DIGITAL, The Quiet Revolution in Filmmaking from Script to Screen. A case study called VIOLET CITY

From 2010 to 2014, John Maxwell produced, directed and edited a dark fantasy feature film called Violet City, shot entirely on a 40 metre long green screen constructed in disused canteen in Liverpool. The first film of its kind to be made in academia and harking back to German Expressionism and Pressburger & Powell, Violet City is a trailblazing project that uses accessible Visual Effects and 3D animation software to create a world of carnivorous plants and inter-dimensional demons. From the production processes to a forthcoming worldwide release that eschews physical media, distributing through an aggregator via iTunes, GooglePlay and games platforms, this project will find and market to its genre audience directly with a unique viral campaign using long tail marketing. The paper will chart the making and distribution of Violet City and what it will mean for independent filmmakers and their relationship with their audiences

Was early man caught knapping during the cognitive (r)evolution?

Wynn describes a revolution in cognitive abilities some 500,000 years ago, which added new sophistication to the curiosity of early man – the ability to form hypotheses. This derivative of archaic curiosity is a fundamental feature of learning, and it is our contention that the naive hypothesis testing behavior of early man will have left a distinctive trail in the archaeological record.published_or_final_versio

The development of a culturally appropriate analogy for implicit motor learning in a Chinese population

Learning a motor skill by analogy can benefit performers because the movement that is developed has characteristics of implicit motor learning: namely, movement robustness under pressure and secondary task distraction and limited accrual of explicit knowledge (Liao & Masters, 2001). At an applied level the advantages are lost, however, if the heuristic that underpins the analogy conveys abstractions that are inappropriate for the indigenous culture. The aim of the current experiment was to redevelop Masters's (2000) right-angled-triangle analogy to accommodate abstractions appropriate for Chinese learners. Novice Chinese participants learned to hit table tennis forehands with topspin using either a redeveloped, culturally appropriate analogy (analogy learning) or a set of 6 instructions relevant to hitting a topspin forehand in table tennis (explicit learning). Analogy learners accrued less explicit knowledge of the movements underlying their performance than explicit learners. In addition, a secondary task load disrupted the performance of explicit learners but not analogy learners. These findings indicate that a culturally relevant analogy can bring about implicit motor learning in a Chinese population. © 2007 Human Kinetics, Inc.published_or_final_versio

The influence of analogy learning on decision-making in table tennis: Evidence from behavioural data

Objectives: In sports it may be necessary for a performer to make a decision and execute a movement in close succession, or even concurrently. The manner in which a movement is controlled may impact on the degree to which the performer is able to combine decisions and movements effectively. Previous work has shown that if control of the movement has been acquired explicitly, with a high declarative knowledge content, dual-task conditions can be disruptive to performance of the movement. Previous work has also shown that, in contrast, if movement control is acquired by analogical instruction, with a low declarative knowledge content, motor performance is unaffected by dual-task conditions. It was, therefore, hypothesised that analogy learning will reduce the performance cost associated with processing motor responses while making high-complexity decisions. Methods: Participants learnt to hit a table tennis topspin forehand using either a single analogical instruction or a set of written instructions (explicit learning). Motor performance was assessed when decisions about the direction in which to hit the ball were either low in complexity or high in complexity. Results: Low-complexity decisions had no effect on motor performance in either condition. However, high-complexity decisions caused a relative performance deterioration in the Explicit condition, but not in the Analogy condition. Conclusions: These findings extend the implicit motor learning literature by highlighting the role of analogy learning in the complex interaction between decision-making and movement control in sport. © 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.postprin

Implicit motor learning and complex decision making in time-constrained environments

The cost-effectiveness of the implicit (procedural) knowledge that supports motor expertise enables surprisingly efficient performance when a decision and an action must occur in close temporal proximity. The authors argue that if novices learn the motor component of performance implicitly rather than explicitly, then they will also be efficient when they make a decision and execute an action in close temporal proximity. Participants (N = 35) learned a table tennis shot implicitly or explicitly. The authors assessed participants' motor performance and movement kinematics under conditions that required a concurrent low-complexity decision or a concurrent high-complexity decision about where to direct each shot. Performance was disrupted only for participants who learned explicitly when they made high-complexity decisions but not when they made low-complexity decisions. The authors conclude that implicit motor learning encourages cognitively efficient motor control more than does explicit motor learning, which allows performance to remain stable when time constraints call for a complex decision in tandem with a motor action. Copyright © 2008 Heldref Publications.published_or_final_versio

Benefits of an external focus of attention: Common coding or conscious processing?

We conducted two experiments to assess the effect attentional focus has on learning a complex motor skill and subsequent performance under secondary task loading. Participants in Experiment 1 learnt a golf putting task (300 practice trials) with a single instruction to either focus on their hands (internal focus) or the movement of the putter (external focus). No group differences were evident during learning or retention. Differences between the groups were only apparent under secondary task load; the external group's performance remained robust, while the internal group suffered a drop in performance. Verbal protocols demonstrated that the internal group accumulated significantly more internal knowledge and more task-relevant knowledge in general than the external group. Experiment 2 was designed to establish whether greater internal focus knowledge or greater explicit rule build up in general was responsible for performance breakdown. Two groups were presented with a set of six internal or external rules. Again, no performance differences were found during learning or retention. During the secondary task, both groups experienced performance deterioration. It was concluded that accumulation of explicit rules to guide performance was responsible for the internal group's breakdown in performance under secondary task loading and may be responsible for some of the performance differences reported previously. © 2006 Taylor & Francis.postprin

Repeated ischaemic preconditioning: A novel therapeutic intervention and potential underlying mechanisms.

Ischaemic preconditioning (IPC) refers to the phenomenon that short periods of cyclical tissue ischaemia confer subsequent protection against ischaemia-induced injury. As a consequence, IPC can ameliorate the myocardial damage following infarction and reduce infarct size. The ability of IPC to confer remote protection makes IPC a potentially feasible cardioprotective strategy. In this review, we discuss the concept that repeatedly exposing tissue to IPC may increase the "dose" of protection, and subsequently lead to enhanced protection against ischaemia-induced myocardial injury. This may be relevant for clinical populations, who demonstrate attenuated efficacy of IPC to prevent or attenuate ischaemic injury (and therefore myocardial infarct size). Furthermore, episodic IPC facilitates repeated exposure to local (e.g. shear stress) and systemic (e.g. hormones, cytokines, blood-borne substances) stimuli, which may induce improvement in vascular function and health. Such adaptation may contribute to prevention of cardio- and cerebro-vascular events. The clinical benefits of repeated IPC may, therefore, result from both the prevention of ischaemic events and attenuation of their consequences. We provide an overview of the literature pertaining to the impact of repeated IPC on cardiovascular function, related to both local and or remote adaptation, as well as potential clinical implications. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved

Attention and time constraints in performing and learning a table tennis forehand shot

This is a section on p. S95 of article 'Verbal and Poster: Motor Development, Motor Learning and Control, and Sport and Exercise Psychology' in Journal of Sport and Exercise Psychology, 2010, v.32, p.S36-S237published_or_final_versio

Ace of Spies

'Zounds. Would he be Prince of Spies, perchance Ace of Spies, were he not thick as pigshit, m’lord?' Augustus Van Caveat, court dandy to the monarchs of Europe. Bon viveur, devilishly handsome cad. Conman, brothel keeper, fantasist, consummate idiot. One night in Amsterdam, he is roughed up by the Spanish Inquisition and then kidnapped by their arch enemies, agents of Queen Elizabeth's protector Francis Walsingham. Frumagemmed across the North Sea, Caveat is manhandled all the way to Windsor where Walsingham recruits him, no choice in the matter. Papists are plotting, the Armada is here and Caveat must head North to salve a weeping sore on Regina's realm. Caveat's mission is to seduce the Catholic widow of a notorious rebel, bringing all his womanizing charms to bear. His mark is Lady Sarah Chingle, but the master of pomp has little grasp that the future of Europe depends on his scurrilous antics. God help us all

23rd Century A Technoir Tale

But a revolution is coming. And They will save humanity from an extinction of the mundane. This world without childhoods; post nuclear London Town underground, 23rd Century VoQue ephemera obsession