B-ROLL v A-ROLL
by Patryk Rebisz

Images exists on two levels - (i) that of what the image represents and (ii) how the image works in the world outside of the image. Meaning exists from within the image (composition, lighting, exposure, colors, content, movement, lens choice) and outside of the image (intellectual capacity of the audience, what comes before & after the image, the music & sound & voice over, size of the screen during presentation, environment).

There are appearances and over-appearances. “Appearance” is what the image seems at first. The “over-appearance” is when the viewer detects the language of the image and thus realizes that one is being manipulated into certain way of thinking. That realization doesn’t automatically mean disagreement with the issues at hand. Often it can steer the conscious viewers to pay attention to the message on another then obvious level.

The audience changes the meaning of the image based on their understanding of the canon, the film language, the history, the politics, the circumstances of the issues.

The image can’t control the audience’s intellectual might but through formal devices it can influence what the audience pays attention to - thus through the image the maker imposes its interpretation of the event. The audience can accept or reject that interpretations. Moreover the audience can become aware of the manipulation and thus reach an unexpected interpretations of the image outside of the craetor's influence.

An image exists as stand-alone entity as well as within a selection of other images - an edit. The edit can give new meaning to an image either by using the image to tell the story (within the image) in a sequence or by dialoging with the image’s meaning that exist outside of the image.

Image can co-exist with sound and spoken language. The voiceover can give the image illustrative qualities if the contents of the image seems too close to what the VO talks about. Image should “enhance” the meaning of the voiceover and NOT illustrate it.

Depending on form of the presentation (movie theater, TV, computer screen, phone) and the circumstances (how much choice the viewer has to pay attention) the maker must employ different devices to retain the viewer’s attention. Meaning is directly related to the time the viewer spends deciphering the content of the image. The image should engage the viewer sufficiently long for that meaning to be discovered WITHIN the circumstances and the form.

Formal meaning comes from “otherness” - how far outside of the canon the image falls. The canon describes certain style of framing, lighting, color selection, choice of what goes into frame, camera moves. Image that is just like other images with its canon speaks only through the illustrative properties of the image - what image seems to represent.

The canon can’t be controlled by the image or the image maker. The meaning of the image will change with time as the canon changes.

It’s the choice of the maker to have the image fall within the canon or outside of it. The canon imposes a meaning and it’s the maker’s responsibility to know that meaning. Being part of the canon makes the ideas less pronounced as then the only thing that matters is the storytelling content of the image and not its formal qualities. Within canon, formal qualities are made invisible = they still exist and force the image into a certain canon but by being part of the canon the image loses its ability to engage the viewer on level outside of that canon.

By falling outside of conventions the maker implies a meaning, or more precisely, possibility of meaning. The meaning is not produced anywhere else but in the viewer’s mind. Out of countless possibilities, the viewer needs to be clued in that there is potential for meaning, that the maker took its pains to inject the meaning (outside of the story) into the images. At the time where the availability of the content is abundant it’s vital to recognise the work with that ambition.

Implication of the meaning does NOT equal meaning. But lack of that implication means that there is no reason to search for meaning on part of the audience and thus very little reason to pay attention to the work on other than literal level.

Just like a fully developed scene the image has to change our understanding of things. WIthin one image it needs to transform our understanding from one position into another.

Meaningful image advances the story. The image has to be vital to the edit. Can the edit exist without the said image? If the image is not significant enough then it just a b-roll.