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Spider-Verse as Semiotics: How Color & Line Choices Speak
Source and Significance Blog Post - 5
What this post does (and why)
I’m using a single lens- paradigm vs syntagm (the style options available vs the way they’re combined) alongside Barthes’ denotation → connotation → myth - to read how Into/Across the Spider-Verse turns style into language. I’m looking at halftone dots, motion lines, and the red/blue palette not as decoration but as signs that tell us about identity, heroism, and belonging. In short: what we see (denotation) sets up what we feel (connotation) and what the film quietly naturalises as truth (myth) (Barthes, 2009; Chandler, 2002)
Evidence: six frames where style = sign
1.Halftone vs clean render - Miles vs Gwen
At the denotative level, the films look like comics in motion, halftone textures, inked contours, hand-drawn motion lines, even deliberate CMYK misregister. Those forms carry connotations- Miles’ grain and sketch signal process, DIY, becoming and Gwen’s watercolor pastels suggest grace, interiority and emotional clarity (McCloud, 1993; Barthes, 2009).
2 Red/blue palette tension
Color plays a clean semiotic game. Red punches urgency, risk, public action; blue holds thought, doubt, private feeling. When saturated reds invade a blue field, it isn’t just “pretty” it stages a binary opposition inside the frame: duty vs reflection. That opposition is a paradigmatic choice (which palette?) made legible through syntagm (how color, pose, and camera combine over time) (Chandler, 2002). 3 Motion lines & onomatopoeia (Bagel)
Motion lines and onomatopoeia push action into language: symbols that announce “speed/force/direction” with no dialogue. They’re placed at beats where cause-and-effect must read instantly a leap, a catch, a swing , so the syntagm (timing and placement) turns a stylistic option into a clear sign (McCloud, 1993).
4 CMYK misregister under stress
When color channels separate during stress, the film sneaks in an indexical tell: identity is wobbling now. It reads as anxiety without stating it. Here the myth peeks through: being a hero isn’t a stable essence ,it’s a negotiated practice, visible in the “errors” and edge-noise of the frame (Barthes, 2009).
5 Ben-Day dots in the environment
Ben-Day dots fold the page into the world, collapsing medium and diegesis. Connotation: heritage and belonging- the universe owns its comic lineage as lived reality. The resulting myth is elegant: heroism is learned in public, through a shared visual language; you don’t hide the medium you learn to speak it (Bolter and Grusin, 1999; Barthes, 2009).
6 Gwen’s pastel “drip” world (feeling as environment)
Gwen’s world externalises emotion: the environment repaints with her inner state. Denotation: color shift. Connotation: empathy and control. Myth: true power is emotional clarity - the world becomes readable when you are.
The short read: denotation → connotation → myth
Taken together, these cues make a consistent semiotic system. On the denotative layer, Spider-Verse looks like a printed comic animated: halftone, line, motion text, color channels. On the connotative layer, those forms speak character: Miles’ gritty dots imply unfinished identity; Gwen’s pastels imply interior poise; red/blue pairings stage duty vs reflection. The syntagm - how these selections are combined across frames builds beats where action is read as language (motion lines, Bagel) and stress is felt as process (CMYK drift). The myth that gets naturalised is that heroism is not a fixed look but a constant negotiation between impulse and care, public sign and private feeling (Barthes, 2009). In other words, style is sign, and meaning arrives from both the paradigm (what choices are available) and their combination (how they’re arranged) (Chandler, 2002). That’s exactly the toolkit outlined in our semiotics session: signifier → signified, denotation → connotation → myth, and structured oppositions. Conclusion
I learned that style isn’t garnish: halftone, motion lines, and palette work as signs that carry story even in silence. Mapping denotation → connotation exposes the film’s myth, changing how I read every frame. Paradigm vs syntagm is a practical tool what matters less is the menu of styles and more how they’re combined; tiny shifts (where a red accent lands, when a CMYK drift appears) can recode meaning without changing the model. Indexical tells like slight channel misregister communicate state faster than dialogue by pointing to something happening now. Finally, I’m watching for naturalised ideology (e.g., red = duty, blue = reflection): spotting these patterns is the step from enjoying a look to reading a language the core gain of a Barthes pass
References
Barthes, R. (2009) Mythologies. London: Vintage. Bolter, J.D. and Grusin, R. (1999) Remediation: Understanding New Media. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Chandler, D. (2002) Semiotics: The Basics. London: Routledge. McCloud, S. (1993) Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art. New York: William Morrow. Miller, P., Ramsey, B. and Persichetti, P. (2018) Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse [Film]. USA: Sony Pictures Animation. Dos Santos, J., Powers, K. and Thompson, J. (2023) Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse [Film]. USA: Sony Pictures Animation.
Visual Language - Bibliography
D’Aliesio, S. (2017). Sian Davey's intimate portraits of her daughters. [online] British Journal of Photography. Available at: http://www.bjp-online.com/2017/06/sian-daveys-intimate-portraits-of-her-daughters/[Accessed 28 Nov. 2017].
Davey, S. (2016). Martha (Ongoing). [online] Sian Davey. Available at: http://www.siandavey.com/portraiture/[Accessed 22 Nov. 2017].
Davey, S. and Strecker, A. (2017). Looking for Alice - Photographs and text by Sian Davey | LensCulture. [online] LensCulture. Available at: https://www.lensculture.com/articles/sian-davey-looking-for-alice#slideshow[Accessed 30 Nov. 2017].
FotoRoom. (2017). After Alice, Siân Davey Photographs Her Other Daughter Martha and Her Group of Friends. [online] Available at: http://fotoroom.co/martha-sian-davey/[Accessed 3 Dec. 2017].
Fulleylove, R. (2017). Siân Davey on the ways psychotherapy has informed her photography. [online] It’s Nice That. Available at: https://www.itsnicethat.com/features/sian-davey-photography-world-mental-health-day-101017 [Accessed 23 Nov. 2017].
Guernsey Photography Festival 2016. (2016). Guernsey Photography Festival 2016. [online] Available at: http://2016.guernseyphotographyfestival.com/index.php/photographers/sian-davey[Accessed 24 Nov. 2017].
Mann, S. and Price, R. (2010). Immediate family. London: Phaidon.
Michael Hoppen Gallery. (2017). Siân Davey. [online] Available at: https://www.michaelhoppengallery.com/artists/211-sin-davey/overview/ [Accessed 31 Nov. 2017]
Final book layout sequences I had a few tries in getting the order of my book to make sense, my main concern was the first section that included my blood relatives as there were more of them than my fiends. Originally I was going to start with my nephew, as he is the newest member. But I then found that hard to go from because I didn’t include his mother (my sister) in the prints at all. So I wouldn’t have a connection to move onto someone else. I then decided that I wanted a page to separate my family from my friends. This was due to having the title “My Family; those I have been given. Those I have chosen” to make it clear to the viewer who is my blood relatives, and who are close friends. In the end I went for the layout of the second photograph, this was because there were more words to help explain who was who and which section they came from. I also tried to arrange it in a way that showed who I’ve known the longest, though that works much better in the second section with my friends.
This is the video I followed to bind my final book. I used a Japanese bookbinding style as they were the first ones to properly bind books. I also couldn’t use the same book bindings as everyone else as my book would be landscape instead of first I tried to do a tortoise style, but that quickly went to pot when I tried to do it for my final dummy book. This style is still a good, strong way to bind your book without over complicating the steps for aesthetics.
This is the dummy book we made with Alex. I called mine connections because I was using people for my idea of home rather than a place, as I like the idea that we are all connected in some way. I stated off by having a fly page, this was so I could introduce the basic concept of what the book was about. After that I go to an image of my nephew next to some words, originally I wanted to have a photo of someone, then have them in the next photo with someone else. Then after that have that other person with someone else and so forth. But that because very difficult when I didn’t have a lot of photos of the people I wanted together. Therefore I changed it as I was going through to have it as how the next person in the photo would be related somehow, by either the picture of the person, or by the words from that persons page, to connect the people. I then found that that was easier to do, as there was no way I could bridge the gap between my family members and my friends. This is kind of close to my final book, as it has mostly the same people in it that I will be using. However my layout will be different, both from its format to how my images will be placed.
Visual Language - Proposal 3
My third idea, which became the idea I wanted to do the most, was to still use people rather than a place for home. And group together the people I consider family and put them into sections depending on how long I have known them for.
For this I want to use a big range of people. as I consider friends as family. Figuring out a coherent order will be difficult as I may not be able to link someone to another person, which in turn may disrupt the flow of my final book. However I think I can combat this by using the words to link the people I end up using to give the viewer hints at to how the person is, and how they relate to my idea of home.
For this I think I will need around 15 photographs, this is so that each person can have at least two images if needed. I don’t want to use words like their names or something that bluntly describes them, I want to possibly use words from lyrics, films, or books that they like.
Later I found it more fitting to use words of either who they were, e.g. Grandparents or words from when I had met them. E.g. Primary school. this way it gives the viewer a sense of who they are, without being too intrusive for the person
Visual Language - Proposal (2)
Connections - Oliver and Grampi
For this idea I want to use my Grampi and my nephew Oliver for my idea of home as I still prefer my home as people rather than a place. My Grampi and Oliver were born on the same date, 71 years apart.
I want to start off with my nephew, having photos of him from the day he was born and over the next few pages have photographs him develop throughout the months. On the other end of the book I want to have any kind of photos I have of my Grampi. Once they near the middle I want to have photograph of them together.
I want to have at least 6 photographs of both Oli and Grampi alone before having about 4 or 5 photographs of them together. However this became impractical as I only got to see my Grampi once a week, and on the days I did see him, it wasn’t for very long due to being very busy. Thus making it a hard subject to do, also because I would only have photographs of him from recent years; as most of his baby and childhood photos were left in Ireland 66 odd years ago.
