REVISITING TITLE DESIGN IN VERNACULAR CINEMA: A CINE SEMIOTIC ANALYSIS

Indian cinema is a term that refers to films made in India since time immemorial and has greatly influenced world cinema. Indian Cinema includes various regional languages and among them is Tamil cinema that produces films in the Tamil language with a very wide audience. It showcases varied and interesting patterns of visual culture. Film posters play a vital role in exhibiting these visual cultures and serve as the essence of a film’s soul. Film posters have a deep-rooted relationship with Indian cinema and one of the important parts of these posters is the title design. Title designs are synonymous with the story of the film with a view to create a visual force. The title designs have a modern facelift in the digital era. The use of new graphic techniques, expressive typography, composition, and color creates a lasting impact particularly in new age film title designs. The current research aims to examine the title designs in Kollywood film posters using a semiotics approach. Analysis is done based on the following aspects such as structural parameters, relationship with the theme of the film, context of use and production techniques.