A SEMIOTIC STUDY OF HOLLYWOOD MOVIE LOGOS

In the recent world, movie logo serves as an important tool for movie recognition and identification. This study has two objectives: (1) identifying the meaning of Hollywood movie logos and (2) describing the way Hollywood movie logos lead to the identity of the movie they represent. This research belongs to the category of qualitative research. The methods used to collect the data are observation and documentation. The data are the logos of Hollywood movies that are released in 2007. The source of the data is the movie logos compiled in the box office report website (http://www.boxofficereport.com). In order to answer the problems, this research employs semiotic theories. The meaning of the movie logos is searched by using the Peircean triadic mode of sign, whereas the description of logos as movie identity is clarified by implementing the theory of intertextuality. The result of the analysis shows that (1) there are seven meanings of Hollywood movie logos; representation of action, representation of event, representation of person, representation of place, representation of plot, representation of theme, and representation of thing, and (2) the logos lead to the movie identity through the visualization of the superior party’s feature, visualization of the main character’s feature, visualization of weapon, visualization of threat, concealment of sacred number, concealment of sacred number and symbol, placement of sacred symbols, placement of sacred symbol and concealment of sacred number, diction of the title, diction of title and concealment of sacred symbol, concealment of sacred symbol, and concealment of threat.