Film and Media Studies Commons^™

Inkling: An Exploration Of Visual Effects As A Character, Joshua Cooper

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-2023

Inkling is an animated short film about a creature made of ink falling into a cycle of anxiety. This film explores the use of visual effects in character design. Inspiration for this film was drawn from Absurdist essays and stories and used abstract imagery and cinematic devices to manipulate the audience into feeling the character's anxiety. This thesis briefly examines the foundation of methods pioneered by visual effect artists. To produce this short film, critical decisions in software and animation were made to streamline the process to allow more time to focus on creating a method for the visual effect …

And They Saved My Sorry Ass: A Documentary Discovering Self In Contemporary Fan Culture, Chunxiao Yang

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-2023

"And They Saved My Sorry Ass" is a documentary/personal essay film about queer ani- me lovers (including the filmmaker) based both in the US and in China. This film focuses on how these fans express their identities by embodying and re-interpreting anime characters. Experimental methods, such as staged performance, first-person narration and abstract imaging are explored in addition to conventional interviews. This thesis follows the pre-production, production and post-production processes of making this film through 2020 to 2023, also mapping out marketing and distribution plans after finishing the project.

The Spoon Theory, Sanne Methorst

Graduate Thesis and Dissertation 2023-2024

The Spoon Theory is a 3D animated short film that tells the story of a dancer struggling with an invisible disability. There is a variety of media that focuses on the struggles of the disabled, however the spoon theory focuses on a different aspect by exploring disabilities that are not easily seen. The film uses visual symbols to communicate these hard to discern conditions, creating a visually interesting spectacle while effectively conveying an important message. The Spoon Theory invites the viewer to experience a different perspective on life and raise awareness about the unknown struggles of others.

Magic Show: Themed Experiences Utilizing Animation, Emma Cuitino

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-2023

Magic Show is an animated short film created in the Unity game engine that follows a mischievous fairy named Faye, who attempts to deceive her human audience, the viewer, into believing she can do magic. My goal in the program was to create a themed entertainment experience. I created a point-of-view animated film as an alternative to traditional theme park 3D/4D attractions that typically take place in a theatrical setting with large audiences. This allows for a more intimate experience and accessibility in the absence of a physical theater. The storyline itself is a study of imposter syndrome. Instead of …

Tooth Farmer: Exploring 3d Printed Replacement Heads For Stop-Motion Animated Films, Jamie Lachnicht

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-2023

Tooth Farmer is a 2-minute hybrid animated short film combining stop-motion puppetry with a 3D environment. Tooth Farmer is a vital story as it was developed over four years and getting closer to the artist's goal of creating a successful stop-motion armature puppet that is durable for an entire stop-motion short. The story is a different take on the Tooth Fairy mythology that varies from culture to culture. This story offers an alternative to the world of the Tooth Fairy folklore. In Tooth Farmer, a little mouse lives inside a person's mouth to help maintain tooth hygiene. The film focuses …

Peat And Patty: Providing A Voice For Nature Through Animation, Clinnie Brinson

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-2023

Peat and Patty is a 3D animated short story of a young scientist, Patty, and her pet parrot Peat, whose goal is to save their world from a dying ecosystem. Ultimately, they inadvertently receive help from a nearby polar bear which leads to the success of Patty's experiment. The purpose of this story is to highlight the dangers of global warming to our own ecosystem thus building eco-consciousness in viewers. We currently have natural disasters increasing in frequency, a rising global temperature, and pollution in our bodies of water (Rossati). By personifying nature, animation can invoke empathy from viewers towards …

Unmoored: Exploring Identity And Change, Michelle Bondzie

Honors Undergraduate Theses

Many of the shifts in our identity are as surprising as they are inevitable. As with our bodies and our minds, it’s easy to forget that our identities are in a constant state of change — that is, until a situation forces us to face ourselves and examine who we’ve become. For adolescents, college students included, reckonings with their sense of self come frequently; they feel seismic each time they occur.

My thesis will be a short screenplay in which the central character is recovering from severe executive dysfunction, the impairment of basic skills that include working memory, mental flexibility, …

2d Animation Of The 21st Century: The Digital Age, James Chambless

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-2023

My thesis project, entitled The Curse Breaker, is a personal and career venture studying the medium of 2D animation while battling my struggle with cigarette addiction. I researched and applied symbolism and narrative strategies while building an impactful hero narrative. Joseph Campbell's The Hero with a Thousand Faces provided insight into the monomyth and hero archetypes. Character and environment designs implemented symbolism as a driving focus of my thesis and fueled the semantic interpretation needed to successfully communicate my struggle with the audience in a non-verbal fashion. The language of cinematography aided in the effectiveness of my thesis film. The …

Transcinematheque: Defining Cinematic Language In The Trans New Wave, Mel Turnage

Honors Undergraduate Theses

This thesis aims to analyze the films of the Trans New Wave in order to define tropes and motifs of cinematic language and structure. The language of the filmmaking itself presents a different approach from mainstream transgender films, and this changes how certain imagery of transness is contextualized in a larger narrative. In particular, the films of the Trans New Wave operate in contrast to both historical trans films and modern prestige/studio films to deliver more realistic portrayals of trans peoples’ experiences and beliefs. This new language of the Trans New Wave serves to create a more accurate and profound …

Exploring Career Development Pathways In Postsecondary Film Studies Programs, Cesare Giovanni Fabietti

Honors Undergraduate Theses

This study sought to determine what factors could impact career development pathways for postsecondary film studies through survey research. The selected determining factors that offered eventual success as a filmmaking professional were students' personality characteristics and unique, innate abilities. The survey questions polled film study educators whose primary contact with film students was at college-level classrooms and could offer significant opinions about the factors measured. Only those educators with demographic characteristics that dealt with actual filmmaking procedures of production and post-production gave a measurable statistical result related to a single dependent variable. The differentiator between filmmaking disciplines was distinguished by …

Crossed: Strength In Unity And Connection, Dillon Williams

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-2023

It is only through the strength of bonds that we can overcome evil. In Crossed, these bonds are tested as Calum and Dmitri are forced to duel for their lives. The film explores the themes of indoctrination, belief, the power of friendship, and never giving up on the people you care about. The accompanying paper explores how these themes are integral to who we are. I then explore the process of producing animation utilizing cutting-edge mediums and how these mediums can allow us to create animation in an entirely new way.

Hitting A Little Too Close To Home: Reflexivity, Liminality, And Identification In Horror Across Film, Theatre, And Games, Alyssa Barrack

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-2023

Reflexive art makes explicit the inherent connection between artistic process, intertextual context, and an audience to create an intentional dialogue with its audience by tapping into the duality inherent in spectatorship - awareness of both the creation process and the final product, and participation in one or both through viewership. In this study I analyze several pieces across three mediums––film (Funny Games (2007), The Poughkeepsie Tapes (2007)), theatre (Ubu Roi (1896)), and video games (The Stanley Parable (2013), Bioshock (2007))––and consider audience reviews to determine how audiences are affected by reflexivity in each. Through the lens of the horror genre …

Un-Portalable! An Animated Exploration In Boundaries And Relational Design, Ira Klages

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-2023

Un-Portalable! is an animated multimedia short film about two friends who become fused together after using a faulty teleporter. They attempt to conceal their deformity while simultaneously navigating a social situation with one of their friends. The main focus in the film is the concept that boundaries tend to become clearer as they begin to break. This conceptual focus merges into the visual theory of the film in which highly expressive character design and hybrid media utilization are driven by relational and narrative design choices. This film serves as a condensed pilot and proof of concept for a larger prospective …

The Universal Story: Coming-Of-Age In Contemporary Animation, Christina Christie

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-2023

Cycles is a 3D animated short film about a father who struggles to keep up with his daughter as she races through life. Whereas most coming-of-age films focus solely on the journey of the adolescent, Cycles subverts the expectations of the genre by exploring the impact growing up has on both the parent and child in tandem. As a film, Cycles relies on the careful and deliberate use of tropes, informed character and environment design, and established cinematic devices to support the story's theme of accepting change. Though my personal experience inspired this film, it evolved into a contemporary and …

Cinematic Practices: An Evaluation Of Production Theories In Service Of Micro-Budget Feature Film-Making, Andrew Myerson

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-2023

Bottom of a Glass Blues and its accompanying dissertation, Cinematic Practices are the basis of research into production practices used by independent and micro-budget filmmakers in the Central Florida community. The research presented in this dissertation is used to satisfy the academic requirements for the University of Central Florida's Master of Fine Arts in Feature Film Production. Cinematic Practices evaluates production theories used in studio and independent film-making in the present day in addition to practices popularly embraced by local filmmakers in Central Florida. The research found that there is no shared knowledge on how to organize film crews for …

Castle Of Unknowing: An Immersive Virtual Reality Experience, Damian Thorn-Hauswirth

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-2023

Castle of Unknowing is a rendered virtual reality (VR) experience presented as visual poem. As VR is a nascent technology, content is still limited, and methods of storytelling are not yet formalized. My film seeks to expand the breadth of what types of narratives are being told with this medium. The project is an immersive, experiential narrative imbued with symbolism. The viewer moves through a fixed sequence as they are taken on a journey which mixes elements of sci-fi, fairy tale, and surrealism. It utilizes compelling visuals and sound instead of traditional narrative to evoke an emotional response within the …

If Found: Exploring Death Through Animated Media, Hannah Huffman

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-2023

If Found is a narrative 2D animated short film that explores our connection with death. The film makes use of the conventions of a Western fairy tale setting to make this difficult topic more digestible. This works in conjunction with the East Asian storytelling format of Kishotenketsu, a narrative convention focused on a conflict-less plot. Death is not something we can defeat; rather, it is a natural force with which we all must make peace. By following this traditional format, the film also explores and shows appreciation for the impacts of East Asian thought, storytelling, and animation on Western culture. …

Idyllic History: The Role And Agency Of Women And Religion In Contemporary Bollywood, Kushma Singh

Honors Undergraduate Theses

The intent of this thesis is to explore the directorial choices made by Ashutosh Gowariker, in his film Jodhaa Akbar (2008), and Sanjay Leela Bhansali, in his films Bajirao Mastani (2015) and Padmaavat (2018), in order to evaluate the representation of women and the Muslim religion. Through use of mise en scene, I discuss lighting choices, visual display and use of color and how these elements create and support the stories Bhansali and Gowariker have chosen. I also rely on the recorded history of the time periods as well as the literature to contextualize the films.

One Pint At A Time: Documenting The Black Experience In American Craft Beer, Aaron Hose

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-2023

One Pint at a Time is a documentary feature by Aaron Hosé, created as part of the requirements for earning a Master of Fine Arts in Feature Film Production from the University of Central Florida. This is the first documentary film in history to focus exclusively on the stories of African American beermakers and brewery owners, their ties to ancient Egyptian and African brewing traditions, and how they are trying to make their mark within the business of craft beer; a multi-billion-dollar industry in which merely one percent of breweries are Black-owned and operated. Following the guidelines of UCF's program, …

Storm: An Exploration Of Home Through Painterly Animation, Kirstin Hardin

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-2023

Storm is an animated short film that follows a family of Florida Sandhill Cranes. The family experiences a storm that destroys their nest and separates them from their smallest chick. The reunion of the cranes, at the end of the film, symbolizes that the sense of home consists of the members of the family, and not the physical place. The film combines digital two-dimensional (2D) animation with traditional paint on glass animation to create visual contrast between the cranes and the storm. The stylistic choices that I have made include showcasing paint strokes, going with a lineless and painterly animation …

Interactive Coast, Manuela Monsalve

Honors Undergraduate Theses

Interactive Coast is a moving-image art installation that will mix 16mm film and digital footage. Inspired by the cyclical nature of the biological concept of succession, this installation will focus on human interactions with nature and architecture, specifically at the beaches on the East Coast of Florida. In its biological definition of the word, “Succession is the gradual transformation or creation of a biological community as new species move into an area and modify local environmental conditions” (Rehkopf 1581). The coast, once with its undeveloped tract of mangroves and sand dunes is now interspersed with construction, oil spills, and …

Incongruous Surrealism Within Narrative Animated Film, Daniel Mccabe

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-2023

A pop music video is a form of media containing incongruous surrealistic imagery with a narrative structure supplied by song lyrics. The lyrics' presence allows filmmakers to digress from sequential imagery through introduction of nonlinear visual elements. I will analyze these surrealist film elements through several post-modern philosophies to better understand how this animated audio-visual synthesis resides in the larger world of art theory and its relationship to the popular music video. This analysis coincides with the practical and theoretical experimentation evident in the film companion to this thesis, Slapper the Cat: A Musical Cartoon. A long-form animated music video …

Captivating Bubbles: Creating Lasting Children's Stories Using Animation, Rhythm And Life Experience, Ronald Hargrove

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-2023

This work examines the inclusion of social values in children's stories and the visual and auditory techniques implemented in animation. It explores personal encounters and experiences in my life which shape the content and mission of my story. This work also touches on my role in presenting family and social values to children using rhyme as style and animation as a medium. Furthermore, in discussing my animated film, this work will delve into the decision to incorporate rhythmic poetry, evaluate the composition of the film's score and touch on the purpose of visual devices. Finally, this work will highlight the …

Pixelated Domes: Cinematic Code Changes Through A Frank Lloyd Wright Lens, William Allen

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-2023

Panoramic 360-degree documentary videos continue to saturate the visual landscape. As practitioners' experiment with a new genre, understanding meaning and making awaits the academic and marketplace landscape. The new media journey of 360-degree documentary storytelling is ripe for media archaeologist to explore. New media scholar Lev Manovich (2016) believes "we are witnessing the new emergence of a cultural metalanguage, something that will be at least as significant as the printed word and cinema before it" (p. 49) Considering the meta- development of this new media genre, my dissertation seeks to discuss the historical roots of the panoramic image, define 360-degree …

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 …

Memorias | Electronic Literature + Live Coding Performance, Jessica A. Rodriguez Miss, Rolando Rodriguez, Alejandro Brianza, Luis M. Guzman

Electronic Literature Organization Conference 2020

Memorias is a web-based artistic project by Jessica Rodríguez developed through the Estuary platform —an online platform to host live coding languages. It is based in six autobiographical writings connected to the way she “hears”, “writes”, “watches”, “reads”, “sees” and “listens” to the word. Through these texts, six code works were designed and programmed, hybridizing natural and computing languages by parsing three existing live coding languages: Tidal Cycles, Punctual, and CineCer0.

Together, Memorias’ languages collide different materialities as well as visual and sonic approaches, going from voices in English, Spanish, Cello and Paetzold samples, audio and visual synthesis, and pre-recorded …

Savage Words, Lee Tusman

Electronic Literature Organization Conference 2020

Savage Words is a realtime massive multiplayer online text space as well as a collaborative poem and asynchronous chatroom. It is a corner of the internet built on the platform Your World of Text, an infinite grid of text editable by visitors.

Throughout the conference period, participants can join in a communal writing, a textual table of simultaneous and asynchronous shared writing. ASCII images, freewheeling conversations, 'Poetry', and other forms of experimental text will be woven together into a freewheeling shared work.

Screenshots of the unfolding text will be saved at regular intervals, to be published after the conclusion of …

Poetry For Seers Or The Peruvian Visual Poetic Tradition In Front Of New Media, Michael Hurtado, Pamela Medina, Enrique García, Michael Prado

Electronic Literature Organization Conference 2020

Since the first decades of the twentieth century, Peruvian poetic tradition has been characterized by experimental uses of language. Among these possibilities, some records tensioned this medium from the link with the plastic arts, as in the case of the poetry of José María Eguren, while others opted for the playing with the spatiality and visuality of the blank sheet, such as in the case of the work of Carlos Oquendo de Amat. However, it is not until the appearance of the poetry of César Vallejo, specifically with a poems like Trilce in 1922, that these breakages force us to …

Glitch Reading: [Re]Mediation And The Protocols Of Reading, Jacob Reber

Electronic Literature Organization Conference 2020

In this paper, I outline a methodology for reading poetic works that operate between media environments, noting the subtle shifts and failures that mark the material changes. The space between mediums and processes of remediation produce residue from the various material substrates and protocols of reading that adhere to works moving through networks. The attention to the residue can be understood as glitches, which proliferate the possibilities of reading and reveal the construction of imbricated reading environments. This is a practice I want to consider through the framework of glitch reading. Drawing on Rosa Menkman's theorization of glitches and Tan …