emoji options I would have available. If I had recently watched something more challenging to visualize, perhaps I would have pivoted and selected a TV show or book instead.
I relied on a combination of syllables, words and ideas; however, words were most used. I did a lot of extrapolating, using images that could be interpreted in several ways and meanings that may not have directly represented the word or idea I was referring to. I noticed an absence of functional language in my synopsis that would have been helpful but didn’t seem important enough to include in image form. For example, words like “to,” “wanted,” and “in.”
Challenges
Summarizing a movie into a series of short sentences was challenging; converting those sentences into a limited range of icons was even more difficult. When selecting the emojis, I found it even more important to highlight the crucial events from the film and then, from those events, decide which would be most straightforward to communicate with the emojis available.
I also ran into issues when there wasn’t an emoji for a word or theme I wanted to convey. Not having the exact representation leaves a lot to the viewer’s interpretation, who may or may not interpret the symbols in the way I intended. The viewer’s perspective and relative experience, if they have watched the movie I am referencing or a similar movie, will impact how the images are read.
For example, the movie I chose was one I watched about three weeks ago with my husband. I sent him my emoji movie synopsis, but he could not determine which movie I was referring to. However, once I gave him the title and explained some of my choices, he agreed with most of my representations and could understand the reasoning behind them.
Final Thoughts
I see the expanding role of images in communication. I often send a standalone emoji or a series of emojis in response to a message. This task clearly demonstrated the interplay between text and images. While the icons provided a suitable medium for my summary, I think it could have been strengthened with additional text to fill in the gaps.