Foil

//__Foil __//


 * Definition:: ** **(n.)** **Anything that serves by contrast of color or quality to adorn another thing or set it off to advantage.**


 * Origin:: Old English **

Definition taken from: The Oxford English Dictionary- Online ( http://www.oed.com/view/Entry/72433?rskey=Gk5PWn&result=1&isAdvanced=true#) (definition #6)




 * Examples ** from text:

1) In the on-line video game created by Gregory Weir, //Silent Conversation//, the contrast and color of the words are varied to specific words. These specific words, called powerul words, are colored red to create an interaction with the player. As a walking "I", the objective of the game is to touch as many white lettered words as possible (these increase your score) while "jumping" over the red powerful words that jump out at your "I" (touching a power word will lower your score). It is quite an interesting game.



2) The comic // A Midsummer Night's Dream // offers a unique perspective of foil. The spectacle of most comics involve the dialogue and the contrasting colors within. In this comic, the contrasting colors included in the visual rhetoric are used to bring attention to something important going on in the story. For example, the white spaces in between the colorful frames are meant to relax the eyes and let the reader know that each scene has its own boundary, while the frames let the reader know that the action is happening here. The element of foil doesn't get much clearer in this example.

3) One of the internet stories we covered, //Dr. Horrible's Sing-A-Long Blog//, also can be defined under foil. In this story, Dr. Horrible tells the audience the story through a webcam (in the story, he is filming entries for his video blog). The blog serves as a frame, which covers the story from beginning to end. Foil here is not seen through colors, but rather as the distinction between Dr. Horrible's blog entries and the actual scenes from the story. Of course, our gaze, physically, is on our computer screen and, more specifically, on the story we're watching. The element of gaze represents the drawing of attention to a specific scene, whether it be a blog entry or a "live" scene. This contrasting of gaze on the different scene types falls under foil's definition.

(JH)