Through this course, I’ve learned a lot about the key parts of visual language: the elements and principles that make art and film work. Elements like colour, form, line, shape, space, texture, and value are the building blocks. For example, space can guide the viewer’s eye, texture adds personality, and rhythm or movement can be created by organizing elements carefully. The Golden Ratio or strong contrast can make a composition feel balanced or powerful.
From Colour Theory: A Critical Introduction, I realized that colours carry different meanings depending on culture, history, and context. For example, golden yellow symbolized imperial power in ancient China. So, colours in art are not just about perception – it’s also about how society and history shape the way we interpret it.
Overall, this course made me see that film and art are carefully organized forms of expression. Everything from composition and colour to value and space is used to guide the audience’s emotions and understanding, step by step.
In the practical part, we explored animation history and discovered how early animators often included themselves in their work, creating a dialogue between the artist and the creation. I found this really interesting because it connects to my own research on narrative in animation, especially when looking at different approaches like abstract versus traditional storytelling, as discussed in Wells’ Understanding Animation.