Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Film and Media Studies Commons

Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Articles 1 - 30 of 56

Full-Text Articles in Film and Media Studies

The Heralds Of The Dawn: A History Of The Motion Picture Industry In The State Of Florida, 1908-2019, David Morton May 2019

The Heralds Of The Dawn: A History Of The Motion Picture Industry In The State Of Florida, 1908-2019, David Morton

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Often overlooked in its contribution to cinema history, the State of Florida has the distinction of being among just a handful of regions in the United States to have a continuous connection with the American motion picture industry. This relationship in turn has produced iconic entertainment that has shaped the state's image to the outside world, while production spending has served as an important booster for local economies across Florida. The purpose of this study is to demonstrate how the sometimes cooperative and often contentious dynamics between film and television producers and state politicians have influenced this history of film …


Legends Of The Fabricated Wild: An Experimental Representation Of Natural Landscapes Through The Utilization Of Analog Film Techniques, Nicholas Twardus Jan 2019

Legends Of The Fabricated Wild: An Experimental Representation Of Natural Landscapes Through The Utilization Of Analog Film Techniques, Nicholas Twardus

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Legends of the Fabricated Wild is a feature-length body of work of landscape films. Voice-Destroy, Self-Portrait: Impermanence and the titular Legends of the Fabricated Wild are the experimental films that comprise my body of work. Keep your Distance, a single-channel installation, is a supplemental piece. Legends of the Fabricated Wild frames the complex interaction between a filmmaker and the collective unconsciousness of the natural environment, a theory outlined by Carl Jung, considering the implications and discoveries along the way. Subtle movement and precise compositions provide a transcendental perspective on the natural Florida landscape. Images of landscapes devoid of human figures …


Waking Up White: The Search For Black Happiness, Jason Gregory Jan 2019

Waking Up White: The Search For Black Happiness, Jason Gregory

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Waking Up White (WUW) is a television pilot written, directed and co-produced by Jason D. Gregory serving as part of his thesis requirements for earning a Master of Fine Arts in the Entrepreneurial Digital Cinema program at the University of Central Florida. The project attempts to answer the question "what if" by placing the main characters in a "fish out of water" scenario. In WUW a Black family wakes up White and has 30 days to determine if they'd rather return to their cultural roots or stick with the "new skin" that they are in. Upon awakening to their new …


Power To The People: Responsible Facilitation In Co-Creative Story-Making, Amanda Hill Jan 2019

Power To The People: Responsible Facilitation In Co-Creative Story-Making, Amanda Hill

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Power to the People: Responsible Facilitation in Co-Creative Story-Making describes and applies a tool for recording and analyzing the co-productive creation process of digital storytelling (DST) workshops to be used by project facilitators for the purposes of reflection and for developing an ethics of responsibly in story-making practices. It provides a method for analyzing digital storytelling practices that focuses on the rhetorical, dialogic, co-productive, creative story-making space rather than the finished stories or the technologies. Looking through a new media lens, this dissertation aligns the DST genre and practice in relation to alternative media broadly, and tactical media specifically, to …


Whatever Happened To Blackwater Rd.?: A Visual Documentary Concerning Achievement In The Face Of Failure, Michael Stephenson Jan 2018

Whatever Happened To Blackwater Rd.?: A Visual Documentary Concerning Achievement In The Face Of Failure, Michael Stephenson

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Whatever happened to Blackwater RD.? is a feature length documentary thesis film created and cultivated by Michael E. Stephenson to fulfill the requirements of the Master of Fine Arts degree in Entrepreneurial Digital Cinema while attending the University of Central Florida. Whatever happened to Blackwater RD.? has met these criteria of the School of Visual Arts and Design, in the College of Arts and Humanities, by being a feature length digital film with a budget no larger than $50,000. This film is the efforts of the filmmaker to trace the failure of his original narrative thesis film Blackwater RD., attempting …


Indivim-Kara: An Exploration Of Ego And The Archetypes In Art, Jared Justice Jan 2017

Indivim-Kara: An Exploration Of Ego And The Archetypes In Art, Jared Justice

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this document is to demonstrate how I use my art making as an active meditation in order to temporarily subvert ego and create a new subjective reality in visual form. The results of my research will provide the reader with the ability to connect existing philosophies of the Yoga Sutras and Jungian Theory with new art works that explore active meditation, neurosis, and the archetypes of the collective psyche. My goal is to reconstruct these concepts into a visual medium that reshapes facts and theories into images of my own truth, giving free play to fantasy akin …


Pioneer Of Self: An Intimate Retrospective, Juliet Diienno Jan 2017

Pioneer Of Self: An Intimate Retrospective, Juliet Diienno

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Reality is ever changing, and as we gain experience, our perceptions of it transform. Plato's allegory of the cave addresses the way one person's journey from darkness into daylight transforms his reality. My own body of work can be described through this extended metaphor, similarly benefiting from effects of education, self-reflection, and experience dramatically altering my perceptions of myself and my artwork. As projected by Plato, I was forced through an arduous confrontation with my lack of understanding of the human condition, reshaping my ideas to comprehend and adapt to the metaphorical daylight. With new understanding, I return to give …


Design And Production Of An Episodic Online Animation: Cairns Of Apeiron, Andrew Cadieux Jan 2017

Design And Production Of An Episodic Online Animation: Cairns Of Apeiron, Andrew Cadieux

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This paper describes the development of a feature length script and an independent episodic animation to be distributed online. The goal is to show that appealing animation can be achieved using digital tools, a limited animation workflow, few artists and a strict micro-production budget. I will detail the methods of animation used for the project and describe plans for its distribution to an online audience, including a market analysis and business plan.


Images Of Nostalgia: An Exploration Of The Creation Of Recollection Through Visual Media, Allyson Dickerson Jan 2017

Images Of Nostalgia: An Exploration Of The Creation Of Recollection Through Visual Media, Allyson Dickerson

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

I create innovative artistic works in which the experiential consciousness of the viewer drifts between objects, images, and the auditory narrative. The work approaches the visualization of memory and the catharsis of the loss felt from death. The projection of light onto lifeless entomological specimens mimics the projection of memory as a means to return to what has been lost. The digital copy of the specimen flickers across their bodies as a tribute to the movement that once possessed them. A List of Things that Quicken the Heart is a body of multimedia installation and single channel work that has …


Dialectics Of Microbudget Cinema, Milos Ajdinovic Jan 2017

Dialectics Of Microbudget Cinema, Milos Ajdinovic

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Magic Kingdom is a feature-length, microbudget motion picture, produced, "written", directed, and edited by Milos Ajdinovic as a part of the University of Central Florida's Masters in Fine Arts program in Digital Entrepreneurial Cinema. Its narrative is a product of the collective improvisation between a group of collaborators – Chealsea Anagnoson, Henry Gibson, Mikaela Duffy and Marcus Nieves – moderated by Milos Ajdinovic. This written dissertation is an attempt to document the concepts and processes that surrounded the production of this film.


83 Orange Peels, Klara Hammoud Jan 2017

83 Orange Peels, Klara Hammoud

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

83 ORANGE PEELS is a feature-length film written and directed by Klara Hammoud and produced by Biddayat as part of the requirements for earning a Master of Fine Arts in Entrepreneurial Digital Cinema from the University of Central Florida. The project aims to challenge existing conventions of the documentary filmmaking on multiple levels – aesthetic, narrative, and technical– while also examining growing importance of workflow throughout all aspects of production. These challenges were both facilitated and necessitated by the limited resources available to the production team and the academic context of the production. This thesis is a record of the …


Digital Dissonance: Horror Cultures In The Age Of Convergent Technologies, Daniel Powell Jan 2017

Digital Dissonance: Horror Cultures In The Age Of Convergent Technologies, Daniel Powell

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The first two decades of the new millennium have witnessed an abundance of change in the areas of textual production, digital communication, and our collective engagement with the Internet. This study explores these changes, which have yielded both positive and negative cultural and developmental outcomes, as products of digital dissonance. Dissonance is characterized by the disruptive consequences inherent in technology's incursion into the print publication cultures of the twentieth century, the explosion in social-media interaction that is changing the complexion of human contact, and our expanding reliance on the World Wide Web for negotiating commerce, culture, and communication. This study …


Noise Thinks The Anthropocene: An Experiment In Noise Poetics, Aaron Zwintscher Jan 2017

Noise Thinks The Anthropocene: An Experiment In Noise Poetics, Aaron Zwintscher

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation is a textual experiment in noise poetics. It is an experiment in that it results from indeterminate means, alternative grammar, and experimental thinking. The outcome was not predetermined. Noise poetics is the use of noise to explain, elucidate, and evoke (akin to other poetic forms) within the textual milieu in a manner that seeks to be less determinate and more improvisational than conventional writing. This text argues that noise poetics is a necessary form for addressing political inequality, coexistence with the (nonhuman) other, the ecological crisis, and sustainability because it approaches these issues as system of interconnected fragments …


Nature Records Itself: Concepts Of Truth And Representation In Nature Film And Nature Television Shows, Rashaad Rosalle Jan 2016

Nature Records Itself: Concepts Of Truth And Representation In Nature Film And Nature Television Shows, Rashaad Rosalle

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

With the advent of nature photography and film came new ways to understand and interpret the natural world. Prior to the 1910s these formats involved a more scientific and objective approach to recording nature. This aesthetic was abandoned in favor for narrative recreations and Hollywood structure after the 1930s. It is my belief that the dominant use of anthropomorphization, manipulations of setting and animal life, and rugged explorer motifs, all have lead to a loss of a more contemplative and meditative appreciation of nature within the Nature television and film format. It is my goal to explore through a series …


The Florida Project: A Micro-Budget Feature Comedy, Benjamin Lancaster Jan 2016

The Florida Project: A Micro-Budget Feature Comedy, Benjamin Lancaster

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The Further Adventures of Walt's Frozen Head is a feature comedy written, directed, and produced by Benjamin Lancaster. It is a part of the requirements for earning a Master of Fine Arts in Entrepreneurial Digital Cinema from the University of Central Florida. This film hopes to engage the popular urban legend and mythologies surrounding Walt Disney and the Disney company, and uses the story of a father letting go of his daughter to contradict the central messages of the Disney Company, i.e. believe in your dreams, and they will come true. A film of this subject matter requires the mircobudget …


Nightgaze: A Microbudget Visual Mixtape, Maillim Santiago Jan 2016

Nightgaze: A Microbudget Visual Mixtape, Maillim Santiago

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Nightgaze is a feature length visual mixtape created by May Santiago to fulfill the Masters of Fine Arts program at UCF. The mixtape is a study of autobigraphical depression in metaphorical visual tracks. Originally conceived as an experimental narrative, it has evolved into a form of essayistic distance within a narrative framework with experimental deviations. This thesis tracks the project from its original conception, through the pre-production, production, and post-production processes. It also formulates a plan for marketing and distributing the project.


The Weight Of Words: Collecting And Visualizing Data From Twitter, Daniel Mcswain Jan 2016

The Weight Of Words: Collecting And Visualizing Data From Twitter, Daniel Mcswain

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The Weight of Words is a web-based artwork designed to capture snapshots of Twitter discussions concerning the most popular topics of the day. The growth of social media in recent years has led to a sharp increase in thought and opinion sharing among the vocal population on the Internet. Twitter's use of trending topics allows users to be aware, and be a part of fun or silly stories as well as important news headlines and social movements. The Weight of Words is an exploration into using Twitter's always changing landscape of conversation to generate graphic visualizations based on the most …


Finding Treasure: The Story Of A Micro-Budget Digital Film, Christopher Williamson Jan 2015

Finding Treasure: The Story Of A Micro-Budget Digital Film, Christopher Williamson

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Treasure is a feature-length narrative fictional film directed by Chris Williamson as part of the requirements for earning a Master of Fine Arts in Entrepreneurial Digital Cinema from the School of Visual Arts and Design at the University of Central Florida. This thesis is a documentary record of the film production from concept to completion. In this thesis the concerns of authorship are explored from the perspective of the author as the executive producer, writer, and director of the film.


Testament: Mastering And Transcending The Microbudget Model For A Feature Film, Timothy Ritter Jan 2015

Testament: Mastering And Transcending The Microbudget Model For A Feature Film, Timothy Ritter

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Testament is a feature film serving as part of Tim Ritter's thesis requirements for earning a Master of Fine Arts in the Entrepreneurial Digital Cinema program at the University of Central Florida. The film follows a bitter former follower of a marginally popular social-justice movement who must keep the movement alive after its mysterious leader is killed violently and publicly. The drama, set in an fictional land known as The Commonwealth, presents a modern-day retelling of the life of St. Peter in the years after the death of Jesus, creating a new context for familiar Biblical tales and morals while …


Wise The Wizard: A Feature Documentary About The Late Harry Wise Of Sanford, Florida, Daisy Blakelock Jan 2015

Wise The Wizard: A Feature Documentary About The Late Harry Wise Of Sanford, Florida, Daisy Blakelock

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Wise the Wizard is a feature-length documentary by Daisy Sara Blakelock, made as part of the requirements for earning a Master of Fine Arts in Entrepreneurial Digital Cinema from the University of Central Florida. The film focuses on the late Harry Wise, a magician from Sanford, Florida, as remembered by the people who knew him best. Interview subjects include the following: author and TV Producer Charlie Carlson, who wrote a biography about Harry Wise entitled A Wizard's Tux and Tales (Luthers Press, New Smyrna Beach: 2004); Brendan and Anna McWilliams, who accompanied Harry on countless adventures throughout Sanford and the …


Mia-Mi: Exploring The Affect Of Digital Cinema Through Micro-Budget Production Techniques, Yesenia Lima Jan 2015

Mia-Mi: Exploring The Affect Of Digital Cinema Through Micro-Budget Production Techniques, Yesenia Lima

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

MIA-mi is a feature-length, micro-budget, and digital motion picture, produced, written, and directed by Yesenia Lima in pursuit of the Master of Fine Arts in Entrepreneurial Digital Cinema from the University of Central Florida. The film is a satirical and naturalistic look at the standing global image of a city, Miami, FL, and its inhabitants. The guiding question behind the production is whether a portrayal of a city, outside of its stereotypical portrait in mass media, could spark and affect a dialogue on the global image of the city and its inhabitant's ability to adjust that image rather than conform …


Ode To Amiel: A Micro-Budget Experimental Essay Film, Phyllis Redman Jan 2015

Ode To Amiel: A Micro-Budget Experimental Essay Film, Phyllis Redman

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Ode to Amiel is a feature-length experimental essay film by Phyllis Redman, made as part of the requirements for earning a Master of Fine Arts in Film in the Entrepreneurial Digital Cinema track from the University of Central Florida. The film explores one woman's reaction to trauma and depersonalization disorder through the journal entries of 19th Century Swiss philosopher, Henri Frederic Amiel. Passages from Amiel's Journal Intime provide the narrative and voice over for the lead character, a grieving mother who finds herself locked behind an inescapable, invisible and immaterial barrier that separates her from the outside world. Following the …


Blivits!, Charles Sutter Jan 2014

Blivits!, Charles Sutter

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Blivits! is a feature-length documentary produced, written, and directed by Charles Sutter in pursuit of the Master of Fine Arts in Film & Digital Media from the University of Central Florida. This thesis examines the ethical questions of making a documentary in the digital era. In accordance with the restrictions of the program's guidelines, this film was completed a budget of less than $50,000. The film was shot over 18 days, in various locations up and down the east coast of the United States. This thesis is the record of Blivits!'s journey through development until completion of picture lock.


Interior: A Micro-Budget Horror Feature, Zachary Beckler Jan 2014

Interior: A Micro-Budget Horror Feature, Zachary Beckler

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

INTERIOR is a feature-length film written, directed, and produced by Zachary Beckler as part of the requirements for earning a Master of Fine Arts in Entrepreneurial Digital Cinema from the University of Central Florida. The project aims to challenge existing conventions of the horror film on multiple levels - aesthetic, narrative, technical, and industrial - while also examining growing importance of workflow throughout all aspects of production. These challenges were both facilitated and necessitated by the limited resources available to the production team and the academic context of the production. This thesis is a record of the film, from concept …


Secondary World: The Limits Of Ludonarrative, David Dannelly Jan 2014

Secondary World: The Limits Of Ludonarrative, David Dannelly

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Secondary World: The Limits of Ludonarrative is a series of short narrative animations that are a theoretical treatise on the limitations of western storytelling in video games. The series covers specific topics relating to film theory, game design and art theory: specifically those associated with Gilles Deleuze, Jean Baudrillard, Jay Bolter, Richard Grusin and Andy Clark. The use of imagery, editing and presentation is intended to physically represent an extension of myself and my thinking process and which are united through the common thread of my personal feelings, thoughts and experiences in the digital age.


The Great Mirror Of Fandom: Reflections Of (And On) Otaku And Fujoshi In Anime And Manga, Clarissa Graffeo Jan 2014

The Great Mirror Of Fandom: Reflections Of (And On) Otaku And Fujoshi In Anime And Manga, Clarissa Graffeo

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The focus of this thesis is to examine representations of otaku and fujoshi (i.e., dedicated fans of pop culture) in Japanese anime and manga from 1991 until the present. I analyze how these fictional images of fans participate in larger mass media and academic discourses about otaku and fujoshi, and how even self-produced reflections of fan identity are defined by the combination of larger normative discourses and market demands. Although many scholars have addressed fan practices and identities through surveys and participant observation, many of these studies work with Western groups of fans whose identities may not be consistent with …


Ar Physics: Transforming Physics Diagrammatic Representations On Paper Into Interactive Simulations., Yao Zhou Jan 2014

Ar Physics: Transforming Physics Diagrammatic Representations On Paper Into Interactive Simulations., Yao Zhou

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

A problem representation is a cognitive structure created by the solver in correspondence to the problem. Sketching representative diagrams in the domain of physics encourages a problem solving strategy that starts from 'envisionment' by which one internally simulates the physical events and predicts outcomes. Research studies also show that sketching representative diagrams improves learner's performance in solving physics problems. The pedagogic benefits of sketching representations on paper make this traditional learning strategy remain pivotal and worthwhile to be preserved and integrated into the current digital learning landscape. In this paper, I describe AR Physics, an Augmented Reality based application that …


What Killed Interactive Tv? An Exploration Of Why Interactive Television Has Not Been Successful, Reuben Rogak Jan 2014

What Killed Interactive Tv? An Exploration Of Why Interactive Television Has Not Been Successful, Reuben Rogak

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The objective of this thesis is to investigate the history of interactive videos and examine some possible reasons as to why they have never been successful. Because the method of interactivity is often disrupting to the narrative, I wanted to make something that was much more fluid. To this end, I produced Man Alone Interactive, a branching story that allows users to choose their path without stopping the narrative. The purpose for creating it was to see if a different interactive mechanic would aid in the user immersion. In order to fully test this, two versions of the movie were …


Examining The Narcissism Trend In Generation Y Through Digital Narrative Film, Joshua Ingle Jan 2014

Examining The Narcissism Trend In Generation Y Through Digital Narrative Film, Joshua Ingle

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis presents an account of the making of 15 Minutes of Faye, a microbudget feature-length film created in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Fine Arts in Film and Digital Media at the University of Central Florida. It chronicles the motivation behind the creation of the film, the entire creation process, plans for its distribution, and reflections on lessons learned during the creation process. The film itself was designed to challenge its viewers with the gross self-absorption of its fame-seeking protagonist, in order to promote public discourse about Generation Y's sense of entitlement, which …


Pembroke Circle: A Portrayal Of Social Themes Using Micro-Budget Cinema, Max Rousseau Jan 2013

Pembroke Circle: A Portrayal Of Social Themes Using Micro-Budget Cinema, Max Rousseau

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Pembroke Circle is a feature-length, micro-budget, digital motion picture, written, produced and directed by Max Rousseau as a part of the University of Central Florida’s Masters in Fine Arts program in Digital Entrepreneurial Cinema. The filmmaker engaged some very difficult material in the micro-budget paradigm and grew personally and professionally in the process. This thesis documents the writing process, pre-production, fund-raising, production and post-production; all leading to the completion of a festival-ready feature film. It is the hope that this thesis will create an understanding of what it takes to make a micro-budget film and offer some help to future …