The Use of Symbolism and Metaphors in Independent Filmmaking

Film is a language of images, and just like the use of literary language it conveys meanings to the receiver in a diverse verity of forms, from the prosaic, to the documentary, to the poetic, to the symbolic films of the surrealist movement. Symbols are a way of conveying visual meaning, somewhat similar to metaphor or simile, however metaphor and simile use clear analogous relations between the metaphor and the meaning. This book will endeavour to attest the paradigm that semiotics is a way of revealing subtext in codes and symbols, that consequently semiotics can be used to differentiate between metaphor and symbol which will then be used to argue for symbol's usage in independent films, both as a more cost effective means of production and as a more artistic affective way of making films than is the realist method. Using definitive examples this essay will attempt to verify that abundant independent filmmakers have managed to both keep their independence, by making cost effective films, and have added to film's expressive language by making symbolic films.