Other Film and Media Studies Commons^™

A Romantic Austen: The Discordant Feminist Discourse Of Adapting Sense And Sensibility, Evan Teigland

Honors Projects

This undergraduate thesis explores the intertextual and critical conversations around Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility, and the 1995 screen adaptation of the same name, with a focus on how each text understands the interplay between feminine romance and feminine agency. A non-essentialist theory of adaptation is applied to construct an interpretive model that esteems Emma Thompson’s version of the story and considers its consequence to different communities of Austen readership, which is measured by the distinctly feminist themes detectable in the sexuality of Sense and Sensibility fanfiction. This investigation uncovers the importance of expanding the interpretive power and possibilities of …

Coming Out Of The Coffin: The History And Present Of Queerness In The Vampire Genre., Bailey Drummond

Honors Projects

This essay delves into the captivating and lasting influence of vampires on popular culture since their creation. The fascination with vampires can be traced back to literary works such as John Polidori's "The Vampyre" and Bram Stoker's classic "Dracula," which have served as foundations for vampire mythology across different media platforms. Despite the evolution of media and cultural contexts, certain themes surrounding vampires have persisted throughout history. Notably, vampires have been portrayed as symbols of sexuality and queerness, reflecting societal fears and desires from past eras to the present day. These themes have been critically analyzed and dissected in various …

Audio Dramas As Self-Expression For Marginalized Identities, Athena Towne

Honors Projects

Fiction podcasts, also knows as Audio Dramas, often afford a level of creative freedom to potential creators that is not seen in other popular media. This is seen explicitly through the marginalized representation that popular works in the medium allow. This work seeks to explore why the medium allows for such stories to flourish, as well as how these stories are received. Then, to test this theory, this paper documents the process of creating an audio drama, from conception to completion.

Sounding Ethics: Musical Signification Of Moral Choices In Video Games, Hayden Mesnick

Honors Projects

Interactivity is what distinguishes video games as a medium. In “moral choice video games,” or games in which the moral alignment of player choices affects plot and gameplay, the music often reflects the branching storylines. While scholarship exists that explores musical signifiers in video games, and scholarship alike exists that investigates moral choice video games, a gap in literature exists at the juncture of these two topics. This paper explores two moral choice video games—Undertale (Toby Fox, 2015) and Red Dead Redemption 2 (Rockstar Games, 2018)—in order to identify musical signifiers used by each game’s composer to represent these levels …

Creating Character, Alexa Tenney

Honors Projects

This project explores the relationship between merchandise development and narrative development, with a specific focus on the creative development between dolls and animation. Through exploration of these creative mediums, I began to question: How does the creative process combining animation and merchandise develop, and what is the impact on the final product? This concept is broken down even further to focus specifically on characters, and how creative characters are developed for dolls. This project provides an overview of the history of animation and merchandising beginning with Felix the Cat in the 1920s. Felix represents an instance of an animated character …

The Language Of Filmmaking And The Troubles Of Modern Illiteracy, Gabriel A. Blank

Honors Projects

An examination of cinematic language and its development over the last century of filmmaking. This paper discusses the effect of cinematic "illiteracy" and the divide between critics and mass audiences.

The New Wbgu: A Social Media Marketing Strategy, Brittany Line

Honors Projects

This project looks to find the most effective ways of growing and engaging a social media audience for WBGU-FM. Included in this is strategy used to interact with more people, an analysis of what elements were effective, and ways to increase content. Social media holds growing importance in promoting and connecting with an audience. This project is needed because recently, WBGU-FM has not been frequently or effectively using their social media platforms to connect with the community. As the shift of WBGU-FM’s purpose takes effect to focus on more community aspects of radio, it is important to have multiple ways …

Who Lives, Who Dies, Who Tells Your Story? A Marxist Analysis Of "Hamilton" And Its Relationship To The Broadway Economic System, Alana Ritt

Honors Projects

Lin-Manuel Miranda’s mega-hit Hamilton: An American Musical has been both a critical and academic darling since its premiere in 2015. A historical retelling of America’s inception through the eyes of an oft-ignored founding father, the musical weaves together a diverse cast and hip-hop musical stylings in order to tell the story of “America then, as told by America now.” While many critics and scholars alike have praised the musical for putting an exciting and accessible twist to American history, others have argued that the musical is not nearly as “revolutionary” as it claims to be. This essay is designed to …

Living On Heaven's Doorstep: A Multimedia Project With The Warm Beach Senior Community, Justina Grace Brown

Honors Projects

Having a website is no longer a luxury but a requirement. Nonprofits need to take advantage of the digital age to better reach their constituents yet, overall, they struggle to do this well. Because of lack of resources, their reliance on volunteers, and the inability to keep up with the evolving demands of a website, nonprofits (especially small ones) are not using the web to their full advantage. Taking the research and applying it to a nonprofit retirement community—Warm Beach Senior Community—the challenges are seen first-hand.

The Keepers: A Collaborative Constructive Narrative Podcast, Shay Carroll

Honors Projects

This is a fictional podcast series that presents a story that is completed through roleplaying. The structure follows that of a video game, with the main characters, or "players," interacting with a set plot while deciding their own course of action. I act as the narrator for the story, controlling the plot and setting as well as non-player characters, or "NPCs." For the purposes of consistency and making sure the characters do not do anything that would be considered too over-powered or unrealistic, I have chosen to use the rule guide and statistics modifier system presented by Wizards of the …

For The Record: Bill Schurk, Katlyn Westhoven

Honors Projects

For the Record: Bill Schurk is a half hour long documentary about the life and work of William Schurk, also known as Bill. Bill has helped to create the country’s largest music collection and helped advance the study of popular culture within the academic community. The documentary will be told from a first person perspective by Bill with supplemental content coming from interviews with family, friends, and colleagues of Bill through the years. Bill Schurk founded the Bowling Green State University Music Library and Bill Schurk Sound Archives and worked as the head archivist for 50 years before his retirement …

Hellbound - The First Season, Stephen Seiber

Honors Projects

A student short concept film developed in order to pitch a television series.

Media Erotics & Adaptation: A Comparative Textual Analysis Of Carmilla, Rebecca Wait

Honors Projects

This project is concerned with understanding the different ways in which Carmilla (1872), a gothic novella, and it’s 2014 web series adaptation differently approach the same basic narrative, especially with regards to their respective representations of individuals who identify as sexual and gender minorities. One of the major functions of importance in this study was to understand the temporality and cultural conditions, which lead to the perceived need for a postmodern adaptation of a pre-modernist text. Through textual analysis, the author compared J. Sheridan Le Fanu's Carmilla (1872) to Jordan Hall's adaptation (2014). In this analysis, significant differences existed between …

"This Aggression Will Not Stand": The Coens On Masculinity, Evan Kelly

Honors Projects

This research examines the constructions of masculinity within the films of Joel and Ethan Coen. Through textual analysis of three film, Raising Arizona (1987), Fargo (1996), and The Big Lebowski (1998), three key themes emerge: masculinity as performance, children and family as ego extensions, toxic masculinity personified, and children and redemption through rejection of hegemonic masculinity. Comprehensively, the paper seeks to prove the Coens uniquely construct masculinity as a performance which can override public policy and interpersonal prosperity. This research serves several functions. First, it recasts the Coens as cutting-edge progressive filmmakers, despite their protestations to the contrary. What we …

Found In Translation: An Analysis Of Popular American Film In Spain, Emily Dushek

Honors Projects

This research examines American popular film in Spain with the aim of understanding if and how removing a popular text (such as a film) from its original language and socio-cultural context and translating it for consumption in a different language and culture affects the interpretation of the film. The study delves into the very successful 2012 films The Avengers (Joss Whedon) and Django Unchained (Quentin Tarantino) and uses textual analyses and comparisons of the original English and the translated Castellano Spanish versions of the films, specifically focusing on the translations, as well as analyses of film reviews and critiques written …

An Unchained Analysis Of Racial Tension In America, Moriah Angott

Honors Projects

Modern race issues stem not only from the past but also from a lack of understanding and empathy for each other. How we talk about race will not only inform how we are able to move forward as a society, but it will also say a great deal about how we are evolving as human beings. It is important, and has been recognized as such, that black Americans have the freedom to grapple with that past, to understand it, and to feel connected to those ancestors who suffered in order for the foundation of this country to be built. Is …

Seeking Solace: Regret, Grief, Anxiety, Rebecca Schroeder

Honors Projects

Seeking Solace: Regret, Grief, Anxiety is a triptych video and artifact piece inspired by the abstract analysis of my dreams. It recognizes worries held within my subconscious and brings them to life through graphic design, photography, and video. The process of creating provides a new perspective of looking at both art and occupational therapy as methods of solving emotional distress.

I have recorded over 80 of my dreams in the past year. In these dreams, regret, grief, and anxiety are common themes. These themes are represented in three triptychs that cycle through past, present, and future problems. The cycling of …

Honors College Recruitment Video, Michael Pirt

Honors Projects

My Honors project was delivered through the medium of video as I attempted to find out what the Honors College means to its members in hopes of using their answers to inspire incoming students to join the Honors College.