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Screening Social Justice: Brave New Films and Documentary Activism
by Sherry B. OrtnerIn Screening Social Justice, award-winning anthropologist Sherry B. Ortner presents an ethnographic study of Brave New Films, a nonprofit film production company that makes documentaries intended to mobilize progressive grassroots activism. Ortner positions the work of the company within a tradition of activist documentary filmmaking and within the larger field of “alternative media” that is committed to challenging the mainstream media and telling the truth about the world today. The company’s films cover a range of social justice issues, with particular focus on the hidden workings of capitalism, racism, and right-wing extremism. Beyond the films themselves, Brave New Films is also famous for its creative distribution strategies. All of the films are available for free on YouTube. Central to the intention of promoting political activism, the films circulate through networks of other activist and social justice organizations and are shown almost entirely in live screenings in which the power of the film is amplified. Ortner takes the reader inside both the production process and the screenings to show how a film can be made and used to mobilize action for a better world.
Screening Space: The American Science Fiction Film
by Vivian SobchackThis text attempts to shape definitions of the American science fiction film, studying the connection between the films and social preconceptions. It covers many classic films and discusses their import, seeking to rescue the genre from the neglect of film theorists. The book should appeal to both film buff and fans of science fiction.
Screening Stephen King: Adaptation and the Horror Genre in Film and Television
by Simon BrownSince the 1970s, the name Stephen King has been synonymous with horror. His vast number of books has spawned a similar number of feature films and TV shows, and together they offer a rich opportunity to consider how one writer’s work has been adapted over a long period within a single genre and across a variety of media—and what that can tell us about King, about adaptation, and about film and TV horror. Starting from the premise that King has transcended ideas of authorship to become his own literary, cinematic, and televisual brand, Screening Stephen King explores the impact and legacy of over forty years of King film and television adaptations. Simon Brown first examines the reasons for King’s literary success and then, starting with Brian De Palma’s Carrie, explores how King’s themes and style have been adapted for the big and small screens. He looks at mainstream multiplex horror adaptations from Cujo to Cell, low-budget DVD horror films such as The Mangler and Children of the Corn franchises, non-horror films, including Stand by Me and The Shawshank Redemption, and TV works from Salem’s Lot to Under the Dome. Through this discussion, Brown identifies what a Stephen King film or series is or has been, how these works have influenced film and TV horror, and what these influences reveal about the shifting preoccupations and industrial contexts of the post-1960s horror genre in film and TV.
Screening Stephen King: Adaptation and the Horror Genre in Film and Television
by Simon Brown&“Gathers together the unruly mess of King adaptations . . . And places it within the sociocultural and industrial context of four decades of horror.&” —Philip L. Simpson, author of Psycho Paths Starting from the premise that Stephen King has transcended ideas of authorship to become his own literary, cinematic, and televisual brand, Screening Stephen King explores the impact and legacy of over forty years of King film and television adaptations. Simon Brown first examines the reasons for King&’s literary success and then, starting with Brian De Palma&’s Carrie, explores how King&’s themes and style have been adapted for the big and small screens. He looks at mainstream multiplex horror adaptations from Cujo to Cell, low-budget DVD horror films such as The Mangler and Children of the Corn franchises, non-horror films, including Stand by Me and The Shawshank Redemption, and TV works from Salem&’s Lot to Under the Dome. Through this discussion, Brown identifies what a Stephen King film or series is or has been, how these works have influenced film and TV horror, and what these influences reveal about the shifting preoccupations and industrial contexts of the post-1960s horror genre in film and TV. &“Well-written . . . It really is the most exhaustive analysis of Stephen King on the screen that has ever been written.&” —Cinepunx &“This book is not only essential as a study of Stephen King and his works adapted to the big and small screen; it is also an exemplary study of the evolution of the horror genre in its ebb and flow from literary adaptation to gore-laden saturation and beyond since the mid-1970s.&” —Sorcha Ní Fhlainn, author of Postmodern Vampires
Screening The East
by Nick HodginScreening the East considers German filmmakers' responses to unification. In particular, it traces the representation of the East German community in films made since 1989 and considers whether these narratives challenge or reinforce the notion of a separate East German identity. The book identifies and analyses a large number of films, from internationally successful box-office hits, to lesser-known productions, many of which are discussed here for the first time. Providing an insight into the films' historical and political context, it considers related issues such as stereotyping, racism, regional particularism and the Germans' confrontation with the past.
Screening The Sacred
by Joel Martin Conrad E. Ostwalt Jr.What are the religious impulses in the 1976 film Rocky, and how can they work to shape one’s social identity? Do the films Alien and Aliens signify the reemergence of the earth goddess as a vital cultural power? What female archetypes, borne out of male desire, inform the experience of women in Nine and a Half Weeks?These are among the several compelling questions the authors of this volume consider as they explore the way popular American film relates to religion. Oddly, religion and film--two pervasive elements of American culture--have seldom been studied in connection with each other. In this first systematic exploration, the authors look beyond surface religious themes and imagery in film, discovering a deeper, implicit presence of religion. They employ theological, mythological, and social and political criticism to analyze the influence of religion, in all its rich variety and diversity, on popular film. Perhaps more importantly, they consider how the medium of film has helped influence and shape American religious culture, secular or otherwise. More than a random collection of essays, this volume brings to the study of religion and film a carefully constructed analytic framework that advances our understanding of both. Screening the Sacred provides fresh and welcome insight to film criticism; it also holds far-reaching relevance for the study of religion. Progressive in its approach, instructive in its analyses, this book is written for students, scholars, and other readers interested in religion, popular film, and the impact of each on American culture.
Screening Torture: Media Representations of State Terror and Political Domination
by Michael Flynn Fabiola Fernandez SalekBefore 9/11, films addressing torture outside of the horror/slasher genre depicted the practice in a variety of forms. In most cases, torture was cast as the act of a desperate and depraved individual, and the viewer was more likely to identify with the victim rather than the torturer. Since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, scenes of brutality and torture in mainstream comedies, dramatic narratives, and action films appear for little other reason than to titillate and delight. In these films, torture is devoid of any redeeming qualities, represented as an exercise in brutal senselessness carried out by authoritarian regimes and institutions.This volume follows the shift in the representation of torture over the past decade, specifically in documentary, action, and political films. It traces and compares the development of this trend in films from the United States, Europe, China, Latin America, South Africa, and the Middle East. Featuring essays by sociologists, psychologists, historians, journalists, and specialists in film and cultural studies, the collection approaches the representation of torture in film and television from multiple angles and disciplines, connecting its aesthetics and practices to the dynamic of state terror and political domination.
Screening Transcendence: Film under Austrofascism and the Hollywood Hope, 1933-1938
by Robert DassanowskyDuring the 1930s, Austrian film production companies developed a process to navigate the competing demands of audiences in Nazi Germany and those found in broader Western markets. In Screening Transcendence, film historian Robert Dassanowsky explores how Austrian filmmakers during the Austrofascist period (1933–1938) developed two overlapping industries: "Aryanized" films for distribution in Germany, its largest market, and "Emigrantenfilm," which employed émigré and Jewish talent that appealed to international audiences. Through detailed archival research in both Vienna and the United States, Dassanowsky reveals what was culturally, socially, and politically at stake in these two simultaneous and overlapping film industries. Influenced by French auteurism, admired by Italian cinephiles, and ardently remade by Hollywood, these period Austrian films demonstrate a distinctive regional style mixed with transnational influences. Combining brilliant close readings of individual films with thoroughly informed historical and cultural observations, Dassanowsky presents the story of a nation and an industry mired in politics, power, and intrigue on the brink of Nazi occupation.
Screening Twentieth Century Europe: Television, History, Memory (Palgrave European Film and Media Studies)
by Ib BondebjergThis book offers a comparative study of historical television genres in Europe, with a special focus on Germany and Great Britain and their way of narrating twentieth century European history. The book analyses our common European past and memory through central historical television narratives. Each chapter looks at how historical TV genres, fictional and documentary, have dealt with the most salient and defining periods, events and changes in the twentieth century— an age of extremes. Bondebjerg offers unique theoretical and analytical insight into the role of television in mediating and shaping the past. The book explores television’s creation of transnational cultural encounters across Europe in relation to our common and national past. The book addresses how television has influenced our understanding of history, collective memory and public debate over the twentieth century. It is fundamentally a book about the importance of the past in present day Europe and the centrality of media for transnational understanding.
Screening Ulster: Cinema and the Unionists
by Richard GallagherThis book presents extensive research into the cinematic representation of the British-identifying Protestant, unionist and loyalist community in Northern Ireland and is the first time such comprehensive analysis has been produced. Gallagher’s research traces the history of the community’s representation in cinema from the emergence of depictions of both nationalist and unionist communities in social-realist dramas in 1980s British and Irish cinema to today, through periods such as those focused on violent paramilitaries in the 1990s and irreverent comedy after the Northern Ireland peace process. The book addresses the perception that the Irish nationalist community has been depicted more frequently and favourably than unionism in films about the period of conflict known as “The Troubles”. Often argued to be the result of an Irish nationalist bias within Hollywood, Gallagher argues that there are other inherent and systemic reasons for this cinematic deficit.
Screening the Author: The Literary Biopic (Palgrave Studies in Adaptation and Visual Culture)
by Hila ShacharThis book is the first comprehensive analysis of the contemporary representation of the author on screen. It does this through two main approaches: by looking at how biographies of well-known authors in Western culture have been adapted onto the film and television screen; and by examining the wider preoccupation with the idea of what the ‘author persona’ means in broader economic, cultural, industrial, and ideological terms. Drawing from current debates about the uses of the heritage industry and conventions of the Hollywood biopic and celebrity culture, this book re-frames the analysis of the author on screen in contemporary culture and theorises it under its own unique genre: the ‘literary biopic’. With case studies including adaptations of the biographies and cultural personas of William Shakespeare, Jane Austen, Oscar Wilde, Sylvia Plath, Virginia Woolf, and Allen Ginsberg—to name a few–this book examines how and why the author continues to be a prominent screen and cultural preoccupation.
Screening the Gothic
by Lisa HopkinsFilmmakers have long been drawn to the Gothic with its eerie settings and promise of horror lurking beneath the surface. Moreover, the Gothic allows filmmakers to hold a mirror up to their own age and reveal society's deepest fears. Franco Zeffirelli's Jane Eyre, Francis Ford Coppola's Bram Stoker's Dracula, and Kenneth Branagh's Hamlet are just a few examples of film adaptations of literary Gothic texts. In this ground-breaking study, Lisa Hopkins explores how the Gothic has been deployed in these and other contemporary films and comes to some surprising conclusions. For instance, in a brilliant chapter on films geared to children, Hopkins finds that horror resides not in the trolls, wizards, and goblins that abound in Harry Potter, but in the heart of the family. <P><P> Screening the Gothic offers a radical new way of understanding the relationship between film and the Gothic as it surveys a wide range of films, many of which have received scant critical attention. Its central claim is that, paradoxically, those texts whose affiliations with the Gothic were the clearest became the least Gothic when filmed. Thus, Hopkins surprises readers by revealing Gothic elements in films such as Sense and Sensibility and Mansfield Park, as well as exploring more obviously Gothic films like The Mummy and The Fellowship of the Ring. Written in an accessible and engaging manner, Screening the Gothic will be of interest to film lovers as well as students and scholars.
Screening the Operatic Stage: Television and Beyond (Opera Lab: Explorations in History, Technology, and Performance)
by Christopher MorrisAn ambitious study of the ways opera has sought to ensure its popularity by keeping pace with changes in media technology. From the early days of television broadcasts to today’s live streams, opera houses have embraced technology as a way to reach new audiences. But how do these new forms of remediated opera extend, amplify, or undermine production values, and what does the audience gain or lose in the process? In Screening the Operatic Stage, Christopher Morris critically examines the cultural implications of opera’s engagement with screen media. Foregrounding the potential for a playful exchange and self-awareness between stage and screen, Morris uses the conceptual tools of media theory to understand the historical and contemporary screen cultures that have transmitted the opera house into living rooms, onto desktops and portable devices, and across networks of movie theaters. If these screen cultures reveal how inherently “technological” opera is as a medium, they also highlight a deep suspicion among opera producers and audiences toward the intervention of media technology. Ultimately, Screening the Operatic Stage shows how the conventions of televisual representation employed in opera have masked the mediating effects of technology in the name of fidelity to live performance.
Screening the Past: Memory and Nostalgia in Cinema
by Pam CookFrom Mildred Pierce and Brief Encounter to Raging Bull and In the Mood for Love, this lively and accessible collection explores film culture's obsession with the past, offering searching and provocative analyses of a wide range of titles. Screening the Past engages with current debates about the role of cinema in mediating history through memory and nostalgia, suggesting that many films use strategies of memory to produce diverse forms of knowledge which challenge established ideas of history, and the traditional role of historians. Classic essays sit side by side with new research, contextualized by introductions which bring them up to date, and provide suggestions for further reading as the work of contemporary directors such as Martin Scorsese, Kathryn Bigelow, Todd Haynes and Wong Kar-wai is used to examine the different ways they deploy creative processes of memory. Pam Cook also investigates the recent history of film studies, reviewing the developments that have culminated in the exciting, if daunting, present moment. The result is a rich and stimulating volume that will appeal to anyone with an interest in cinema, memory and identity.
Screening the Stage: Case Studies of Film Adaptations of Stage Plays and Musicals in the Classical Hollywood Era, 1914-1956
by Steven NealeIntroduced by a comprehensive account of the factors governing the adaptation of stage plays and musicals in Hollywood from the early 1910s to the mid-to-late 1950s, Screening the Stage consists of a series of chapter-length studies of feature-length films, the plays and musicals on which they were based, and their remakes where pertinent. Founded on an awareness of evolving technologies and industrial practices rather than the tenets of adaptation theory, particular attention is paid to the evolving practices of Hollywood as well as to the purport and structure of the plays and stage musicals on which the film versions were based. Each play or musical is contextualized and summarized in detail, and each film is analyzed so as to pinpoint the ways in which they articulate, modify, or rework the former. Examples range from dramas, comedies, melodramas, musicals, operettas, thrillers, westerns and war film, and include The Squaw Man, The Poor Little Rich Girl, The Merry Widow, 7th Heaven, The Cocoanuts, Waterloo Bridge, Stage Door, I Remember Mama, The Pirate, Dial M for Murder and Attack.
Screening the Unwatchable
by Asbjørn GrønstadTracing the rise of extreme art cinema across films from Lars von Trier's The Idiots to Michael Haneke's Cach#65533;, Asbj#65533;rn Gr#65533;nstad revives the debate about the role of negation and aesthetics, and reframes the concept of spectatorship in ethical terms.
Screening the World: Global Development of the Multiplex Cinema
by Stuart HansonThis book charts the development of the multiplex cinema as the pre-eminent form of film exhibition across the world. Going from its origins in the USA in the 1960s to its expansion overseas from the mid-1980s across Europe, Australia and other parts of Asia-Pacific, the book considers the emergence of a series of initially regional, then national and then international exhibition circuits. However, more than a consideration of US overseas expansion on the part of companies, this book examines the hegemony of the multiplex as a cultural and business form, arguing for its significance as a phenomenon that has transcended national and global boundaries and which has become the predominant venue for film viewing. Implicit in this analysis is a recognition of the domination of US media multi-nationals and Hollywood cinema, and the development of the multiplex cinema as symbolic of the extension and maintenance of the USA’s cultural and economic power. With case studies ranging from European countries such as Belgium, France, Germany and The Netherlands, to Pacific-Asian countries such as Australia, China, Japan and South Korea, this book is the first to explore the development of multiplexes on a global scale.
Screenografie kompakt: Der immersive Bildraum grafischer Benutzeroberflächen
by Thomas MoritzDieses Buch behandelt die Screenografie von grafischen Benutzeroberflächen basierend auf einem didaktisch strukturierten Lehrprogramm, dessen Kapitel inhaltlich aufeinander aufbauen und jeweils in einem zusammenfassenden Fazit enden. Nach einer einführenden thematischen Motivation werden wahrnehmungspsychologische und kommunikationswissenschaftliche Grundlagen des Systemischen Designs erläutert, dessen Spezifik für die systematische Entwicklung grafischer Benutzeroberflächen essentiell ist. Im Kontext immersiver Raumnutzung wird u.a. illustriert, wie ein Screen morphologisch in kleinere geometrische Einheiten unterteilbar ist, die als visuelles Ganzes die ideale Basis für ein visuelles Gestaltungsraster bilden, welches den immersiven Bildraum strukturiert und organisiert. Es werden nutzerspezifische Farbgebungen für ein visuelles Ambiente aufgezeigt, das einem speziellen Nutzernaturell entspricht, da es auf Erfahrungen mit natürlichen Umgebungen basiert und über alle geografischen und ethnologischen Grenzen hinweg stimuliert und zur interaktiven Nutzung motiviert.
Screenografie kompakt: Der immersive Bildraum grafischer Benutzeroberflächen
by Thomas MoritzDieses Lehrprogramm zur systematischen Gestaltung eines interaktiv nutzbaren Bildschirms (Screen) erläutert wahrnehmungspsychologische und kommunikationswissenschaftliche Grundlagen, die für das Systemische Design grafischer Benutzeroberflächen (Graphical User Interfaces) relevant sind. Im Kontext interaktiver Raumnutzung wird illustriert, wie die Bildschirmfläche morphologisch in Form eines visuellen Gestaltungsrasters (Visual Design Pattern) zu gliedern ist, das den immersiven Bildraum der grafischen Benutzeroberfläche strukturiert und die interaktive Nutzung erleichtert. Es werden mögliche Farbkombinationen für ein visuelles Ambiente definiert, deren Wirkungsweise auf natürlichen Erfahrungswerten basiert und somit einem speziellen Nutzernaturell entspricht, dessen Charakteristika weltweit identisch sind.
Screenplay Story Analysis: The Art And Business
by Asher GarfinkelSometimes it seems like everybody's writing a screenplay. But who reads those screenplays? Professional story analysts, that's who. Screenplay Story Analysis explains exactly how to become a professional story analyst.<P><P> Along with a basic how-to on writing a story analysis-or "coverage"-this book explains the techniques and thought processes involved in reading and evaluating a screenplay. Get familiar with terms, techniques, and general story elements. Master standard coverage format and content. Find guidelines for practicing coverage and getting work as a professional story analyst. With a foreword by Craig Perry, producer of American Pie, Final Destination, and other successful movies, and quotes from industry pros from top entertainment companies including ABC and Paramount Pictures, this is the essential guide for breaking into the business.
Screenplay: Building Story Through Character
by Jule SelboScreenplay: Building Story Through Character is designed to help screenwriters turn simple or intricate ideas into exciting, multidimensional film narratives with fully-realized characters. Based on Jule Selbo’s unique 11-step structure for building story through characters, the book teaches budding screenwriters the skills to focus and shape their ideas, turning them into stories filled with character development, strong plot elements based on obstacles and conflicts, and multifaceted emotional arcs. Using examples and analysis from classic and contemporary films across a range of genres, from The Godfather to Guardians of the Galaxy, Selbo’s Screenplay takes students inside the scriptwriting process, providing a broad overview for both beginners and seasoned writers alike. The book is rounded out with discussion questions, writing exercises, a guide to the business of screenwriting, in-depth film breakdowns, and a glossary of screenwriting terms.
Screenplay: The Foundations of Screenwriting (Third Edition)
by Syd FieldHere are easily understood guidelines to make film writing accessible to novices and to help practiced writers improve their scripts. Syd Field pinpoints the structural and stylistic elements essential to every good screenplay. He presents a step-by-step, comprehensive technique for writing the script that will succeed. Why are the first ten pages of your script crucially important? How do you collaborate successfully with someone else? How do you adapt a novel, a play, or an article into a screenplay? How do you market your script?
Screens Producing & Media Operations: Advanced Practice for Media Server and Video Content Preparation
by Laura FrankMedia servers have established themselves as the dominant video playback tool for live events; however, the practice of delivering content to these systems and the structure of the media operations team is still evolving. This book outlines a workflow for video content delivery and describes team communication that can be applied to any entertainment production including: television specials, concert touring, corporate events, theater, as well as special events, film, large audience marketing events, and multi-screen permanent installations. This workflow is hardware and software independent, designed to evolve with future technologies as they become established in the field of multi-screen production, and has been proven professionally by the author and her peers over a decade of productions. The methodology presented will provide insights beneficial to students and current practitioners of media server technology, screens producers, and video content developers. Using real world examples of internationally recognized productions, a foundation is laid for best practices in Media Operations. Additional content, including full-color versions of the images inside the book, is available online.
Screens and Veils: Maghrebi Women's Cinema (New Directions In National Cinemas Ser.)
by Florence MartinExamined within their economic, cultural, and political context, the work of women Maghrebi filmmakers forms a cohesive body of work. Florence Martin examines the intersections of nation and gender in seven films, showing how directors turn around the politics of the gaze as they play with the various meanings of the Arabic term hijab (veil, curtain, screen). Martin analyzes these films on their own theoretical terms, developing the notion of "transvergence" to examine how Maghrebi women's cinema is flexible, playful, and transgressive in its themes, aesthetics, narratives, and modes of address. These are distinctive films that traverse multiple cultures, both borrowing from and resisting the discourses these cultures propose.
Screens: Viewing Media Installation Art (Electronic Mediations #30)
by Kate MondlochMedia screens—film, video, and computer screens—have increasingly pervaded both artistic production and everyday life since the 1960s. Yet the nature of viewing artworks made from these media, along with their subjective effects, remains largely unexplored. Screens addresses this gap, offering a historical and theoretical framework for understanding screen-reliant installation art and the spectatorship it evokes. Examining a range of installations created over the past fifty years that investigate the rich terrain between the sculptural and the cinematic, including works by artists such as Eija-Liisa Ahtila, Doug Aitken, Peter Campus, Dan Graham, VALIE EXPORT, Bruce Nauman, and Michael Snow, Kate Mondloch traces the construction of screen spectatorship in art from the seminal film and video installations of the 1960s and 1970s to the new media artworks of today&’s digital culture. Mondloch identifies a momentous shift in contemporary art that challenges key premises of spectatorship brought about by technological objects that literally and metaphorically filter the subject&’s field of vision. As a result she proposes that contemporary viewers are, quite literally, screen subjects and offers the unique critical leverage of art as an alternative way to understand media culture and contemporary visuality.