Roland Barthes created the theory that all media

represented something very much like a tangled

ball of thread. By this he meant that once it was
unravelled, it could be encountered by a massive
range of potential meanings. It can be continued
to be unravelled by the narrative from a different
angle, that creates a different meaning entirely. He
narrowed the narrative down into Five Codes:

The Hermeneutic Code

The Enigma / Proairetic Code

The Symbolic Code

The Cultural Code

The Semantic Code

The Hermeneutic Code
(the voice of the truth)

This is known as the way that the story avoids

telling the truth of revealing all the facts. This is
done in order to drop clues and therefore
create a sense of mystery throughout.
The Enigma / Proairetic Code
(empirical voice)

This is the way in which tension is built

up, leaving the audience to guess what
is about to happen next
 The Semantic Code
(the voice of the person)

This is the code that suggests a particular

additional meaning, by the way of connotation
which the story suggests.

Connotation = cultural/underlining meaning,

what it symbolises.
 The Symbolic Code
(the voice of symbols)

This is the code that is similar to the semantic

code but acts at a wider level. It organises the
semantic meanings into much deeper sets of
meaning. This is done by using antithesis, where
new meanings arise from conflict ideas.
 The Cultural Code
(the voice of science)

This just looks at the audiences wider knowledge

of culture, morality and ideology.
 APPLYING TO MY TRAILER
From looking at the five codes theory, I straight away identified the few
I was going to involve in my own trailer. These were both the
Hermeneutic code and the Enigma / Proairetic code. I listed a few
reasons for both of these below.

The Hermeneutic Code The Enigma / Proairetic Code

This code is used as the way to create a
sense of mystery throughout.
Ideas how to use it:
In the opening police investigation
scene why she is bloody, muddy and
dazed.
What possesses things in going wrong
Does a murder take place?
This code is the way in which tension is built up,
leaving the audience to guess what is about to
happen next
Ideas how to use it:
When they use the Ouija board
Violence being used in the quick pace
scenes potential murder?