Seeing the Unseen

            Cinematography of today advanced and improved a lot compared to the past few decades. Technologies have brought new flavor in our moving pictures industry. But what is commonly viewed by the audience through the movies are not just that; the appreciation must be deeper according to Professor Deocampo. There is more as he said. There are two kinds of viewing a cinema as categorized by Prof. Deocampo—textual and contextual. Textual is a field containing symbolic codes and signals projected on a screen. These are the literal meanings we see and our minds conceive every single moment we watch them. In textual, we do not manipulate or analyze what the characters are doing nor read between the lines the actions they portray but merely telling through the text. However, contextual is a field that needs more understanding that goes deeper analysis. It is a field of knowledge wrapped with meanings surrounding the text. In this, we read beyond the movements of each character. We tend to ask random sensual questions such ‘why is the arrangement of the scene like that?’, ‘Is the director wants to impart something to the viewers?’, ‘Is there implications from the ending?’, ‘Does the movie created to lead to realizations, confusions or to widen our imaginations instead?’ By these guided questions, we respond contextually. Historical meanings produced could be regarded as contextual reading because we start to incorporate what kind of issues were being associated. From individuals to a certain group to society up until as a whole—a country. Afterwards, we look on the characteristics possessed on different roles and we give critique to each personality. Furthermore, Prof. Deocampo discussed how a single scene may change the entire movie. At first, it seem like it doesn’t make sense at all because we simply do not focus on them but they represent for things we barely notice too.