Narratives of Crisis and Independent Cinema: Production, Aesthetics, and Ideology in the Films of Ramin Bahrani

This dissertation examines the first six U.S. feature films of Iranian-American director Ramin Bahrani in order to explore key connections between various industrially independent production modes and the aesthetic and ideological qualities of the films. Bahrani’s films are divided into three distinct periods based on the production mode in which he was working at the time, here characterized as microbudget, guerilla-style independent, Indiewood, and digital streaming productions. Each chapter explores the production mode in question, including production histories of the relevant films, and then discusses key connections arising between production strategies, aesthetics, and the films’ ideological and historical import. Ultimately this dissertation raises questions about how what “independence” means in a contemporary and increasingly digital filmmaking landscape, as well as how audiences are asked to receive and understand socio-politically engaged films via aesthetics, production narratives, and exhibition context

The Surprisingly Fantastic Script: Imaginative Immaterial Labor, "Multitudinous" Screenwriting, and Genre Innovation Within Peak TV.

Ph.D. Thesis. University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa 2018

New media reading strategy

This dissertation addresses the need for a strategy that will help readers new to new media texts interpret such texts. While scholars in multimodal and new media theory posit rubrics that offer ways to understand how designers use the materialities and media found in overtly designed, new media texts (see, e.g,, Wysocki, 2004a), these strategies do not account for how readers have to make meaning from those texts. In this dissertation, I discuss how these theories, such as Lev Manovich’s (2001) five principles for determining the new media potential of texts and Gunther Kress and Theo van Leeuwen’s (2001) four strata of designing multimodal texts, are inadequate to the job of helping readers understand new media from a rhetorical perspective. I also explore how literary theory, specifically Wolfgang Iser’s (1978) description of acts of interpretation, can help audiences understand why readers are often unable to interpret the multiple, unexpected modes of communication used in new media texts. Rhetorical theory, explored in a discussion of Sonja Foss’s (2004) units of analysis, is helpful in bringing the reader into a situated context with a new media text, although these units of analysis, like Iser’s process, suggests that a reader has some prior experience interpreting a text-as-artifact. Because of this assumption of knowledge put forth by all of the theories explored within, I argue that none alone is useful to help readers engage with and interpret new media texts. However, I argue that a heuristic which combines elements from each of these theories, as well as additional ones, is more useful for readers who are new to interpreting the multiple modes of communication that are often used in unconventional ways in new media texts. I describe that heuristic in the final chapter and discuss how it can be useful to a range of texts besides those labelled new media

Multiple-case study of lower division graduate student Spanish instructors

textThe ever-increasing popularity of digital media and connectivity to the World Wide Web permeates every day culture to the extent that the use of modern technologies also influences the teaching of foreign languages. In connection with the desire to implement sound pedagogical practices that align with Standards of teaching foreign languages, teachers are turning to modern technologies to incorporate into their teaching repertoire. Not only do teachers attempt to integrate the four language skills and culture into their teaching, but they are now urged to incorporate technology into their curriculum. The smart classroom offers the greatest potential for instructors to integrate technology into their curriculum, since this resource is already available across college campuses. This qualitative multiple case study explored the conceptualization and reconceptualization four lower division instructors of Spanish made as they attempted to integrate the resources their smart classrooms had to offer. Secondly, this research project also highlighted the challenges instructors faced while integrating technology into their curriculum. Lastly, this study underscored the advantages instructors believed might derive from integrating technology into their classrooms. Data for this study was collected from four main data sources. Five observations were conducted during the fall of 2005. Three semi-structured interviews were conducted with each of the participants at the beginning, middle, and end of the semester. Email reflections were requested from the instructors every two to three weeks during data collection. The course syllabus, lesson plans, and class activity handouts comprised the documents data base. Findings profiled the changes instructors made over the course of the semester in terms of their conceptualizations and re-conceptualizations of the technology offered by smart classrooms. The challenges instructors faced suggest that instructors need to take advantage of more professional development opportunities, as well as enter into dialogue with their peers and other instructors. The advantages highlighted the depth and breadth of the foreign language learning experience, as well as the affordances the accessibility and availability of information stored on the Internet can hold for instructors. This study concludes with pedagogical implications and recommendations for directions of future research.Curriculum and Instructio

Subjective Excess: Aesthetics, Character, and Non-Normative Perspectives in Serial Television After 2000

This dissertation aims to fill gaps in contemporary television scholarship with regards to aesthetics and character subjectivity. By analyzing eight series that have all aired after 2000, there is a marked trend in series that use an excessive visual and aural style to not only differentiate themselves from other programming, but also to explore non-normative perspectives. Now more willing to explore previously taboo topics such as mental health, addiction, illness, and trauma, the shows featured in this dissertation show how a seemingly excessive televisual aesthetic works with television’s seriality to create narrative complexity and generate character development. Chapters are arranged by mode of production with the first chapter focusing on the series Grey’s Anatomy and Hannibal as a means of exploring the production and distribution practices surrounding network TV. The second chapter examines the basic cable series Crazy Ex-Girlfriend and Legion and posits how the narrowcasting of cable allows for more nuanced character representations through aesthetics. In the third chapter, the impact HBO has had on the television medium is explored through Carnivàle and Euphoria. The final chapter looks at contemporary series The Boys and Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt as a way to better understand how the medium’s production and distribution has shifted during the convergence era. Ultimately, this dissertation will argue that in addition to further explorations of aesthetics, television studies is in need of a medium specific vernacular for creating meaningful textual analyses that avoid an overreliance on cinematic terminology

Specialised Languages and Multimedia. Linguistic and Cross-cultural Issues

none2noThis book collects academic works focusing on scientific and technical discourse and on the ways in which this type of discourse appears in or is shaped by multimedia products. The originality of this book is to be seen in the variety of approaches used and of the specialised languages investigated in relation to multimodal and multimedia genres. Contributions will particularly focus on new multimodal or multimedia forms of specialised discourse (in institutional, academic, technical, scientific, social or popular settings), linguistic features of specialised discourse in multimodal or multimedia genres, the popularisation of specialised knowledge in multimodal or multimedia genres, the impact of multimodality and multimediality on the construction of scientific and technical discourse, the impact of multimodality/multimediality in the practice and teaching of language, the impact of multimodality/multimediality in the practice and teaching of translation, new multimedia modes of knowledge dissemination, the translation/adaptation of scientific discourse in multimedia products. This volume contributes to the theory and practice of multimodal studies and translation, with a specific focus on specialized discourse.Rivista di Classe A - Volume specialeopenManca E., Bianchi F.Manca, E.; Bianchi, F

Liminal subjectivities in contemporary film and literature

This thesis discusses the intersection of subjectivity and the liminal in contemporary literary and filmic texts. In discussion of eight texts, the thesis weighs the dual meaning of “liminal subjectivities” – the liminal space between subjectivities, and the condition of subjectivity as it negotiates the liminal. It aims to explore how liminality manifests in manners both universal and specific to the literary or filmic form, in the embodiments of characters, and the rhythms and poetics of the text. It considers the liminal a privileged trope of destabilised subjectivity, a space of suspension and potentiality, and explores how the liminal functions as an interface between haecceity and otherness; whether it binds together or holds apart; if it is a space between oppositional states or a continuum of specific sites of intensity. The eight texts discussed are The Rings of Saturn and Vertigo (W. G. Sebald), Sputnik Sweetheart, Kafka on the Shore, and After Dark (Haruki Murakami), Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and The Science of Sleep (Michel Gondry), My Own Private Idaho (Gus Van Sant). The work of Sebald and Gondry is considered in translation from the original German and Japanese. The thesis considers both literary and filmic texts to contrast the salient modalities of subjectivity that each form constructs. Each chapter considers how liminality manifests at the surface of the text, how a liminal agency operates to interrupt, destabilise, and displace subjectivity in the spaces between languages, genre, form, voice, states of consciousness, word and image, facticity and fictionality, and cinematic and literary tropes and modes. The discussion explores how this is reflected and expanded upon within the text, in liminal embodiments, intensities, and motifs, such as the hypnagogic, rites of passage, the uncanny, home, the vespertine, night, metamorphosis, carnival, as well as issues of space – the non-place, the extraterritorial, and nomadic space

How can a contemporary composer use film to enhance music?

There is a body of literature on music in film, and some analytical writing on music video, but almost no writing that approaches the subject from the point of view of how the film might support the music. My research question is, therefore, how can moving images help a composer to communicate music to an audience? To resolve this question I first analysed a number of key music/film works and formulated a hypothesis that there are five modes where film can support music. These are by • First Mode: creating an ambience conducive to the appreciation of music • Second Mode: using filmic tools such as editing and camerawork to emphasise musical elements • Third Mode: supplying context about the work and its creation • Fourth Mode: embedding the music in a format that facilitates the music’s appreciation • Fifth Mode: embedding the music into the narrative structure of the film. To explore this hypothesis I created three music/film artworks that utilised the techniques above. These were a video installation, a film that creates a supportive ambience for a set of piano nocturnes, and a feature length music documentary that features a number of music videos. In the conclusion I will state that through these works I have shown that these five modes do indeed enable film to support music

MediaSync: Handbook on Multimedia Synchronization

This book provides an approachable overview of the most recent advances in the fascinating field of media synchronization (mediasync), gathering contributions from the most representative and influential experts. Understanding the challenges of this field in the current multi-sensory, multi-device, and multi-protocol world is not an easy task. The book revisits the foundations of mediasync, including theoretical frameworks and models, highlights ongoing research efforts, like hybrid broadband broadcast (HBB) delivery and users' perception modeling (i.e., Quality of Experience or QoE), and paves the way for the future (e.g., towards the deployment of multi-sensory and ultra-realistic experiences). Although many advances around mediasync have been devised and deployed, this area of research is getting renewed attention to overcome remaining challenges in the next-generation (heterogeneous and ubiquitous) media ecosystem. Given the significant advances in this research area, its current relevance and the multiple disciplines it involves, the availability of a reference book on mediasync becomes necessary. This book fills the gap in this context. In particular, it addresses key aspects and reviews the most relevant contributions within the mediasync research space, from different perspectives. Mediasync: Handbook on Multimedia Synchronization is the perfect companion for scholars and practitioners that want to acquire strong knowledge about this research area, and also approach the challenges behind ensuring the best mediated experiences, by providing the adequate synchronization between the media elements that constitute these experiences