Film Production Commons^™

I Hear Spring Is Beautiful, Malachi Van Nice, James Westervelt

Emerson Authors, Researchers, & Creators

An original musical about a dance student who comes to terms with their gender identity as the USA succumbs to the horrors of fascism.

A Comparative Study Of Physical Cinematography That Influences Layouts In Animated Production, Daniel C. Hudson

All Theses

What makes good cinematography? There are many examples of cinematogra- phy that stand out in the minds of viewers, yet many cant exactly say with certainty why these shots are considered great. Is it because they convey the visual and emo- tional content of their stories successfully, the technical brilliance of the frame, or both? Whether realistic or exaggerated, the range of cinematography tools and tech- niques are proof that creativity and an eye for detail are the most important elements in great cinematography. Cinematography includes composition, movement, lighting, and other visual information within the frame. This is true in …

Confronting Contemporary Mythmaking: On Artists’ Engagements With Popular Culture, Jonathan Case

MFA in Visual Arts Theses

This paper begins by outlining an understanding of how the culture industry operates in American culture and explores ways to counter the transmission of modern mythmaking through art. As described in Roland Bathes’s Mythologies, mythmaking in the contemporary context serves to sever current systems of power and coercion from the historic processes of their creation; to naturalize the current neoliberal order and make it seem like the only way things could ever be. This sort of mythmaking is transmitted through popular culture, and many artists have responded to it through their practices. Herein I describe several different artists’ approaches, including …

Glass House S1:E1 “Sweet Temptations”, Taylor Middleton

Honors Theses

Sweet Temptations tells the story of the Price family navigating their new lives in Cape Huron. Enticed by the opportunity of a new job with great benefits, the Price family moves to Cape Huron, Maine, a small town with mysterious goings-on. While father, Paul, starts work at the factory in town, twins Seth and Samantha start their senior year of high school. Everything in the town is perfect at surface level, the houses are all the same cookie-cutter design with the exception of the different color palettes and furniture styles. The perfect All-American façade comes crashing down when Seth and …

Bodyverse, Colin B. Stilwell

Theses and Dissertations

This paper supports the MFA dance thesis film BodyVerse. Exploring the intertwining relationship of body systems with the natural world, it brings somatic principles such as Body Mind Centering and dance improvisation together with film legacies and digital platforms.

Reclamation: The Crown Of African American Identity, Lindsey Kellogg

English MA Theses

African American voices have been the main sources of influence on society and culture. For this reason, it is important that African Americans speak up and reclaim their voices. Not only are their voices important, but the stories that lie behind the voices are what need to be amplified. With the application of postcolonial theory, this thesis takes modern stories located in North America depicting racist behavior towards African Americans from the year 1970 to present-day New York City in order to fully amplify the process of social struggle. As these narratives are passed down through generations serving as a …

Meet And Run, Gia M. Binner

Theses and Dissertations

A defense for Gia Binner’s MFA Thesis, Meet and Run, argues that accessible art, known in this paper as commercial dance, is a meaningful vehicle for social change and that it has the ability to dismantle the outdated, European concert dance dominance by modeling the interdependency of both worlds.

..., Claire Alfonso

Undergraduate Honors Theses

Words are fickle, easily misunderstood, and often put us at a loss... but we all have so much we feel we need to express. This begs the question: Is there any safe way of communication? Can anything ever really be communicated how you mean it? Will you ever see the reflection of what you feel, think, and dream outside of yourself? In response to this existential dilemma, I imagine an alternative language of images, sounds, color, feelings, and non-identification. My thesis is a meditation on the issues with standard language and the idea of alternative language. In my argument I …

Ecstasy, Confession, Image, And Silence In Buber, Bergman, And Godard, Karl E. Toepfer

Open Educational Resources

This essay discusses the contrasting attitudes toward ecstatic experience as described in Martin Buber's book Ekstatische Konfessionen (1909). Ingmar Bergman's film Persona (1966), and Jean-Luc Godard's film Weekend (1967). The attitude toward ecstasy depends heavily on the use of language and confidence in language to represent ecstatic experience. Buber, Bergman. and Godard share little, if any, perception on the relation between language, speech, and ecstasy.

Dear Maliha,, Na-Eela Djemil

Capstones

Dear Maliha is a short documentary film exploring the complexities of spiritual abuse through Maliha Fairooz. Spiritual abuse is a form of abuse that uses spiritual or religious beliefs to control or manipulate others. In some cases, spiritual abuse can be used to describe a religious leader who abuses their platform. But in Maliha’s story, we explore the concept of parental spiritual abuse. However, we learn more about this through Maliha Fairooz and the creative use of her journal.

For Maliha journaling is a form of therapy she uses to process her feelings and days. She also uses it as …

Fractured Selves, Gearoid Dolan

Theses and Dissertations

Fractured Selves is a self-portrait that examines the histories and points of conflation and diversion of my four public personas. In the style of a Zoom meeting, they chat with a host against animated backgrounds. Interactivity creates non-linear consuming of the content and user directed navigation through four timelines

This Must Be The Place: A Short Film, Reagan Shull

Honors Projects

This Must Be The Place is a short film categorized as a Coming of Age Mystery with strong narrative ties to Magical Realism set in the heart of small town America. The key thematic ideas are identity, female relationships, isolation, friendship, and loss. This story emphasizes each person’s struggle for identity, and the isolation that can be brought upon themselves when they do not know who they are. Further, the difficulties regarding the search for one’s dreams without a strong sense of identity are also discussed in this narrative. Ultimately, this story is about dealing with isolation as we grow …

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.

Time Machine Research And Approach, Tarek Bouraque

Theses and Dissertations

Time Machine is a hybrid documentary that explores the logics of enslavement, colonialism, eurocentrism and their interconnectedness in our globalized world. Mustapha Azemmouri, born in 1502, undertakes a journey to the 21st century to recount his own story of enslavement and exploration, and reflects on a collective puzzle of 500 years of hidden history.

Exploring A Qualitative Approach To Arts Advocacy And Evaluation, Lycette C. Belisle

Undergraduate Theses

The quantitative impact of the arts has become an increasingly important factor in determining the overall value of a project, and is often used to determine acceptance of submissions, public recognition and funding disbursement. This project evaluates current understandings of how the arts function within society, popular methods for determining the value of the arts and explores how qualitative reasoning can be utilized to communicate the value of supporting artistic endeavors. While placing a numerical value on the arts based on data collection can be important, this project will aim to evaluate the implications of relying so heavily on facts …

Kai Duc Luong Interview, Stuart Hutson

Asian American Art Oral History Project

Artist Bio Born in 1975 in Phnom-Penh, KAI-DUC LUONG fled the oppressive Khmer Rouge regime from Cambodia to Vietnam to France, where his family settled in Paris, in 1978. KAI-DUC operates between Chicago and Paris. His artistic projects include video (art / doc / film), photography, and mixed media installations. His unconventional path as a self-taught outsider artist, trained in digital communication & systems engineering, gives him a unique perspective, at times questioning subject matters through the understanding of transmission and systems (e.g. the primary emotions, the five senses, the stages of grief, the art industry). His works have been …

Chamindika Wanduragala Interview, Vincent To

Asian American Art Oral History Project

Chamindika Wanduragala is a Sri Lankan American visual artist, cook, DJ ( DJ Chamun), puppeteer and stop motion animation filmmaker based in Minneapolis. Her work deals with personal experience through mythic stories. She is also the founder and Director of Monkeybear's Harmolodic Workshop, which supports Native/POC in developing creative and technical skills in contemporary puppetry.

Bio from: http://chamindika.com/index.html

Mom's Money: A Dark Comedy, Buddy Ketelle

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis will recount the making of the feature film Mom’s Money which I produced, edited, wrote and directed. My influences on the story and visual style of the film will be discussed as well as my prior work and the way those combined forces drew me to make this film. Breaking this into the three stages of filmmaking- Production, Pre-Production and Post Production- I will explore the film from its conception to its completion. The collaborative nature of filmmaking and the way the particular collaborators I had on this film gave me an advantage (while still providing an occasional …

Universe Of Things: A Human Presentation Of Food-For-Thought., Madeline Halpern

Bachelor of Fine Arts Senior Papers

I present this statement under three loose categories: People, Objects and their Environment. I consider People as human, Objects as art objects, domestic objects, and food, and Environment as the shared space of the former groups. Food directs this statement as I present each concept and creative process as a metaphorical dish. Material exploration carried me from a direct practice of reorienting acrylic paint and questioning object functionality through personified sculptures into theoretical thesis work in which I use interpersonal relations and the idea of consumption to translate tactile, gustatory and olfactory sensations into digital film. In this meal I …

Advancing Film Through Art & Design: A Study Of The Influence That Film And Fine Art Have On The Independent Film Market, Jamall Rashaud Mcmillan

Masters Theses

The Influence of Graphic Design and Fine Art in Film is a exploration into the impact that an investment of the arts has on film and more specifically the independent film market. Most independent filmmakers have to develop their productions with little to no budget. In doing so they must work to create a marketable film to the best of their ability. There in-lies the issue; they are doing it to the best of “their” ability. The issue that is in focus with the notion of ability is that a major component that is left out of the equation to …

Stray Cats, Christian P. Chesnut

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

This paper details the making of Stray Cats, a University of New Orleans thesis film. It examines the process of creating the film in three parts. Part one will detail the pre-production, including the conceptualization, writing, and preparation for the project. Part two will cover the production, including the directing, production design, cinematography, and on-set operations. Part three will describe the post-production process, including the editing, color correction, sound design, and musical score. These three components will then be referenced in regards to the theme of the film, and will conclude by analyzing whether or not the final film …

On Capturing The Ineffable: A Moment From Experimental Film "59.10", Henry Leslie Foster Ii

The Transdisciplinary STEAM+ Journal

This artwork is a still from “59,” an experimental film installation I created with the following restrictions: I had to direct eleven 59-second films in eleven months with eleven collaborating artists, none of whom could be cis men.In the resulting project, we used film and those eleven short moments to capture our unique, fragile experiences. We explored everything from the way in which facets of personality drift in and out of the subconscious to the beautiful, mercurial nature of gender.

One Epic Φf Stardusts, Y∞N Irene Hong

Bachelor of Fine Arts Senior Papers

A long time ago in a far away galaxy,

there was a star shining alone in the deep darkness.

The beautiful star aged and exploded into a supernova,

where her golden light scattered into the tiniest sparkles of dust,

pouring down to Earth.

Made of Stardust,

humans naturally have responded to the divine light that they carry inside their souls,

through diverse acts of enlightenment such as art, religion, and science.

.

.

.

As a Stardust, an artist, a Korean, and a woman,

I keep walking in between opposing forces and varying perspectives

until I transcend their boundaries and …

My Giants, Teodora Altomare

Theses and Dissertations

My Giants is a thirty minute documentary about two journeys. During the first, in 2015, the filmmaker documented the story of Xylella fastidiosa, a bacteria responsible for the loss of many thousand-year-old olive trees in the Italian region of Puglia. During the second visit, in 2016, she witnessed the illness of her father.

By weaving together the two stories, My Giants is a snapshot of a transitional moment in the filmmaker’s life, a moment when illness became an opportunity to reconnect with her roots.

Immigrant Stories: Exploring The Conflicts That A Filmmaker Must Face In A Documentary, Berenice Saez Briceno

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This study attempts to address the personal conflicts that a filmmaker must face in the making of a documentary. It contrasts definitions and theories with the experience of producing the documentary entitled Immigrant Stories and the ethical implications of making it. To conclude, it summarizes the results of the study as final thoughts.

Yi, Observational Documentary Aesthetics, And The Identity Politics Of Transcultural Migrancy, Jiacheng Xu 4159187

Theses and Dissertations

There is a moment in Edward Yang’s acclaimed film Yi Yi (2000) in which a young boy in a conversation with his father observes that he cannot see what his father sees and that his father cannot see what he sees, prompting two questions: “How can I know what you see?” and “Can we only know half of the truth?” Unable to provide adequate answers, his father instead offers his son a camera. Later in the film, the same boy presents his uncle with a picture he took of the back of his head. When asked why, the boy responds …

French Women In Art: Reclaiming The Body Through Creation/Les Femmes Artistes Françaises : La Réclamation Du Corps À Travers La Création, Liatris Hethcoat

Student Scholar Symposium Abstracts and Posters

The research I have conducted for my French Major Senior Thesis is a culmination of my passion for and studies of both French language and culture and the history and practice of Visual Arts. I have examined, across the history of art, the representation of women, and concluded that until the 20^th century, these representations have been tools employed by the makers of history and those at the top of the patriarchal system, used to control women’s images and thus women themselves. I survey these representations, which are largely created by men—until the 20^th century. I discuss pre-historical …

Modeling And Python Scripting In Maya For The Animation Short Style, Gilenn Emille G. Collado

Computer Engineering

The computer animation and graphics industry has dramatically improved over the years alongside the growth of technology. This paper discusses how that came about through a specific tool called Maya. It talks about its features and what it can create for you and the world. It also describes how scripting can simplify a job and make more of it. It highlights the effectiveness of the ability to manipulate code to create something amazing.

Panic At The Drive-In: Affordance, Moral Panic, And Drive-In Theatres, Maria Chatzifilalithis

Laurier Undergraduate Journal of the Arts

No abstract provided.

Dreamcatcher From Mao's Last Revolution: My Venture Into Creative Social Documentary Video, Christopher Shea Howard

Student Publications

Dreamcatcher From Mao’s Last Revolution is a filmmaking venture into creative social documentary production undertaken by this filmmaker as his own experimental departure from narrative feature film production and the fiction genre. This thesis report not only describes aspects of this film production that are specific to the methodology of documentary film production, but also describes the film’s cinematic expression of memory and the filmmaker’s telling of the story. Some cinematic and conceptual aspects of the story are related to the film’s influences, specifically to those theoretical concepts and techniques employed by documentary filmmaker, Werner Herzog.

The documentary story is …