Film and Media Studies Commons^™

Asper, Isaiah Nearor

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-2023

Asper is a microbudget feature-length film written, directed, and funded by Isaiah D. Nearor for the requirements of earning a Master of Fine Arts in Entrepreneurial Digital Cinema from the University of Central Florida. Completing a film production can be challenging because not every day is the same. Production took place during Summer 2021 during COVID 19. With proper guidance and safety protocol, the film made it through production. The film is a narrative thriller. This thesis explains the process and decisions made from preproduction through post-production.

Rubicon: The Dialectic, Marcos Carrasco Yanez

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-2023

Rubicon: The Dialectic is a virtual reality (VR), multi-channel, video-art installation, created after researching interactivity, virtual reality, 2D and 3D animation, filmmaking, philosophy, and music. I intend to manifest my feelings as a Venezuelan, a Latin-American, and a free thinker by sharing with the spectator a VR immersive piece representing my inner struggle in these times of political meltdown. Attempting to go beyond the two orders that structure reality according to French structuralist psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan, The Imaginary and The Symbolic, I am searching to approach the third Lacanian order that structures human existence--the one that opposes and exists beyond …

Lifeglows Through The Anthropocene: Development Of The Radical Imagination And Response-Ability Within Superhero Comics, Reed G. Puc

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Scholars such as Amitav Ghosh, Timothy Clark, and Timothy Morton emphasize the importance of and challenge within the task of representing the power, scope, and scale of climate change in art and literature. These interrogations often emphasize the failures of extant works to animate their viewers towards action in a time of environmental crisis, but struggle to find any work that meets their expectations. This ‘game-over’ attitude, I argue, is the direct result of the cruel optimism present in the current scholarship’s attachment to ‘traditional’ forms of art and literature. By interrogating the conclusions Ghosh reaches about the novel’s function …

What Sound Reveals To Our Eyes: The Intersection Between Subconscious Thought And Real Imagery In Experimental Film And Sound Design, Mireille G. Heidbreder

Theses and Dissertations

The impetus for making films that conjure up atemporal, interconnected spaces suggestive of a unique reality has been influenced in large part by Michel Foucault’s idea of heterotopia, or the creation of a new world by joining together discursive spaces. As such, my practice begins with the collection and re-imagination of these discursive spaces through a combination of an in-depth exploration of little-known landscapes and the organic observation of the natural realm in relation to the human world. By combining various mixed media including digital, film print, as well as re-purposed archival footage, I alter the filmic quality of the …

Salt At Dawn, Salt In My Veins, Cecilia Hankyeol Kim

Theses and Dissertations

A contemplation on expanded time, over generations along my maternal lineage;

on being on the borders, embodying homeland;

on inheritance and shared labor;

occupying a void that is dense;

looking towards dawn.

Banal/Queer/Spectacular: Reframing Blue Is The Warmest Color, Sophie Frank

Comparative Literature M.A. Essays

In this essay, I interrogate visual representations of a lesbian love story in Jul’ Maroh’s graphic novel Le bleu est une couleur chaude and its film adaptation by director Abdellatif Kechiche, La vie d’Adèle : Chapitres 1 et 2. By studying the diegesis of each work’s opening scene, I reveal that the graphic novel embodies Barthes’s concept of a writerly text, or one that requires its reader to produce its meaning, while the film, as a readerly work, constructs a passive viewing experience for its audience. I argue that each author’s narratological approach exemplifies the particular manner in which they …

“Beychella:” Beyoncé’S Homecoming To A Futuristic Queer Utopian, Jolie V. Brownell

sprinkle: an undergraduate journal of feminist and queer studies

Beyoncé’s 2018 Coachella performance and 2019 Homecoming film set the stage for a radical Black queer reimagining. Yet, how can Beyoncé—who is straight—be located within a queer critique? In this paper, I argue that through a radical and political expansion of queer, the creative deployment of dis/identification, and the unapologetic expression of the erotic, Beyoncé performs an embodiment of queer of color critique. These creative gestures within “Beychella” invite viewers into a queer futuristic utopian and provide new creative modes to politically inhabit, resist, and reimagine interlocking systems of oppression.

Keywords: Beyoncé, queer, dis/identification, erotic, QoCC, …

Going Forth: A Thesis Presented To The Faculty Of The Humanities And Teacher Education Division, Pepperdine University, William Dewitt

Theses and Dissertations

Essay: Going forth -- Script 1: Geronimo -- Script 2: Monster Moscow.

Stories That Matter: Developing Media With Purpose, Chirag Patel

Theses and Dissertations

The following thesis project represents the culmination of studies in the M.F.A. in Cinematic Media Production graduate program by the student, Chirag Patel. It serves as a representation of knowledge gained during the program, in addition to a showcase of materials produced by the student to serve as a portfolio for future employment opportunities in the media industry. The thesis aims to provide a thorough understanding of the media production process by the student, who will present multiple projects designed to highlight the various steps in the production process, from story development through pre-production, production, post-production, and distribution. Furthermore, each …

Uniting Cultures With Stories, Matthew S. Frey

Theses and Dissertations

Uniting cultures with stories -- Crystal City -- Love, integrity, and the military.

Giving Voice To Everyday Characters In Extraordinary Circumstances, Andrew D. Hasselbring

Theses and Dissertations

Giving voice to everyday characters in extraordinary circumstances -- Undesirable donor -- Blowfish -- Behind the lavender door

Theorizing #Girlboss Culture: Mediated Neoliberal Feminisms From Influencers To Multi-Level Marketing Schemes, Frankie Mastrangelo

Theses and Dissertations

I define girlboss feminism as emergent, mediated formations of neoliberal feminism that equate feminist empowerment with financial success, market competition, individualized work-life balance, and curated digital and physical presences driven by self-monetization. I look toward how the mediation of girlboss feminism utilizes branded and affective engagements with representational politics, discourses of authenticity and rebellion, as well as meritocratic aspiration to promote cultural interest in conceptualizing feminism in ways that are divorced from collective, intersectional struggle. I question the stakes involved in reducing feminist interrogations and commitments to discourses of representation, visibility, and meritocracy. I argue that while girlboss feminism may …

Playing At The Crossroads Of Religion And Law: Historical Milieu, Context And Curriculum Hooks In Lost & Found, Owen Gottlieb

Articles

This chapter presents the use of Lost & Found – a purpose-built tabletop to mobile game series – to teach medieval religious legal systems. The series aims to broaden the discourse around religious legal systems and to counter popular depiction of these systems which often promote prejudice and misnomers. A central element is the importance of contextualizing religion in period and locale. The Lost & Found series uses period accurate depictions of material culture to set the stage for play around relevant topics – specifically how the law promoted collaboration and sustainable governance practices in Fustat (Old Cairo) in twelfth-century …

Herlands: Imperial Feminisms From Charlotte Perkins Gilman To Wonder Woman, Anna Jankovsky

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

The society of women is a trope of feminist utopian fiction in which a group of women live together in harmony without the influence of men to disrupt their society. This trope functions on five criteria: 1) The society must be able to defend itself and replenish itself without the assistance of men. 2) It must be fully isolated and nearly impenetrable from the outside world 3) It must have a utopic order of society untroubled by ambition. 4) It must be infiltrated and challenged by a man during the course of the story. 5) It must grapple with the …

Margins Of The City: Urban Masculinity And Identity Politics In British Social-Realist Queer Cinema, Yi Li

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

This dissertation identifies and analyzes a history of queer politics and identities in British realist cinema from the early 1960s to the 2010s. Focusing primarily on filmmakers Sidney J. Furie, Stephen Frears, Hettie MacDonald, and Andrew Haigh, it traces British queer maleness of the working class by tracking its changing representations and demonstrates how urban cinematic realism proves central to British definitions of masculinity. The first chapter investigates how foundational films of the British New Wave address social inequalities as consequences of class and sexuality to consider how they embraced a sexual frankness and realism with coded and decoded homoeroticism. …

Annual Report 2020-2021, Depaul University College Of Computing And Digital Media

CDM Annual Reports

LETTER FROM THE DEAN

As I write this letter during the beginning of the 2021–22 academic year, we have started to welcome the majority of our students to campus— many for the very first time, and some for the first time in a year and a half. It has been wonderful to be together, in-person, again. Four quarters of learning and working remotely was challenging, to be sure, but I have been consistently amazed by the resilience, innovation, and hard work of our students, faculty, and staff, even in the most difficult of circumstances. This annual report, covering the 2020–21 …

Distribution, Bars, And Arcade Stars: Joe Anthony’S Entrepreneurial Expansion In Houston’S Gay Media Industries, Finley Freibert

Faculty and Staff Scholarship

This article develops the concept of "gay useful media" to explore a case study of gay entrepreneurship in Houston, Texas, of the 1970s. A father and son developed a gay media empire in the city, which spanned bars, bookstores, distribution, and vending. One of the pair's key establishments was Houston's legendary gay bar Mary's at 1022 Westheimer (also known as Mary's Lounge, Mary's, Naturally, and Mary's…Naturally).

Using A Smart Phone To Learn Spanish: Does It Work And Will Students Use It?, Andrew J. Demil, Alysha Assaf, Ryan Cragun

The Coastal Review

Over time, mobile devices have penetrated the classroom, requiring new and beneficial ways to implement classroom instruction. Research suggests that Short Message Service (SMS) based instruction is an effective tool for acquiring second language (L2) vocabulary and idiom knowledge (Hayati, Jalilifar, & Mashhadi; Lu,). Additionally, studies have found that students believe that mobile learning (m-learning) is beneficial to acquiring a second language (Cavus & Ibrahim; Hayati, Jalilifar, & Mashhadi; Lu, 2008). This study examined whether m-learning can lead to Spanish vocabulary familiarity and if sentence comprehension outperforms reading definitions. Participants were 29 native English speakers studying Spanish as a second …

Whitewashing V. Blackwashing: Structural Racism And Anti-Racist Praxis In Hollywood Cinema, Alyssa M. Smith

Senior Independent Study Theses

When a discussion about whitewashing arises, there are often claims that “blackwashing,” the practice of replacing a traditionally White character or role with a Black actor, is the same issue. Much is known about whitewashing and how damaging it is to represent People of Color in film with White actors, however, blackwashing is a recent term to describe what is more often called “colorblind casting.” This study aims to dissect how whitewashing and blackwashing differ, as well as discuss how blackwashing succumbs to the racist history of the Hollywood film industry despite its attempt at leading a brighter future for …

The Ghosts Of Grief: An Exploration Of Gothic Influence In 2010s Horror Cinema, Halen Gifford

Senior Independent Study Theses

The purpose of this project is to examine gothic influences in contemporary horror cinema of the 2010s. To fulfill this purpose, the study employs comparative film analysis methods to analyze The Babadook (2014), The Invitation (2015), and Crimson Peak (2015) in order to identify intertextual gothic references in the cinematography, mise en scène, and narratives of the films. Specifically, this project examines the haunted house trope in the horror genre as characterized by the presence of ghosts and the personification of the setting. Through this analysis, four common themes emerged: “Houses with Personality,” “Tragic Losses,” “Memories and Ghosts,” and “Isolation.” …