Wycinanki: Production of a Non-Photorealistic Rendered Short Film

Animals have traditionally occupied a special role in human culture and media, and are also often the focus of today\u27s computer-animated films. The computer graphics (CG) short, Wycinanki, examines the human-animal bond through the story of a woman who rescues animals in Poland. Additionally, Wycinanki draws on the cultural history of its protagonist with its unique paper-cut render style. The goal of this film is to engage viewers and enhance the staying power of the film\u27s message via a compelling story and visuals. A significant amount of environment and character development and testing was necessary to translate the 2D art of papercutting into an effective animated CG short. The final render pipeline, while incorporating varying graphics programs and approaches, resulted in efficient renders and composites that satisfied the visual demands of the story

The Se-Ma-For Film Studio from 1990 to 1999

The Se-Ma-For Film Studio from 1990 to 1999One of the key roles in the cinematic image of Łódź (the centre of Polish film production in the 1950s and 1960s) was played by “Se-Ma-For” Film Studio. The political and economic changes that Poland underwent at the beginning of the 1990s resulted in the liquidation of most state-owned companies. Se-Ma-For studio managed to operate until 1999, when it was closed. Th is text elaborates on the circumstances that resulted in the liquidation of the studio in 1999

Broadcasting to the masses or building communities: Polish political parties online communication during the 2011 election

The professionalisation of political communication is an evolutionary process (Lilleker & Negrine, 2002), a process that adapts to trends in communication in order to better engage and persuade the public. One of the most dramatic developments in communication has been the move towards social communication via the Internet. It is argued to affect every area of public communication, from commercial advertising and public relations to education (Macnamara, 2010). It is no longer sufficient to have an online presence; we are now in an age of i-branding; with the ‘i’ standing for interactive. Yet, trends in online political electoral campaigning over recent years indicate a shallow adoption of Web 2.0 tools, features and platforms; limited interactivity; and managed co-production. The Internet is now embedded as a campaigning tool however, largely, the technologies are adapted to the norms of political communication rather than technologies impacting upon internal organizational structures, party relationships to members and supporters, or the content and style of their communication. We examine these themes, and develop them through a focus on the targeting and networking strategies of political parties, in more detail in the context of the Polish parliamentary election of 2011. Through a sophisticated content analysis and coding scheme our paper examines the extent to which parties use features that are designed to inform, engage, mobilise or allow interaction, which audiences they seek to communicate with and how these fit communication strategies. Comparing these findings with maps built from webcrawler analysis we build a picture of the strategies of the parties and the extent to which this links to short and long term political goals. This paper firstly develops our rationale for studying party and candidate use of the Internet during elections within the Polish context. Secondly we develop a conceptual framework which contrasts the politics as usual thesis (Margolis & Resnick, 2000) with arguments surrounding the social shaping of technologies (Lievrouw, 2006) and the impact on organisational adoption of communication technologies and post-Obama trends in Internet usage (Lilleker & Jackson, 2011) and posit that, despite the threats from an interactive strategy (Stromer-Galley, 2000) one would be expected within the context of a networked society (Van Dyjk, 2006). Following an overview of our methodology and innovative analysis strategy, we present our data which focuses on three key elements. Firstly we focus on the extent to which party and candidate websites inform, engage, mobilise or permit interaction (Lilleker et al, 2011). Secondly we assess the extent to which websites attract different visitor groups (Lilleker & Jackson, 2011) and build communities (Lilleker & Koc-Michalska, 2012). Thirdly we assess the reach strategies of the websites using Webcrawler technology which analyses the use of hyperlinks and whether parties lock themselves within cyberghettoes (Sunstein, 2007) or attempt to harness the power of the network (Benkler, 2006)

Making history: post-historical commemorations of the past in British television

The postmodernist re-evaluation of historical study has let to an awareness of the value of the moving image to the historian. Film can present us with glimpses of a past independent of discourse and its unique link with reality carries with it inevatible assumptions of authenticity. Yet the selection and manipulation of material by the filmmaker and the dependence on causality or the establishment of 'fact', makes historical documentary as problematic as any other mode of historiography. National history is shaped as national identity, and, ultimately, acts of commemoration say as much about the present as the past

Karol Irzykowski and Feliks Kuczkowski: (Theory of) Animation as the Cinema of Pure Movement

Karol Irzykowski’s The Tenth Muse: Aesthetic Aspects of Cinema (1924) is the first extended study exploring the status of cinema as art in the Polish language. This article looks at these aspects of Irzykowski’s book that relate to his theory of animated film. As the author shows, Irzykowski’s perception of animation can be seen as an effect of his rapport with a Polish animator, Feliks Kuczkowski, as well as Irzykowski’s admiration of Paul Wegener’s films. However, as will be discussed, Irzykowski did not always perceive film as art in the same way as he did painting and sculpture. It is the author’s contention that it was the German critical thinker Rudolf Maria Holzapfel’s theory of appropriate and inappropriate arts that prompted Irzykowski to reconsider his views on film as art. As will be shown, Irzykowski’s theory of animated film developed largely through his familiarity with Kuczkowski’s work and Kuczkowski remains the only known Polish figure who made animated films since 1916. In line with many contemporary developments in the arts, Kuczkowski made his films according to his principle of ‘synthetic-visionary’ film. His innovative ideas are thought of as having influenced such key figures of Polish animation as Jan Lenica and Walerian Borowczyk, while aspects of Irzykowski’s theory can be found in the work of such key Polish avant-garde filmmakers of the 1930s as Jalu Kurek and Stefan Themerson. This article will demonstrate that the rapport between Irzykowski and Kuczkowski was crucial to establishing a dialogue between theory and practice as will be later seen in relation to the emerging film avant-gardes

A history of cross-cultural exchanges in Finnish and Swedish diddling

Publisher PD

"Who Gets Translated and Why? Anthologies of Twentieth-Century Greek Poetry in Poland"

The translation of Modern Greek poetry in Poland began on a regular basis at the end of the 1960s and falls into two broad categories: anthologies and the poetry of Cavafy. Cavafy’s work in Polish rendition must be seen as a separate domain: as in other countries, he has overshadowed the achievements of other Modern Greek poets. There is, however, a significant body of work by other poets available to the reader of Polish in anthologies compiled by prolific and influential translators, whose different backgrounds and motivations generate the question of who has been translated and why. This article demonstrates that the selection of poems and modes of translation are largely driven by extraliterary factors such as sociopolitical conditions, the readership, the publishing market, etc. The resultant Polish texts therefore provide a characteristic example of “rewriting” as defined by André Lefevere

Financial And Non-financial Factors Motivating Individual Donors To Support Public Benefit Organizations

This study is aimed at determining how the financial data of public benefit organizations (PBOs) affects donations received by them and if the donors use financial and non-financial information in order to donate. In order to achieve our aim we used different methods of research: quantitative research (econometric model and survey) and qualitative research (laboratory test). The research allowed us to draw the conclusion that Polish donors make very limited use of PBOs’ financial statements in the donation process and that non-financial information plays greater role for donors in making decisions to give charitable donations. The most important information is the organization's goals and descriptions of its projects. At the same time, many donors stated that they donated under the influence of people they knew. This article fits into the scope of world research on PBOs and uses the concept of civil society