Typography as a visual semiotic mode in filmmaking: a case study on the film Evacuate from the 21st Century

Abstract

This essay explores the innovative use of typography design in filmmaking within the context of evolving cinematic techniques and the directors’ personal quest for aesthetics, the innovative usage of typography design in filmmaking, and how it interact with other modes to co-construct particular cinematic visual systems. This article follows Theo van Leeuwen’s perspective, which views that considers typography as a systematic and multimodal semiotic mode [1], as well as the semiotic claims of Ferdinand de Saussure, to analyze how typography constructs cinematic symbols and conveys ideological messages in the film Evacuate from the 21st Century.