Film and Media Studies Commons^™

Rendering And Compositing For Visual Effects, Jensen Abler

Undergraduate Honors Theses

The methods used to create visual effects for feature film production are quickly evolving. Cutting edge techniques are constantly being improved upon, and the capability to solve unique problems is paramount in real world production. I present a creative project which utilizes novel applications of common techniques, such as projection mapping, multi-tile UV workflows, procedural texture generation, normal mapping, and image based lighting.

Emerging Feminist Voices On Media And Representation, Diana Depasquale, Cassie Tenorio, Alyssa Wells, Savannah Fulmer

Ray Browne Conference on Cultural and Critical Studies

The work featured in this panel is from students in WS2000, Introduction to Women's Studies. I created an assignment called "Choose Your Own Adventure." These projects include: an examination gender in film, and a revised version of the Bechdel Test, sexism and misogyny in gaming culture expressed through a series of comics, a painting on canvas using a variety of materials and techniques representing the control of women's reproductive rights and the damage done to female bodies by patriarchal language and rhetoric, and an analysis of womanism, scripture and Alice Walker's The Color Purple.

Each student engaged ...

The Perpetual Other: Native American Representation In Documentaries, Julia E. Largent

Ray Browne Conference on Cultural and Critical Studies

When an individual uses an Internet search engine to find images of Native Americans, the person will most likely find that most of the images are paintings of the Native American warrior or are older black and white portraits. After searching for other races, such as Asian American or African American, the search is more likely to come up with contemporary images of people playing sports, in school, or with their families. Why is there such a stark difference? Why are Native Americans so often thought about as only in the past? From the early days of books and portraits ...

Postcolonial Disability In Mohesen Makhmalbaf’S Kandahar, Sukshma Vedere

Ray Browne Conference on Cultural and Critical Studies

Kandahar (2001), an Iranian film directed by Mohsen Makhmalbaf, details the journey of the protagonist, Nafas, to Kandahar to save her sister from committing suicide on the day of the solar eclipse. The film has gained recent attention by disability studies scholars for the representation of disability in Afghanistan; scholars have discussed the significance of prosthetics and international aid for the disabled in post-war zones of the Third World, but little has been said about disability as a postcolonial embodiment. I argue that Kandahar represents the postcolonial state as a disabled space both literally and metaphorically. It projects the veil ...

Bodies And Stereotypes: Siegfried As The Aryan Ideal In Weimar And Nazi Germany, Benjamin Piche

Strigidae

One film stands out during the German Weimar Republic for utilizing the human form to represent powerful ideas of the day. Die Nibelungen: Siegfried, one of two films about the ancient Norse/Germanic epic poem, was released in 1924 to great fanfare. While Lang may have been attempting to comment on the past and present of Germany, the imagery used in the film would have wide-reaching implications in shaping what the “ideal Aryan” would be for future Germans. In Siegfried, bodies are used to emphasize the ideal Aryan German (shown by Siegfried) against the foreign “Other,” creating a clear duality ...

The Western Way: Democracy And The Media Assistance Model, Daire Higgins

Articles

International media assistance took off during a time where the ideological extremes of USA vs. USSR were set to disappear. Following the Cold War, international relations focused on democracy building, and nurturing independent media was embraced as a key part of this strategy. Fukayama called it the ‘End of History’, the fact that all other ideologies had fallen and Western style democracy was set to become the one common ideology. The US and UK led the way in media assistance, with their liberal ideas of a free press, bolstered by free market capitalism. America was the superpower, and forged the ...

Neglecting The Subjects Of The Drag Performance In White Chicks, Hannah Sylvester

The Downtown Review

As a temporary transvestite film, White Chicks tackles racial issues as well as gender issues and performance. While the statements made on behalf of racial issues are strong, the statements concerning gender are much weaker. The paper will give a summary of the film followed by a description of it as a temporary transvestite film alongside other films within the genre. Issues concerning gender roles--specifically the concept of femininity--are addressed within the film, but are never challenged or changed. Indeed, society's heterosexual hegemony are upheld within this film as they are in similar films in the genre. Homosexual instances ...

Keeping The State’S Secrets: Ireland’S Road From ‘Official’ Secrets To Freedom Of Information, Michael Foley

Books/Book chapters

The introduction of the Freedom of Information act in Ireland in 1997 was a profound change for a state, a civil service and political system far more comfortable with official secrets. It has had a transformational effect on relations between citizen and the state, and has been useful for journalists despite many challenges. After its introduction it was then amended, with high costs and limitations imposed. It has subsequently been amended again to restore much of its previous powers.

Revolutionaries In Space? A Counter-Review Of Interstellar, Bryant William Sculos

Class, Race and Corporate Power

Should the radical Left interpret the Nolans' Interstellar as a tribute to (neo)liberal expansionism or should we view it as a cautionary tale about a future that is just around the corner, which won't be solved by worm holes or time travel? This review takes the latter position against the recent Jacobin review, which argues the former. Here, I show that Interstellar can be productively reinterpreted as a film about a series of things that will NOT save us from our-late-capitalist-selves.

The Lost Row, Roman Buetel

Honors Projects

Set in 2032, The Lost Row chronicles the pre-dystopian city of Fostoria, where three citizens have taken it upon themselves to combat crime.

"If You Have No Men, You Have No War!”: A Critical Overview Of Edgar Selwyn's Men Must Fight (1933), Ryan R. Copping

Cinesthesia

ABSTRACT: Edgar Selwyn’s Men Must Fight (1933) is an obscure yet culturally relevant science fiction drama. An atypical film from its era, the movie has an unusual subject for a Classical Hollywood film- gender socialization. The film didactically argues that wars are inevitable because men are inherently violent, and that, conversely, world peace world occur if women were in power, a possibility that appears to be regrettably impossible. It is also remarkably prescient in predicting that World War II would begin in 1940, only one year off from the German invasion of Poland. This paper combines a close content ...

An Apartment Of One’S Own: Personal Initiative And Private Ownership In Frances Ha, Anna Bowles

Cinesthesia

In “Ideology, Genre, Auteur,” Robin Wood says that by approaching film through the framework of ideological theory, we can become sensitized to “the opposing pulls, the tensions, of one’s world (593).” Even in a film that is not explicitly political, these tensions can find expression. In Frances Ha (Baumbach 2012), a young woman struggles to chase her dream while also staying afloat in the harsh landscape of New York City. Until near the end of the film, it seems that Frances might float forever. The supports that Americans used to take for granted are no longer apparent. Having lost ...

Moral Anxiety, Mortal Terror: Considering Spielberg, Post-9/11, Jake T. Bart

Cinesthesia

In the wake of 9/11, a defining moment in the young 21st century, Spielberg’s thematic concerns undergo a marked evolution. As film historian Joseph McBride noted, “(n)o other American artist confronted the key events of the first decade of the century with such sustained and ambitious treatment” (450). Together, Spielberg’s War of the Worlds (2005), Munich (2005), and Minority Report (2002) create an informal trilogy, each exploring a different facet of American shock and anxiety in the War on Terror era.

The Zone: James, Tarkovsky, And Understanding Reality, Travis Wheeler

Cinesthesia

Using the philosophy of William James as comparison, this essay attempts to understand Andrei Tarkovsky's view of reality and the strategies his characters use to experience it.

Sensuality, Camels, And Islam: Disney Music And American Perception Of The Middle Eastern Experience, Laura Schildbach

Undergraduate Student Research Day Abstracts and Posters

In a world that is constantly changing and becoming more open to diversity and equality, filmmakers are faced with the challenge of presenting films and characters that embrace the ever-evolving world around us. In particular, Disney has been presented with this challenge; as a cinema powerhouse with an audience primarily made up of children, there is a perception that Disney has a moral responsibility to present accurate and unbiased representations of all cultures. This paper will analyze how Disney musically represents the Middle East in two Disney feature films, Aladdin and Prince of Persia, and how the musical choices affect ...

Iranian Nuclear Proliferation And Sanctions, Bailey Nicole Burlingame

Undergraduate Student Research Day Abstracts and Posters

This project will involve the current problem of nuclear development in the nation of Iran. The question involved in the election studies was, “Should we try to stop Iranian Nuclear Development by increasing sanctions, yes or no?” According to the US Department of State website, they are attempting to increase these sanctions against individuals or cooperations who can be proven to have provided aid, information, or mechanical aspects to assist the goal of Iranian nuclear proliferation. The website provides identifying information for the individuals involved. The answer to this question I believe will be determined the amount of news information ...

Viral Hollywood: How Social Media & Other Emerging Technologies Have Molded The Modern Moviegoing Landscape, Benjamin P. Conniff

Honors College Capstone Experience/Thesis Projects

There’s no denying that the rise of the internet has brought about change in the Hollywood landscape. Fans now use social media, like Facebook and Twitter, to share word-of-mouth about movies both good and bad. In a sense, anyone can use these new “spreadable media” to be a critic. I myself took it one step further and started my own film review blog. I was even published in the College Heights Herald student newspaper for over a year! In gauging my audience’s tastes in social media usage and in film, I have uncovered the fact that the hot-button ...

Weeb-Con, Rachel Williams

Senior Honors Theses

One of the most important parts in the development stage of filmmaking is writing a screenplay. Weeb‐Con is a thirty‐two‐page action comedy screenplay. After an anime convention in Galveston, Texas, is forcefully taken over by armed robbers in creepy, badlymade fursuits, it is up to Dolores “Dolly” Lopez, a Lolita who must lead the convention attendees ‐ including her family and her fat pitbull Butterball ‐ and make them band together. Dolly is something of a perfectionist loner; but, with the help of her new friends Seymour, a cowardly nerd, and Boyd, a stoner who is smarter than he ...

Binoculars: Management Strategies In Film, Kamryn Fall

Liberal Arts and Engineering Studies

No abstract provided.

"The Falling Man" As Viewed In The Lens Of The "Public Sphere", Laura Reinacher

Communication Studies

No abstract provided.