multimodal communication

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1 multimodal Closer to nature: A case study of the multifunctional selection of moving images in an environmental corporate video Carmen Daniela Maier A a r h u s U n i v e r s i t y, D e n m a r k abstract This article explores how the selection of moving images in a corporate video contributes to the construction of an allegorical journey in an ideal spatio-temporal universe through which the corporate discourse communicates the company s environmental commitment. The article is based on a social semiotic analysis which explores the discourse of renewal and belonging articulated visually in the Closer to Nature environmental video of Arla Foods Company. This case study exemplifies a model of visual analysis which is based on the multifunctional dimensions of moving images and of their sequencing. The detailed analysis seeks to identify the main processes by which the visual environmental discourse secures a selective representation of time and space that highlights the company s new green practices, and the closer link between consumers and nature through the company s natural products. This article thus suggests that fine-grained analyses of the meaning-making potential of images in environmental corporate discourses can facilitate a better understanding of visual selective strategies in contemporary environmental in general. key words environmental corporate discourse, social semiotics, visual metafunctionality, multifunctional analysis, spatio-temporal universe Multimodal Research Centre (Auckland University of Technology, New Zealand) Copyright Multimodal Research Centre & The author(s), 2012 Vol 1(3):

2 multimodal introduction The need for exploring the visual aspects of environmental has been highlighted by Hansen and Machin in their work on the visual branding of environment: if we wish to understand the discourses presented in the media that might shape public perceptions of the environment and green issues we must also understand how these discourses are realized visually (Hansen and Machin 2008:777). Research on visual communicative strategies has focused on environmental discourses belonging to a variety of contexts from education (see, for example, Maier 2009b and 2010), to journalism (Lester and Cottle 2009; Maier 2011b; Seppänen and Väliverronen 2003), advertising (Corbett 2006; Hansen 2002; Cox 2010; Maier 2011a; Moschini 2007) and entertainment (Maier 2011c; Starosielski 2011; Vivanco 2002). Most of this research work has explored the types, roles and particular significances of images in environmental discourses, but there is still a need for analyzing in detail how visual resources produce meaning because the selection and combination strategies are continually renewed in all communicative contexts across old and new media. When tracing the discourses of nature uncovered in a number of studies, Hansen (2010:140) remarks that what particularly distinguishes the use of nature in advertising is the seamless way in which, in its predominant use, it blends in naturally (for want of a better expression) and almost unnoticeably. The present study intends to look closely at the hidden meanings of this seamless way of blending in through the fine-grained social semiotic analysis of the images of an environmental corporate video. Although the main topic of the article is related to the roles of images in the construction of discursive time and space, it is not possible to ignore the role of texts in connection with this analytical purpose. Therefore, aspects related to text and image-text interplay are also taken into consideration. Kress (2010:1) stresses the different meaning-making potentials of these two semiotic modes and states that image shows what takes too long to read, and writing names what would be difficult to show. The focus on the combination of images with the superimposed written text is also motivated by the fact that the visual appearance of the textual information affects both the meanings of the respective words and of the whole video. Of course, it can be argued that such analyses gain in relevance when integrated in exploration of transmedia meaning effects (Lemke 2009) that traverse all the multimodal texts made public by a company in various media contexts as part of their green marketing strategies. However, this particular case study is meant to narrowly focus in depth only on the environmental video of a campaign in an attempt to provide a model of analysis. This article thus exemplifies in detail how the environmental corporate video Closer to Nature is articulated. The data is presented in the next part of the article, and then the methodology and the transcription strategies are succinctly explained. The analytical findings are then presented and followed by a series of conclusive remarks. 234

3 Maier: Closer to Nature Closer to Nature video Lately, the marketing materials of Arla Foods Company have been the subject of several research studies related to the company s usage of interactive resources in an image restoration campaign (Büllow-Møller 2007), the company s communicative strategies during a crisis (Gaither and Curtin 2008) and the company s of identity through narration (Johansen 2010). As already mentioned, the present case study explores the company s environmental video, Closer to Nature, which is part of the campaign launched in 2008 in order to bring the consumer closer to nature through offering healthy and good tasting products. On the company s homepage, it is stated that Closer to Nature underlines our commitment to naturalness, responsibility and sustainability; at the basis of this commitment is the belief that we are at one with nature and have a responsibility to look after it as best we can (Arla Foods homepage 2011). The video is roughly built around a child s journey in a universe whose temporality and spatiality are visually codified along both human/humanized and non-human coordinates. In the human sphere, temporality is manifested through human biological age, for example, childhood embodied by the boy whose journey the viewers follow, while in the non-human sphere, temporality is translated in the visualization of seasons. Consequently, although the time span that frames the video is supposed to be given by a child s journey during a summer morning, it also includes several seasons and, in this way, the representation acquires a timeless dimension. Spatiality is visualized in the non-human sphere through a variety of shots of forest, meadows and seashore, and it is shown in its humanized form mainly through cultivated fields of corn and roads. Usually, in a filmic text, a journey is a spatio-temporal progression that is easily grasped (Bordwell 1996:188), but in this case, the specific visualization of temporality and spatiality both at the level of shot and through the sequencing of certain shots disrupts the spatio-temporal frame of the journey several times during the video. During 3 minutes and 19 seconds, out of the 64 shots of the video, only 13 of them include the child and only a few of the remaining shots suggest the possible trajectory of the child s journey. The video is composed of six parts: (1) 00:00:00-00:22:20. The video begins with a boy seemingly running through a forest. After getting out of the forest, the child passes through a gate where he meets a cow to whom he playfully offers some grass in order to tempt it to follow him (Figure 1). (2) 00:22:20 00:52:08. While the child starts running on a meadow, the camera tilts upwards and the following aerial shots take the viewers above a seashore with a lighthouse in the distance, a field with a windmill in the middle of it, and other fields with herds of cows and crops (Figure 2). (3) 00:52:08 01:31:05. The child appears again walking through a field of corn. Then, the child is seen running on a field that is superimposed on the milk spilling upwards from a glass of milk placed in the grass (Figure 3). 235

4 multimodal (4) 01:31:05 02:21:09. The company is visualized for the first time through a milk carton superimposed on a grass field (Figure 4) and through an Arla Foods truck which passes through the image while flowers are spread from the picture pasted on its side (Figure 5). (5) 02:21:09 02:56:16. A series of aerial shots are mixed with shots in which Arla products are displayed either in close-up shots or in shots presenting the production process. (6) 02:56:16 03:19:17. The child appears once more running on a field with grazing cows before the video s last part in which the company s products come again into view being displayed in the middle of nature (Figure 6). The video has no voice-over narration, only superimposed texts, and no sound track apart from instrumental music. methodology and transcription Starting with the idea that an image is a fundamental tool for meaning construction (Lim 2004:226), the methodological framework of this case study is based on visual social semiotics. According to Jewitt and Oyama (2001:140), visual social semiotics is functionalist in the sense that it sees visual resources as having been developed to do specific kinds of semiotic work. This approach has been extended by applying the systemic-functional theory of language (Halliday 1994) to images. According to this theory, language has a multifunctional character constructing meaning simultaneously along several discursive dimensions. Halliday distinguishes three metafunctions: the ideational metafunction (to represent aspects of the world), the interpersonal metafunction (to encode interactions) and the textual metafunction (to form coherent texts). This approach to language provides a metalanguage which has been adopted and continues to be adopted by a wide range of researchers who extend its use to various semiotic modes from images to sounds and music (Kress and Van Leeuwen 1996; Jewitt 2005; Jones 2009; Martinec 2000; Norris 2004; O Toole 1994 and 2004; Van Leeuwen 1999). Researchers have proved that both static and moving images can be analyzed from the point of view of the metafunctions. Those who have applied visual social semiotics to the analysis of moving images (Baldry and Thibault 2006; Iedema 2001; O Halloran 2004; Thibault 2000) assume that both images and their sequencing create meanings that fulfill simultaneously the three metafunctions. Iedema (2001) develops the model by analyzing a documentary and he identifies three kinds of meanings - representational, orientational and organizational renaming in this way Halliday s metafunctions in order to better suit his analytical purposes. The present case study adopts Iedema s method of applying the metafunctional tools to film analysis. In his social semiotic analysis, Iedema (2001:187) claims that a film can construct its own time(s) and space(s) using specialized techniques, explaining (Iedema 2001:188) that social semiotics focuses on these techniques to highlight out not only what was edited in and how, but also to show what was left out and thus constructed as unimportant or as natural and taken-for-granted. 236

5 Maier: Closer to Nature Figure 1: Micro universe of a child. Figure 2: Magnified water drops. Figure 3: Natural laws are trespassed. Figure 4: Superimposed milk carton. Figure 5: Truck spreading flowers. Figure 6: Implied relations between nature, consumers, company and its products. The video can be viewed at: 237

6 multimodal In the present analysis, the multifunctional approach is adopted in order to explore how time and space are constructed in the environmental video employing techniques that are specific to filmic discourse at the level of all three metafunctions. The selection of these two discursive dimensions, namely time and space, is motivated by the fact that their visual representation is the main element responsible for rendering the company s new environmental message. For producing an interpretation of the discursive construction of time and space in the Closer to Nature video, I combine a micro- and macroanalytical approach. The coherent structural elements of the video that are explored in this analysis stretch from the spatio-temporal unit of a frame to the spatio-temporal structure of a shot and then of the whole video. In this way, both the static organization of time and space at the level of still frame, and the dynamic unfolding of time and space at the level of shot and video are taken into consideration. Furthermore, the meaning-making connections between shots also come under scrutiny as I identify the visual strategies which are organized in recurrent signifying patterns at the level of the whole environmental discourse. Maier (2009a:172) provides a range of evaluative devices in film trailers and observes that not only repetition of the speed of the camera movement, but also repetition of the speed of the movements inside the frame, as well as repetition of content and/or form (sizes or colours) in two consecutive shots or captions that can function as visual intensifiers. In other words, it is relevant to identify how the chosen type of images provide strategies for constructing a meaning-making spatio-temporal specificity at the level of both micro and macro textual structuring; both through the rhythm of what happens inside the shots frames and through the rhythmic units formed by several shots. Van Leeuwen (1985:223) suggests that without meaning anything in itself, rhythm is nevertheless a necessary condition for meaning. Finally, it is also important to show what specific techniques contribute to constructing the temporal dimension, the spatial dimension or both of them when conveying the representational, orientational and textual meanings. Following Thibault (2001, 2004), the movie-making software program Adobe Premiere has been employed in order to segment the video at one-frame intervals and to acquire the stills for inserting them in the Microsoft Word table of the written transcription. As the present analysis concentrates mainly on moving images and less on text, I depart from Thibault and I use the shot as the main analytical unit, although the frame still remains in focus. Therefore, in the table s first column, the representative frames from each shot of the video have been inserted together with information concerning the shot s length, and each shot has been annotated in terms of the three metafunctional choices in the next three columns. These explanatory notes concerning the metafunctions have then been supplied in the last column of the table with comments referring to the consequences of the respective choices upon the construction of time and space in the video. The following table presents a sample of the transcription strategies employed to record specific instances of metafunctional analysis of images. 238

7 Maier: Closer to Nature Table 1: Excerpt from the table used for the transcription and analysis of Closer to Nature video. 239

8 multimodal findings In what follows, the main selection strategies through which space and time are visualized in the video are discussed in detail at the level of each metafunction. In order to highlight the dominant techniques employed for performing each metafunction, the analytical findings have been structured accordingly. Nevertheless, it is important to point out that this artificial separation does not literally reflect the ways in which meanings are constructed because the same technique may be simultaneously involved in the meaningmaking processes at the level of each and all three metafunctions (see, for example, close up shot or mobile framing). Obviously, the presentation of the first metafunction, namely the representation, is more detailed in order to suggest the chronological development of the video. A thematic structuring of the analytical findings has been avoided because the main intention is to provide an understanding of how, at the level of each metafunction, specific meanings related to spatiality and temporality are created. representation Iedema (2001:192) states that representation considers meaning insofar as it tells us about the world in some way. As far as the overall representational meanings are concerned, the video strives to visualize the identification of both viewers and company with nature in order to promote the company s promise to bring viewers into a new relation with nature, closer to nature, through its products. The superimposed texts reinforce the discourse of renewal and belonging and highlight the natural qualities of the company s products. The first part of the video (00:00:00-00:22:20), starts in a micro universe created by the close-up shot of a child s hand caressing some plants while walking. The camera follows the child creating an impression of dynamism and intimacy, at the same time involving the viewers in the micro universe through this tracking movement. As the shot visualizing the child s intimate gesture is fading out, time appears to start passing faster when, in the next close-up shot, through the technique of time lapse photography, plants are growing under the viewers eyes in an accelerated tempo. The child s gesture from the first shot seems to provoke the plants growth. Although in this shot the camera is steady, the enhanced progression of the growing plants seems to continue the smooth action from the first shot, linking the two shots in a cause-effect discursive unity. This linking is also facilitated by the text Sense nature everywhere which is gradually superimposed on the shots. The speed at which the words fade in and out of the screen follows the reading speed of an average viewer. The linear temporal progression from the first shot is continued in the next close up shots in which we see the child s head coming towards the viewers, and then his foot while he is running in a forest. Intimacy is enhanced through these shots, and the cause-effect linking is also strengthened because the shots are followed by a new shot with growing plants which now grow fruit in the same accelerated tempo. Their rapid growth is once again emphasized through animated speed. This part of the video continues with another close-up of the child running, this time with the camera following him sideways. Until now, the relationship between time and space is visually represented through contrast as the represented actions are spatially confined by the close up framing, but are temporally stretched across seasons through time lapse photography. Both strategies 240

9 Maier: Closer to Nature provide the means to manipulate time and space in order to suggest spatial closeness and present moment. The text that is superimposed word by word on the shot with the growing fruit, a new beginning, summarizes metaphorically the meaning of this part s temporal and spatial visual representation that communicates multimodally a discourse of growth and renewal. Then, through the selection of other types of images, the micro universe enlarges its boundaries to incorporate other types of visual associations. If in the beginning the child is represented as intimately immersed in the vegetal world, now, his relationship with nature becomes more complex when he enters in a mute dialogue with the animal world. A long tracking shot brings the viewer closer to a gate that seems to separate the forest from a meadow. The viewers are allowed to approach the symbolic object that seems to separate two worlds due to the tracking technique. The next shots visualize the encounter between the child and a cow, both of them entering the new space of the meadow through the gate. The space created through the shot reverse shot sequencing is enlarged, but a small distance between child and cow is maintained (Figure 1) as they are united by the open gate. The distance becomes bigger as the child runs away from the cow holding some grass in his hand in order to persuade it to follow him. The impression of depth is enhanced because the camera remains still and the viewers follow him from the cow s viewpoint. The last shot of the running child ends with camera tilting upwards, above the tree stops, towards a blue sky and making the connection to the next part of the video. By inserting the tilt shot, the link to the next part of the video (00:22:20 00:52:08) is visually secured, although the linear temporal progression and its spatial coherence are disrupted in this part of the video. Both representational and organizational meanings reside in this disruption. It is visually manifested through a succession of several aerial shots which seem to be taken in various locations from seaside to green and yellow fields. Temporality and spatiality are also distorted in this part when in the frame of a single shot, through the split screen technique, two identical shots depart from each other in the middle of the image suggesting once again the idea of two worlds. As in the case of the symbolic object, namely the gate that separates the forest from the meadow, this visualization of two worlds emphasizes that it is the same natural universe, and the only thing that is changed is how we see it. However, temporal and spatial continuity is still hinted at visually through close up shots of magnified water drops which are transparent and superimposed in slow motion on some of the aerial shots (Figure 2). In the third part of the video (00.52:08 01:31:05), the normal coherence of time and space is once again suspended, this time in order to introduce meanings related to the company s and its products relationship with nature at the level of all three metafunctions. Built upon visual metonymy, the discursive construction of space makes clear that the represented relationship between the company and nature is one of belonging. Through stratified reversed proportions, the company becomes a part of nature and nature is contained in the company. The first shot suspends the normal succession of seasons as from a blue sky scattered with some small fluffy clouds, big snowflakes are falling on green grass. By tilting the camera down from that blue sky to a grass field, the first shot of this part of the video introduces the new space in which the well known proportions of the material 241

10 multimodal world are totally invalidated. Bordwell and Thompson (2001: 226) also state that, pan and tilt shots present space as continuous, both horizontally and vertically. While the camera zooms in on a glass of milk in grass, a snowflake becomes a milk drop and falls in the glass. The milk is spilling over (Figure 3) towards the sky and solidifies in the movement as if natural laws are trespassed. On a part of the milk, a long shot of the child running towards viewers in a green field is superimposed. On the other, the image of a cow standing on a patch of grass is superimposed. The glass of milk, the child and the cow are not only associated to each other, they become part of each other in these shots with reversed proportions. The camera continues to zoom in on the cow until the whole screen is covered by its body. Then, following a butterfly, the camera pans towards the left disclosing a whole field where another cow is grazing. Slowly, the close up of the company s milk carton is transparently fading in, superimposed on the field (Figure 4). Suddenly, the camera zooms out in order to reveal that the whole scene is in fact an image pasted on the side of the company s well known trucks. The next shots follow the truck, and as the truck is moving away, colorful flowers leave the pasted image covering the whole landscape as if the company could even enhance nature s beauty. The environmental risk of pollution that viewers could link with such transportation means is thus visually glossed over (Figure 5). Simultaneously, the words an attitude towards nature are fading in and out on the side of the truck. This part ends with flowers flying through the air towards the viewers while the truck is moving away on a road leading towards the sea. By means of the animated flowers superimposed on the image, the represented truck, road and the sea in the distance become a space of cleanliness and purity. Animation is also employed to make the transition to the next space in the video. In the fourth part of the video (01:31:05-02:21:09), one of the floating flowers comes so close to the camera that, for a moment, the screen is totally covered by its huge close up. As the flower is floating away, the space is opened again and the image reveals another place: a drinking trough for cattle in which the flower s landing movement creates ripples in the water. Water becomes the dominant element that creates the specific space of the video in this part. Represented in slow motion across four shots, the image of water unifies widely different spaces into one single space, namely the space in which the viewers meet the natural ingredients of the dairy products produced by the company. Even though the viewers can identify three out of the four spaces presented in these shots with water in slow motion, the action s place becomes less important. The absence of a clear narrative allows for the delimitation of a generic space which can be attributed meanings beyond the immediacy visualized by the realistic imagery. The suggested space can thus be clean and pure, visually associated with a representation of nature as it is supposed to be in an eco-friendly universe. After the close up shots in which the words real food are superimposed over cherries being washed and wheat grains plunging in slowly moving water, bread and milk are presented as generic concepts. The big close-up of a pile of grains being pushed towards the camera until the image becomes dark, the close up of a pair of hands breaking bread, and the extreme big close-up of a falling drop of milk transcend the concrete meaning of the visualized objects. The fact that the close-up shots of these objects reveal no relationship with the background, hence no indication of the place reinforces this interpretation of these objects being extricated from the context of specific time and space. 242

11 Maier: Closer to Nature The same visual strategies, namely close up shots and slow motion, are used to visualize milk, the main ingredient of the company s dairy products. However, the image of a milk drop falling in slow motion is not enough to broaden the meaning of the images to the idea of the company s green production practices. To achieve this goal, the video employs a multimodal strategy: the words natural milk in white letters appear superimposed on the composite image of an industrial machine which is processing milk. The shot is fairly tight allowing the viewer only to guess that the shiny metal item belongs to an industrial environment rather than a kitchen. Using the technique of split screen, two streams of milk are pouring from the sides into the center of the image forming a V-like shape. The movement of pouring leads the eye exactly into the words natural milk. Then, in a series of six shots, all the visual techniques used up to this moment are employed at once. Split screens of milk columns running into each other in slow motion, superimposed over images of rings on milk surface, orientated both vertically and horizontally, alternate with a close up shot of a milk drop falling in slow motion in reverse movement. This milk eulogy ends up with the shot of a milk stream rushing into a round container. In all these close-up shots, space is again condensed in the metaphorical visualization of nature becoming part of the company s products. Time is dilated through slow motion and reverse motion suggesting that the visualized events are recurrent and co-occurring. The fifth part of the video (02:21:09 02:56:16) starts abruptly. The passing of time is suggested through a new aerial shot of a seashore that separates the series of shots presented above from another series of shots in which the same idea of merging of nature and dairy products is visualized through the dissolve transition technique. A cloud seems to change form and shape gradually until it becomes a piece of cheese that afterwards changes to butter. The link to the last close-up shot of this part, a rich breakfast table with Arla Foods products on display is realized through a dissolve transition into and from a series of white frames meant to smoothly visualize the passing of time from the production phase to the moment in which the products reach the consumers. The range of meanings suggested by the previous representational choices continues to be manifested and nuanced in the last part of the video (02:56:16 03:19:17) in which the closer relations between nature, consumers, company and its products are again implicitly foregrounded (Figure 6). The visualization of the child s journey is continued in this part, the shots with the child running being inserted between the side panning shot revealing the breakfast table and a close up shot of a plate with milk, cereals and fruit. The same idea of belonging and union is obtained in this part of the video by introducing a new animation technique, namely morphing, through which a flower becomes a butterfly and starts flying, and white clouds on a blue sky take the forms of cows. The viewers can witness how fruits are changing colors and leaves are growing under their eyes. Shots in which flowers and cows are visualized with reversed proportions appear once again for the same purpose. The materiality of the spatio-temporal universe is transcended in the visual representation with the help of the above mentioned techniques. Time becomes endless when tempo and progression are manipulated in various directions. Space also becomes endless continuing beyond the frame s rigidity, its localized specificity losing its expected meaning. Machin and Van Leeuwen (2007:158) characterize bank-images as increasingly moving towards the abstract truth and, at the same time, the sensory, emotive truth. 243

12 multimodal In doing so, they are also increasingly moving away from the naturalistic, empirical truth. According to the above presented analytical findings, their observation can also characterize the selected moving images of the Closer to Nature video. orientation According to Iedema (2001:192), this metafunction deals with how meanings position characters and readers-viewers. The interpersonal meanings are primarily built by an interplay of texts and images which continuously readjust proximity and distance to suggest the closer relation between viewers and nature through the natural products of the company. The close-up shots of the video s first part manipulate time and space in order to establish a close relation with the viewers in the present moment. Maier (2011:164) highlights that these types of shots affect the way in which discursive time is perceived by the viewer, as a close up shot draws the viewer into the discursive space, it gives the possibility to focus, and it also gives the impression that time stands still. As the imperative sense is superimposed on the video s first shot, the viewers identification with the child is encouraged. Viewers are thus also at the beginning of a journey. The orientational dimension is renegotiated in the second part of the video, as the long aerial shots succeeding each other at high speed create a wider distance between viewers and nature. Nevertheless, the magnified drops of water falling in slow motion contribute to minimize this distance which becomes even smaller towards the end of this part when the medium shot of the child is included. The child is walking through a field and caressing the corn with his hand, also making the transition to the humanized space of the cultivated fields. Furthermore, once again the viewer is addressed through an imperative that personifies nature, let nature lead the way, which is superimposed on a landscape shot that precedes the shot with the child. In this way, the previous succession of aerial shots makes more sense because it is the powerful nature that guides the viewers suspending the confinements of space and time. As the medium shot of the child caressing the corn is accompanied by the superimposed imperative feel the natural goodness, the identification of the viewers with the child is once again encouraged. The orientationally salient elements are also both visual and textual in the third part of the video. Although the camera is still zooming towards the glass of milk, the spilt milk with the superimposed child and cow is frozen in its movement towards the sky. Both the camera movement and the child running towards viewers contribute to a smaller distance between the represented action and the viewers making it possible for the viewers to immerse themselves in this universe. The direct address, you, in the superimposed text, made for you by nature, which appears one word at a time on the screen contributes to the diminished distance between viewers and what happens on the screen. Implicitly, both visually and textually, the relation between nature and the company is enhanced as one of the company s main ingredients, namely milk, is visually represented as it has been described above, and it is claimed to be made by nature. 244

13 Maier: Closer to Nature In the fourth part of the video, all close up shots have in common the same height of the shooting angle. They are all filmed from a height equivalent with eye level if the depicted objects were actors. Van Leeuwen (2008:139) suggests that to look at someone from eye level signals equality. In this video, the usage of eye level can therefore communicate the idea that the natural products are accessible to the viewers. Accompanied by the superimposed words, real food, these shots reinforce the idea that nature is brought closer and at the same level with the viewer. Generally, the words replacing each other in slow motion influence the relation of the viewers with what is represented on the screen. The close-up shots establish a sense of spatial proximity, while the camera movement stretches the shots temporally giving the viewers the possibility to ponder on the meaning of each word. Both strategies reinforce the orientational metafunction of the whole video, namely to facilitate visually an understanding of the closer relation between viewers and nature due to the company s natural products. The last two parts of the video diminish again the relation between viewers and the company s products and their natural ingredients through the inclusion of big close up shots in which colors and textures are enhanced through time lapse photography. Superimposed word by word on two composite shots, the sentence nature grows everywhere introduces the last part of the video. This introduction hinges on the already used animation techniques and camera movement. To avoid repetition, the techniques are employed with a certain amount of variation and intensification. As the word everywhere appears on screen, three types of cross fades occur simultaneously. First, there is a traditional cross fade in which the outgoing stream of images fades as the incoming one becomes stronger. Second, there is a cross fade at the color level in which the predominant yellow with a touch of green of lemons in big close up is replaced by a predominant green with touches of yellow. The third fade is realized at level of content: the outgrown leaf of the lemon becomes the leaf of a magic flower with gigantic proportions in the following shot. The same fluid technique of a big close-up leading the way into another world is used for communicating the main statement, namely we bring you closer to nature. organization The last metafunction is described by Iedema (2001:192) as being concerned with how meanings are sequenced and integrated into dynamic texts. The relevant observation that needs to be highlighted here is that the Closer to Nature video co-deploys the texts and images when creating the specific spatio-temporal universe in order to produce a composite rhythm which could not have been created by using one of the semiotic modes on its own. The main sources of this composite rhythm are difficult to separate as they are enhancing and reinforcing each other from the level of shot to the level of the whole video. Apart from the mobile framing technique and text superimposition which have already been presented in the discussion of the representational and orientational patterns, there are several other techniques which are co-deployed in order to build meanings at the level of the organizational metafunction and at the level of all three metafunctions. The rhythmic alternation of close up shots filmed with camera movement and shots filmed with time lapse technique achieves the cause-effect discursive unity through which the company s overall message is secured from the very beginning. The linear temporal progression of the visualized events sustains this continuity with the help of superimposed 245

14 multimodal texts. The words a new beginning from the first part combined with the long tracking shot of the gate from the second part allow the video to maintain a stronger meaning-making continuity on a multimodal level. In several parts of the video, by using a succession of words that replace each other when the texts are superimposed, time is expanded and the duration of the shots seems to be longer. Consequently, the organizational rhythm of the video is once again captured in this multimodal interplay. Then, the links between several parts of the video representing different spaces are secured through such superimposed texts, for example, the words the power of nature which fade in on a sky shot at the end of one part and fade out on the seashore shot of the video s next part. Time is also manipulated at the level of shots through slow cross fades, slow motion and reverse time flow. Slow motion is employed both to draw the attention of the viewer to the production process of Arla Foods and to enhance the viewer s involvement in this process. Once again, the company s products and natural ingredients are combined in these slow motion shots reinforcing the idea of inseparability. Reverse time flow is employed for the same purpose underlying oneness of nature and the company s products. In order to enhance the idea of the company s products belonging to nature and vice versa, shots of the products are superimposed over shots with landscapes in slow cross fades. In close up shots, the texture of natural ingredients in Arla Foods s products is enhanced, while in aerial shots, the vastness of nature is put into perspective. By editing close up shots and aerial shots one after the other, the viewer has to make a shocking perceptual readjustment that increases the awareness of the impact and extent of Arla Foods s environmental practices. The organizational choices reinforce the same discourse of belonging and inseparability also by repeating the same representational pattern through which the superimposition of a long shot on a close up or vice versa perturb the well known spatial parameters, and events are no longer fractured visually by cause-effect relations, but are unified in a temporal circle. Furthermore, colors have also been given the function to provide cohesion in the video. Acknowledging that semiotically, color has always been able to convey ideational, interpersonal and textual meanings (Van Leeuwen 2011:97), Van Leeuwen highlights that colors can be used for strengthening textual structure. In the last part of this video, a pan to the left which is combined with an upward tilt starting on the big close-up of a leaf reveals the ideal new universe proposed by the company: huge flowers open their bright yellow corollas on a green meadow by the blue sea. The gigantic flowers growing under the viewers eyes are seen from such an angle that they appear as having normal size in the following shot. The effect is achieved only because the background they are seen against is the aerial shot of a real meadow by the sea. The two main colors of Arla Foods logo, namely green and yellow, are thus brought together in the gigantic flowers which have the same shape as the flower inserted in the company s logo. The logo is introduced after the words we bring you are superimposed on the screen. The rest of the sentence, closer to nature, is included in the logo. To sum up, I suggest that all the video s images are minutely integrated in order to accomplish a multilayered complex of meanings that have the same goal, namely to highlight a closer link between viewers and nature through the company s natural products. 246

15 Maier: Closer to Nature conclusion This article has proposed an analytical strategy through which the multifunctionality of moving images in a corporate environmental video can be explored in detail. By integrating the analysis of the static organization of time and space at the level of frame, and the dynamic unfolding of time and space at the level of shot/video, I have shown how the Closer to Nature video is systematically using visual techniques through which proximity versus distance and linear time progression versus permanence are no longer visualized as contrasting dichotomies. Instead, their boundaries are altered in a multimodal discourse of renewal and belonging, and space and time are conjoined in order to be charged with new multilayered meanings. The viewers spatial and temporal experience loses its familiarity in order to evoke a space and time of an ideal universe in which Arla Foods natural products help the viewers to be closer to nature. As shown, in order to construct the representation of this universe free of time and space constraints, images have been mainly selected by employing a series of visual strategies from mobile framing (panning, tilting, and zooming in and out) to close up framing at the level of shot. Time lapse photography, reversed proportion shots and morphing have also been found to be employed in the particular representation of time and space. The orientational meanings have been primarily visualized through the superimposition of texts over various images from close up to aerial shots. Images reveal to the viewers how they are spatially and temporally positioned, and the superimposed words fading in and out of shots clarify this positioning by reinforcing or complementing the visual information, explicitly articulating the relationship between them, the company and nature. It has been found that especially the superimposition of direct address and imperatives in slow motion has contributed to diminishing the distance between viewers and what was presented on screen. These representational and orientational meanings are actualized at the level of the organizational metafunction through a specific flow of the selected images that is primarily based on the rhythmic alternation of close up and aerial shots at the level of the whole video. As mentioned in the beginning, this fine-grained exploration of the visual discourse of renewal and belonging of the Closer to Nature video could be used as an example of how to explore metafunctional meanings in a corporate video. It could also be integrated into an exploration of all the marketing strategies employed by Arla Foods in their environmental campaign in order to identify their visual discursive strategies across media. This kind of analytical work could also be continued in comparative studies of environmental corporate videos in order to reveal if the selective representation of time and space are culturally and nationally specific. 247

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18 multimodal bio Carmen Daniela Maier PhD, is Associate Professor and member of the Knowledge Communication Research Group at the Institute of Business Communication, Business and Social Sciences, Aarhus University, Denmark. Among her latest publications are Knowledge Communication in Green corporate Marketing: A Multimodal analysis of an Ecomagination Video and Mediating multimodal environmental knowledge across animation techniques. Her current research focuses on the multimodal of specialized knowledge, corporate and on the analysis of environmental discourses. 250