Film and Media Studies Commons^™

Preserving Film Preservation In The Digital Era, Becca Bastron

School of Information Student Research Journal

This paper explores the current controversies surrounding film preservation in the digital era. Questions address the benefits of new technologies and the potential sacrifices to a film's authenticity and designation as a valued historical, social, and cultural artifact. Issues examined include film's frail format, archives's financial and storage limitations, the concept of "the original film," and how current digitization methods affect each of these areas. This paper addresses the recent restorations of two particular films—Fritz Lang's Metropolis (1927) and Alfred Hitchcock's Vertigo (1958)—and concludes that digital technologies are not stable enough to replace traditional preservation methods, but they can greatly …

Microfilm Fragmentation, Dylan Halpern

AUCTUS: The Journal of Undergraduate Research and Creative Scholarship

Fragmentations that manifest during the translation from analog media to digital are often inexplicable and distinctly intriguing. In this study, I delved into the expansive collection of microfilm in the VCU library in an attempt to discover the fractures and errors of the material and aesthetically catalog them. Using a (now arcane) microfilm reader, I documented errors on the films themselves (likely present since the film’s creation and/or as a result of decay), technological flickers resulting from an imperfect scanning technology, and artificially introduced human errors that resulted from improper machine use for effect. The original content of the microfiche …

A Documentary Narrative: The African-American Male, Rebekah Rifareal

AUCTUS: The Journal of Undergraduate Research and Creative Scholarship

I went to New York with a couple of friends of mine. We’re all artists. It was a trip through the Kinetic Imaging department. We’re in New York and we’re these black males – we felt free to do anything we wanted. We recorded ourselves spitting poetry or dancing. The idea kind of came to me: You know, I want to do a film that has that freedom, that has that feeling of not caring about a specific plot line, but that shows the aspects of who we are out there in public performance. So when I came back to …

Unhinged: Kairos And The Invention Of The Untimely, Robert Leston

Publications and Research

Traditionally, kairos has been seen as a “timely” concept, and so invention is said to emerge from the timeliness of a cultural and historical situation. But what if invention was thought of as the potential to shift historical courses through the injection of something new or alien into a situation? This essay argues that kairos has not been able to free itself from its historical constraints because it has been bound to a human sense of temporality. By evolving along patterns different from print, the apparatus of the cinema developed in a way where it was not bound to illustrating …

Theodore Is Dying: From Development Through Distribution, Ryan Pomeranz

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Theodore Is Dying is a feature length film written and directed by Ryan Ceri Pomeranz. It was undertaken as a partial fulfillment of the requirements to receive a Master of Fine Arts in Film and Digital Media from the Department of Film in the College of Arts and Humanities at the University of Central Florida. The film aims to explore both the immediate and the long-term effects of choices made by four people at specific moments of demarcation in their lives. Structurally, the film is presented in an episodic and non- linear style that attempts to examine each protagonist’s own …

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 …

Evolution Of Film Trailers, Robert Llewellyn

Whittier Scholars Program

This project is a research paper on the history and evolution of film trailers beginning in the 1910s. The author mentions how trailers are directed towards different demographics. Different movie trailers such as King Kong, The Wizard of Oz, Citizen Kane, Casablanca, Psycho, and Easy Rider and many others are used as examples throughout the paper. The era from the 50’s to the 70’s is thoroughly discussed as being a transitional period. Additionally, the paper touches base on the political events that occurred and how they affected films topics. The project includes a journal of the author’s journey through the …

The Darker Angels Of Our Nature: The South In American Horror Film, Steven Clayton Saunders

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

How does one make a region horrific? For well over half of a century, the American South has functioned as a site for national anxieties over race and modernization. This study uses an inter-disciplinary approach in order to understand the various forces involved in the construction of the South in American horror cinema. Particular attention is paid to the influence that images of the civil rights movement have had on the development and evolution of the South as a horrific and terrifying space for the rest of the nation. It focuses on four main subcategories of the genre: the white …

Audience Response To The Nature/Society Binary In Kurosawa’S Dersu Uzala: An Observational Online Ethnography, Laura L. Sharp

Theses and Dissertations--Geography

Geographers researching cinema have predominantly been interested in how geographic meaning is constructed and negotiated within film, but have been less productive in accounting for how these constructs are received by viewers. Using the method of observational online ethnography, I therefore investigate how fans in online reviews have interpreted the nature/society binary in the film Dersu Uzala. Working from a social constructionist view of nature I begin by deconstructing the binary as it appears in Dersu Uzala before proceeding to illustrate the way this constitutive absence is made up for by the visuality of the film’s landscapes and techniques of …

The Synthesizer: Modernist And Technological Transformations In Film Sound And Contemporary Music, Dusin J. Green

CMC Senior Theses

The invention of the synthesizer meant the possibility of achieving virtually any sound in one mechanism, a superbly convenient device for musical creativity. Perhaps the perfect space for this approval of sound creativity was in the modern electronic film score. The synthesizer also flourished in popular music immediately following its emergence, but a common form began to solidify itself among synthesizer music. Shortly after, improvements in electronic instrument technology led to the democratization of electronic music and equipment, ultimately leading to electronic music as the new mainstream.

The Cinematic Experience Through The Micro-Budget Paradigm, Jeffrey Lehman

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The Tailor’s Apprentice is a feature-length, micro-budget, narrative digital motion picture, written, produced and directed by Jeffrey Lehman in partial fulfillment of the requirements of earning a Master of Fine Arts in Film from the University of Central Florida. The film is a result of applying specific monetary, logistical and creative limitations to the production process in order to contribute in defining the micro-budget aesthetic, resulting in a final shared cinematic audience experience. This thesis is a record of all stages from conception to completion of the executed, feature length film with-in the micro-budget production paradigm.

Less Lost: No Touchdown Dance, William Conner

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Less Lost is a feature-length film by William Chase Conner, made as part of the requirements for earning a Master of Fine Arts in Film & Digital Media from the University of Central Florida.

Collecting Stardust: Matter, Memory, And Trauma In Patricio Guzman's Nostalgia For The Light, Nora Szegvari

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This work situates Patricio Guzmàn's Nostalgia for the Light in the broader field of essay documentary film and unveils it as a locus of discursive resistance and the generative crux of diverse conventionally isolated academic dialogues. In doing so, it addresses the challenging and controversial questions of historical meaning-making, remembrance and oblivion, melancholia and mourning. My thesis also endeavors to detect the dynamic and anxiety-inducing threshold between singularity and collectivity, and the human and the cosmic. I lay the historically unprecedented common ground for trauma theory and the essayistic comportment and argue that bearing the clash of time planes, paradoxicality, …

Spectatorial Shock And Carnal Consumption: (Re)Envisaging Historical Trauma In New French Extremity, Christopher Butler

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

New French Extremity films are violent, transgressive, and break many social taboos in their narratives. However, this genre's directors are intelligent and construct these films with clues to France's past and how it still has implications in the present. This thesis was written to point out how New French Extremity films offer spectators the potential to reincorporate traumatic moments in French history by juxtaposing them against present day social, political, and economic ideologies. The purpose for this course of study was to investigate historical encounters that are present in New French Extremity filmmaking, something that has yet to be addressed …

Capshaw Ravens, Jennifer D. Grant

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

This paper will examine the production of the thesis film, Capshaw Ravens. I will analyze the production process from development to post-production, and determine if I achieved my goal of creating a short film with concept, character, and conflict.

Video Production Guide: A Manual On Video Production Custom Made For Laes, Andrew Mai

Liberal Arts and Engineering Studies

A guide in video production using the Liberal Arts and Engineering Studies Program’s main work space, also known as the Expressive Technologies Workshop. Includes a detailed instructional on video production from camera rentals to basic shooting to editing and distribution. Also introduces other tools in the workshop related to video production such as audio production tools and projection mapping.

Melodrama On A Mission: Latter-Day Saint Film And The Melodramatic Mode, Airen Hall

Journal of Religion & Film

This article examines how the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (the Mormon Church) makes use of the melodramatic mode in creating short and feature length films for both insider and outsider consumption. The argument is made that the melodramatic mode gives the LDS Church a particularly meaningful tool for accomplishing three key goals: to encourage conversion or re-conversion by provoking tears and pathos, to work out social issues, and to create and maintain a certain identity for the Church as victim-hero. As such, the melodramatic mode is a means for identity formation and community building, significant in a …

The Hidden Rhetoric In Hollywood's Closet: An Analysis Of The Conflict Over Homosexual Content And Representation, Lauren Beam

Theses and Dissertations

No abstract provided.

The Financial Crisis Documentary, William L. Gardner

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This project was a documentary film focused on exploring the 2008 financial crisis in the United States. The documentary incorporates interviews with former Senators, Congressmen and local business leaders in an effort to better understand the causes and effects of the crisis.

La Réconciliation De La Tradition Et De La Modernité Dans L’Adaptation Cinématographique Contemporaine Du Conte De Fées En France Et En Allemagne, Mirabelle Korn

Scripps Senior Theses

This thesis examines the adaptation of fairy tales in ten recent French and German films. It looks specifically at narrative structures, representations of magic, portrayals of childhood, and manifestations of good and evil. This thesis asks how and why contemporary French and German filmmakers choose, consciously or not, to update some of the central motifs of fairy tales for a modern audience and what attitudes toward the reconciliation of tradition and modernity those choices express.

Movie And Television Fathers: A Positive Reflection Of Positive Changes, George J. Mcgowan

Master of Liberal Studies Theses

Certain films and television programs depicting fathers have both enduring popularity and have reflected the advances in the institution of fatherhood. This has happened because of a symbiosis that has delivered positive results: popular films and television shows that earn money for producers and advertisers have depicted fathers who have changed to reflect the popular example. These depictions have contributed in their way to mending the family dynamic, specifically related to the father’s essential role in the family. Such family-oriented films and television shows have effectively showed fathers (and men that would become fathers) that they could be much more …

Adaptation: Is The Book Really Better Than The...Television Series?, Jane F. Eberts

Scripps Senior Theses

When the topic of ‘adaptation’ is brought up, more often than not the coupling of a novel and its most recent Hollywood hit come to mind. Although it may not be at the forefront of the general population’s mind, adaptation is something that we encounter often, and consciously or not, we all have our own theory on the subject. While it may seem that the evolution of book series, to film adaptation, to booming franchise may be recently trending with the acceleration of blockbusters such as Harry Potter, adaptation has been a fundamental part of the advancement of media. …

Alfred Hitchcock & The Use Of Suspense: Blackout, Kaitlin Cassidy

Whittier Scholars Program

This project provides some contextual information about movie director Alfred Hitchcock but expands more on visual effects, effective use of narration and camera movement to build suspense. This paper focuses specifically on how Hitchcock builds suspense in three sequences from Spellbound, Notorious, and Rear Window. This study includes descriptions of restricted, unrestricted and mixed narration, “pure cinema”, different shots, and sequence analyses for the films mentioned.

Civil Rights, Labor, And Sexual Politics On Screen In Nothing But A Man (1964), Judith E. Smith

American Studies Faculty Publication Series

The independently made 1964 film Nothing But a Man is one of a handful of films whose production coincided with the civil rights insurgency and benefited from input from activists. Commonly listed in 1970s surveys of black film, the film lacks sustained critical attention in film studies or in-depth historical analysis given its significance as a landmark text of the 1960s. Documentary-like, but not a documentary, it offers a complex representation of black life, but it was scripted, directed, and filmed by two white men, Michael Roemer and Robert Young.

This essay argues that the film’s unusual attention to labor …

Shaping Identity: Male And Female Interactions In Cinema, Jonette Lauren Lagamba

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

ABSTRACT

Since the inception of cinema, women have been portrayed with the typical identities of emotionally and physically weak characters; this portrayal led to their subsequent dependence on men. Men were usually the protagonists and/or the heroes, following their archetypal journey. Thus, women's position in early cinema was to exemplify what men were not, placing the former in the diminutive position of the Other. One may conclude that men were often defined by what women lacked, and the women were defined by their relationships with these heroic men. As time progressed in the history of cinema, women's images retained part …

Out Of Our Depth: Hyper-Extensionality And The Return Of Three-Dimensional Media, Justin Alan Brecese

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This work theorizes the contemporary attraction to three-dimensional media. In doing so, it reframes ongoing debates surrounding digital three-dimensional media in order to critique the neoliberal social relations such media engender. I argue that the contemporary interest in dimensionality, especially regarding digital media, is symptomatic of a broad cultural shift, wherein millions of lives are now essentially being lived through two-dimensional, "flat" media, which have consequently generated a lack of spatial relationships and a craving or desire for "depth." This "desire for depth" has arisen in contemporary society because people are being "spread too thin" through a combination of the …

Feasting On Four Wheels, Mariel Patricia Rodriguez-Mcgill

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The documentary film Feasting On Four Wheels explores the new wave of "gourmet" food trucks on the streets of Denver, Colorado. What started as a bigger movement across the country made its way to the Mile High city in 2010 and snowballed to the food-loving community portrayed during the summer of 2011. Interviews with food truck owners, a food truck fabricator and a blogger for DenverStreetFood.com, explore the nature of the movement and how its existence creates a feel of community and culture within the city. The evolution of street food history and the influence of new technology are also …

German Film And The Frankfurt School (Spring 2012), Robert D. Tobin

Syllabi

German Film and the Frankfurt School is an introduction to German cinema and media criticism. It will introduce students to important German films that have had a global impact, significant theoretical approaches to those films (especially those from the “Frankfurt School”), and the historical and cultural contexts in which these films and film theories arose. The class is cross-listed in German, Holocaust and Genocide Studies, and Screen Studies. It provides a survey of an important art-form in German cultural history. Although National Socialism, the Holocaust and the Second World War are not the only themes of the course, they are …

Historical Accuracy And The Ira Over 70 Years Of Cinema, Eric Scott Elliott

CGU Theses & Dissertations

The purpose of this research is to examine how the Irish Republican Army has been represented in theatrical cinema since the 1930s. The goal is to demonstrate the necessity for historical accuracy in movies produced for public entertainment, which often neglect historical facts and circumstances in portraying an organization as controversial and complex as the IRA. This has been done by examining five movies produced for wide-distribution and comparing each to the detailed historical record. Upon analysis of these movies, it becomes clear that the films which are the most historically relevant are also the most powerful cinematic productions, both …

A Blue Flower: The Development Of A Personal Documentary, Nils Taranger

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

A Blue Flower is a feature-length documentary film by Nils Taranger, 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 director’s journey to find healing, both physically and emotionally. Following the guidelines of UCF’s program, Nils produced the film on a microbudget (under $50,000) level. The majority of filming took place in Florida with only a one or two person crew. This thesis is a record of the film’s progression from development to picture lock, in preparation for distribution