Film and Media Studies Commons^™

Smart Kids The Documentary, Hannah Louys

Renée Crown University Honors Thesis Projects - All

Smart Kids was a program, started in 2009, that was created as a joint venture between the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications and the School of Education at Syracuse University. Professors and students from these two schools worked with kids from Syracuse elementary and middle schools, teaching them how to use cameras and video editing software to tell their own stories. The goal of the program was to aid urban education reform, but more so than that, to truly give kids a voice when it comes to their education.

My job, when it came to this project, was to …

Green Sisters: Bringing Spirituality And Environmental Awareness Together At Homecoming Farm, Marisa Decandido

Renée Crown University Honors Thesis Projects - All

“Green Sisters: Bringing Spirituality and Environmental Awareness together at Homecoming Farm,” addresses the topic of the “green sisters” movement and its presence at Homecoming Farm, a Community-Supported Agriculture project located in Amityville, New York. The green sisters movement, started in the 1980s in Caldwell, New Jersey, entails groups of Catholic nuns who are beginning to pursue “Earth ministries,” and dedicating their lives to environmental education and practicing sustainability. One example of this is found at Homecoming Farm, where the Sisters of Saint Dominic in Amityville created an organic farm in 1992 to nurture the surrounding community in body and spirit. …

Terra Nova, An Experiment In Creating Cult Televison For A Mass Audience, Laura Osur

Media Studies - Theses

When it aired in Fall 2011 on Fox, Terra Nova was an experiment in creating a cult television program that appealed to a mass audience. This thesis is a case study of that experiment. I conclude that the show failed because of its attempts to maintain the sophistication, complexity and innovative nature of the cult genre while simultaneously employing an overly simplistic narrative structure that resembles that of mass audience programming. Terra Nova was unique in its transmedia approach to marketing and storytelling, its advanced special effects, and its dystopian speculative fiction premise. Terra Nova's narrative, on the other hand, …

Bottom Line - Show Business: Henry Plitt's Latest Coup Will Revolutionize The Movie Game, Carol Schmuckler

Syracuse University Magazine

No abstract provided.

State Of The Arts - Third Eye, Carol Schmuckler

Syracuse University Magazine

No abstract provided.

History And Memory In Gettysburg, Jeffrey M. Parrotte

Media Studies - Theses

Media productions have often turned to history as a source for a narrative. Wars have been refought, kingdoms have risen and fallen, and significant moments have been replicated for documentaries, films, television shows, radio productions, and other live mediums. These presentations give audiences access to moments in history that might have otherwise been forgotten. With this access, research suggests audiences will actually learn from the presentations available. This study focuses on the types of information available in a historical film.

The study is a textual analysis the 1993 film Gettysburg, one of the most well-known and best remembered films about …

Nothing Is Free: A Screenplay, David Hetzron

Renée Crown University Honors Thesis Projects - All

Film has been an invaluable part of American society for nearly a century. From having political significance, to solely entertaining purposes, this versatile medium has only garnered more and more cultural investment each year of its existence. While it may not always be a vital component to a completed project, it is within the script writing process that ideas, themes, and messages are negotiated and developed. The real meaning of a story is encoded within the words. The script can be considered provocative, emotional, informative, and may incite a unique effect for each of its readers. While no reader is …

Frente Al Mar (Oceanfront): A Short Film, Adriana González-Vega

Renée Crown University Honors Thesis Projects - All

The inspiration for Frente al Mar (Oceanfront) came in 2009 during the winter break vacation in my first year of college. I was visiting my home in Puerto Rico, when the story broke in the news about a group of families being evicted from their houses after living there for many years.

According to the reports, the government identified these families as squatters and Dominican immigrants. As I was watching the news, TV reporter Efrén Arroyo was giving a summary of the entire situation, as well as placing it in the context of similar cases in the past.

February 6, …

Connecting The Peaces: Working To Make The World A Better Place – The Encompass Journey Of Understanding, Alison Sara Kurtzman

Renée Crown University Honors Thesis Projects - All

On October 12, 2002, the Indonesian island of Bali experienced the worst terrorist attack in the country’s history. 202 people were killed when a bomb was detonated outside of a nightclub in the tourist city of Kuta. Among those killed was Daniel Braden, a young British man who was in Bali for a rugby tournament. Daniel’s parents believed that the attack happened because the majority of people in the nightclub were white and therefore viewed as “the enemy.” They believed that if young people had the opportunity to meet and speak with people different from themselves a lot of terrorist …

"Carneys Point" - A Short Film, Alexander Parkin

Renée Crown University Honors Thesis Projects - All

Carneys Point is a fifteen minute short film shot on 16mm film that tells the story of a woman's life, fractured into three facets each representing an important crossroad of a single life: the disenchanting prelude to the coming of age, the anxiety of motherhood, and the mental decay of old age.

The film is divided into three vignettes, which overlap to paint a multi-layered portrait of a woman, a trilogy of the human spirit, heart, and mind.

One is the story of a little girl who is obsessed with flight and dreams of escape. Though she has the naïve …

A Kiss With A Fist Is Better Than None: Violence And Sexuality In The Maltese Falcon And The Big Sleep, Julie Nascone

Renée Crown University Honors Thesis Projects - All

Based on Annette Kuhn’s theory that censorship does not merely repress a text but produces one as well, this thesis examines the ways in which The Maltese Falcon (1941) and The Big Sleep (1946) bear the mark of their industrial and cultural contexts. Censorship of violence and the transformation of actor Humphrey Bogart produce symptomatic representations of violence in the films The Big Sleep (1946) and The Maltese Falcon (1941).

The Maltese Falcon stars Humphrey Bogart in the early years of his film career. Until The Maltese Falcon, Bogart was known purely for his onscreen roles as a gangster …

What We Dreamed To Become, Caroline Clark Moore

Renée Crown University Honors Thesis Projects - All

For my honors thesis, I created a documentary film about my experience in India this past summer.

What We Dreamed To Become depicts the journey of two people of the same African heritage: Dr. Pashington Obeng, an African Studies Professor at Harvard, and a native of Ghana; and a young Siddi boy named Budhesab Hussein.

The Siddis are an Indian ethnic group descended from African slaves. Pash has worked extensively with the Siddis for more than a decade, and hopes to create self-sufficiency within the group.

The young Budhesab has severe vision problems, and happens to join Pash on a …

The Lotus Flower, Meghan Couture

Renée Crown University Honors Thesis Projects - All

“The Lotus Flower” is an animation based on the epic story of Shimchong, a girl who overcomes her poverty due to her devotion to her family and later marries into the royal family. This Cinderella story is a famous Korean tale that has been told and re-told for centuries. By bringing this story to an international audience, I hope to bring at least a small awareness of the cultural and historical value of Korea.

The script was adapted and written by me, taking various versions of the folktale into account as well as putting my own details and embellishments to …

American Political Satire: The 20th Century Onward, Michael Contino

Renée Crown University Honors Thesis Projects - All

Political satire is an implied freedom enumerated in the first amendment of the Constitution. As a form of political speech, it falls under the category of the most protected form of expression. Now that I’ve got your attention, I can go ahead with the rest of my project. This is a journalistic study of the people who used their freedom of speech to openly criticize the government. More specifically, it’s about the people who openly criticized the government and then became famous for it. Of course, there’s many ways to criticize, many platforms, many audiences, many influences as well.

What …

Partings—A Short Film, Alicia Atterberry

Renée Crown University Honors Thesis Projects - All

Love is a powerful force, but the inability to give love to the fullest extent can be an influential force as well. For my capstone, Partings—a Short Film, I wrote a short film centered on the theme of unreciprocated love. Within the context of the film, unreciprocated love means not being able to return the sincerity or the full extent of the love felt, and my short film shows the consequences of a friendship that lacks mutually-expressed love.

Partings, depicts the end of a friendship between two characters: Frank and Angie. Frank is an independent, young woman; she …

Style Talk: A Collection Of Interviews On Personal Style, Lauren Dulay

Renée Crown University Honors Thesis Projects - All

My concept for this creative Capstone project is to see how much of a correlation there is between culture and fashion. I wanted to speak to people from a variety of backgrounds to see how much a person’s family and culture impacts the way one regards fashion and affects the way one dresses. In order to have a diverse set of interviews, I chose to interview three American female students and three non-American female students who attend Syracuse University.

In the past, I have noticed that many style shows focus on the current trends and do profiles on celebrities and …

Living In Spring, Danielle Peck

Renée Crown University Honors Thesis Projects - All

Music is universally recognized as a tool for transcending the natural and cultural boundaries that separate one individual from the next. Living in Spring, a short film built upon Beethoven’s Sonata No.5 in F Major, Op. 24, 1^st Movement (informally referred to as the “Spring” Sonata), introduces this idea as a violin teacher’s advice to his student: “Each of us, we are only inside ourselves, you can only move your own fingers… music is different,” Sasha explains. Eve, the violinist, faces a challenge for her final performance—one that cannot be found in the practice room, no matter how …

Thrive Magazine, Kasey Panetta

Renée Crown University Honors Thesis Projects - All

Thrive, a Central New York lifestyle magazine, explores the politics, science, culture, sex, social issues, dining and leisure for residents of the Syracuse area between the ages of 18 and 30. The purpose of the magazine is to inform and educate in an unpretentious way about the positive aspects of living in CNY by talking to young residents using departments like the “Best of CNY,” “Single in CNY,” “CNY Traveler,” “Bucket List,” and an assortment of feature stories. The demographics for the audience are educated men and women between the ages of 18 and 30, single or married …

Ctrl + Z, Andrew Golibersuch

Renée Crown University Honors Thesis Projects - All

In Ctrl + Z, Amanda rides the train to work and tells her new employee the story of a particularly bizarre and life changing day from her early career. While working on her laptop at her favorite coffee shop, she discovers that her computer’s undo function, control + z, affects real life. At first she can’t believe what is happening, so she begins experimenting. Eventually she decides to use the power to her personal advantage, specifically to try to get a guy’s attention. Unfortunately she inadvertently causes some severe problems and is forced to choose between what she wants and …

Dengue Fever: Infectious Hope, Collin Shea

Renée Crown University Honors Thesis Projects - All

Abstract Not Included

Producing Sa Today, Lara Rolo

Renée Crown University Honors Thesis Projects - All

After analyzing the strengths and weaknesses of last year’s production of SA Today, I developed a new structure for the show and its purpose. SA Today is a show produced by CitrusTV for the Syracuse University Student Association, (SA). It serves as a broadcast outlet for SA to better inform and maintain contact with Syracuse University and SUNY E.S.F. students. The show’s purpose has grown under my care. With changes in design, structure, writing style and content value, my team and I have been able to create a new product produced by CitrusTV to better serve our campus viewership. The …

Citrustv Website Redesign Project, Alyssa Elias

Renée Crown University Honors Thesis Projects - All

Many students who live off campus at Syracuse University are unable to view the Orange Television Network. CitrusTV's news, sports and entertainment programming airs on this channel and is therefore unavailable to many students. To expand the viewing audience, the CitrusTV website is crucial.

The original goal of this honors capstone project was to enhance and improve CitrusTV’s website in order to simulate that of a local news station. Through a newly created content management system, students would be able to upload news stories with text, video and pictures.

Because of CitrusTV’s annually changing administration and technical hurdles, the project’s …

"Chance" Screenplay, Simone Laroche

Renée Crown University Honors Thesis Projects - All

My Capstone Thesis is a creative screenplay pursuing the complexities of predestination and our innate obsession to control fate. I became intrigued with the idea that our decisions or actions dictate outcomes we may have had the ability to prevent or perpetuate. I recently found it difficult to accept my misfortunes for ineptitude or lack of preparation. Instead I called it “fate” or “destiny” that circumstances were not meant to work in my favor. In hindsight I realized I had allowed my passivity to compensate for my lack of commitment and courage to take risks. Granted, I do believe regardless …

Free Culture, Ian Heifetz

Renée Crown University Honors Thesis Projects - All

Free Culture is a documentary short that aims to promote user-autonomy in the digital age, with a focus on culture proliferations. The film takes a look a critical stance against the Digital Millennium Copyright act, arguing it is unenforceable through either legislative or technical means. To support this viewpoint, interviews with Yochai Benkler of the Harvard Law School and Fred von Lohmann, Senior Copyright Council to Google, are provided. While threats to the DMCA, such as piracy, are often seen as illegal criminal action, they signify a changing environment. One man taking advantage of this is Benn Jordan, a.k.a. The …

Float Your Boat, Jamian Shapiro

Renée Crown University Honors Thesis Projects - All

For the past year, I have served as the Executive Producer for the sketch comedy television show Float Your Boat. Syracuse University students produce this show through the student run television station, Citrus TV. The show is a single camera show shot entirely out of studio and on location. Each episode is composed of several sketches that can range from thirty seconds to five minutes. Each individual sketch is also posted online through a variety of websites visited by college students. Additionally, the complete episode is posted online and screened at the end of each semester. The screening is …

Homecoming, Sandra Appiah

Renée Crown University Honors Thesis Projects - All

The media is a business, but unfortunately has the greatest impact on society. Today, most people get their information from the Media and tend to believe everything it presents without much of a critical analysis or reflection. Africa is a continent filled with many natural resources, a unique culture, a rich history, and more. However when one turns on the Television in the western society, all that is presented is the negative side of Africa. We see the starvation and aids epidemic, we see the tribal wars, corruption, and more. There is always the presentation of the need for charity …

Red Rock: An Original Dramatic Tv Series, Jared Shalek

Renée Crown University Honors Thesis Projects - All

The concept of my Capstone Project is a screenplay for an original, dramatic television series. The idea was conceived during the summer going into my senior year, as I examined the script I had just written for TRF 400: Dramatic Writing for Television, a class I took in spring 2009 with Tom Seeley. I had labored over the script for the second half of that semester, and Professor Seeley really liked the idea from the start, but ultimately I did not fare as well I wanted to in terms of the final grade. Thus, I decided that I would redraft …

Amanda Green, Alex Piliouras

Renée Crown University Honors Thesis Projects - All

I have submitted for my Capstone Project three interactive scripts for the series Amanda Green. The series features a fourteen-year-old girl, Amanda Green, who solves mysteries with her friend Jerome relating to school and social life. In the pilot episode, submitted here, Amanda hopes to ask the school heartthrob to the dance, but is robbed of the opportunity when the principal announces that the dance is canceled due to an act of vandalism. After her grandmother regales her with an inspirational story, Amanda decides to head an investigation of the crime scene in the hopes of solving the mystery …

Still Water, Louis Foglia

Renée Crown University Honors Thesis Projects - All

Still Water is full-length feature screenplay with the driving premise that vengeance creates suffering. While the script might be characterized as a procedural in that relies heavily on the plot to create suspense and to sustain a dramatic momentum that keeps the audience engaged, I was also interested in adding a layer of provocative depth to the story. Consequently, Still Water explores the themes of guilt, redemption, vengeance, corruption, and Italian-American identity.

Still Water is the story of the Sippilini family. During his campaign for Manhattan District Attorney, the family’s patriarch, Richard, gets involved in a corruption scandal that ultimately …

Film Score, Jeff Peters

Renée Crown University Honors Thesis Projects - All

My capstone project involves creating an original musical score to an independent film. As the music is so invested in the narrative of the film, all work leading up to the actual composition of the music was on the history of film scoring and possible technical and creative methods, learned in classes on the subject. This knowledge and hands-on practice provided me with some limited experience, but this film was the first practical application of my composing skills.

My extensive background in music allowed me to perform all of the parts heard in the score. It was my job to …