Swimming in Symbolism

In our first blog post, I'll introduce a new page for the site, reflect on Beta,  and my Outie will tell you what its been watching while I've been working.

My family and I have just finished the latest season of Severance, and (maybe like you), I’ve found myself thinking a lot about what makes this show stand out. Certainly it starts with its unique premise.  This season I've also come to really appreciate the quality of the performances, with all of the actors playing ‘severed’ characters essentially creating two drastically different roles.  I'm also captivated by its unwillingness to be bound by genre conventions, obviously it most often reads as science fiction, but it also leans into mystery, romance, drama, comedy, and even musical (that's not too big a spoiler).  However, what I think about the most is the way that every moment in the show is charged with meaning, even in its smallest details. Little tchotchkes on shelves remind us of that anything we see can be a piece of a puzzle. A hallway isn't just a hallway. A melon party (the image below doesn't do the scene justice) isn’t just about fruit—it’s about control, grief, and a surreal and uncomfortable kind of celebration. 

So I finally decided to publish the one most important page I felt had been missing from this site at the beginning of our beta launch, our page on Semiotics.  

I've edited and changed this page often because there's so much to write and so many different approaches and, when it comes down to it, semiotics are central to this course, any way that we might create meaning in a film is a semiotic choice.

Semiotics is the study of signs—and how meaning is created through images, objects, sounds, colors, and codes. For example, in Severance, that white hallway denotes an office corridor, but connotes a feeling of isolation, sterility, and even imprisonment. The color palette, the symmetry of shots, even numbers on a screen aren’t just aesthetic choices—they’re part of a system of signs that quietly create tension, deepen the mystery, or reveal surprising connections. 

Speaking of endlessly staring at a computer screen with characters that seem to float before your eyes, we were absolutely thrilled to finish our Beta version of the site in January to make it available to you in the run-up to the final assessments this year. We hope that what you have found here so far has been helpful, clear and thought provoking. We would also like your feedback as we head into our ‘official launch’; our goal is to make this page as flexible and responsive to the needs of IB teachers and students as possible. 

New Pages: