The Migration Of Forms: Bullet Time As Microgenre

Rehak considers the ways in which the film The Matrix branded bullet time both as technical process and stylistic convention, and discusses bullet time\u27s ancestry in image experimentation of the 1980s and 1990s. In his analysis, Rehak uses the conceptual framework of the microgenre to explore the cultural lifespan of bullet time, treating it less as a singular special effect than a package of photographic and digital techniques whose fortunes were shaped by a complex interplay of technology, narrative and style. Rehak\u27s goal is to shed light not just on bullet time, but on the changing behavior of visual texts in contemporary media. He examines an overview of special effects scholarship to date, most notably the indication that the repetition of special effects dulls their effectiveness, in part due to the changing competencies of audiences. Rehak also looks at the struggle of the filmmakers of The Matrix to craft sequels that simultaneously preserved bullet time\u27s appeal while varying it enough to ensure another breakthrough

Butler’s Kindred: Non-linear Genealogies and the Transformative Possibility of Breaking Genre Conventions

This article is featured in the journal Tapestries: Interwoven voices of local and global identities, volume 4

Computer-Generated Imagery

Computer-generated imagery or CGI is an area of digital visualization and image manipulation practices that, following its emergence in the late 1960s, quickly came to hold a privileged relationship to film production—affecting in particular visual effects, animation, and the big-budget blockbuster. In these areas, digital imaging is consistently pushed to its limits by an ever-advancing state of the art. In a view promoted by the industry through plentiful “making-of” coverage, CGI is strongly identified in the popular imagination with spectacular visual effects, demonstrating Hollywood’s prowess at realizing fantastic visions. But CGI plays a more significant if quieter role in its so-called invisible effects, which begin with the unnoticeable retouching of filmed “truth” and ripple outward to what some have warned is the destabilization of the cinematic medium itself, replacing the industry at every level—from production to exhibition and distribution—with its digital other. Academic attention to CGI grew slowly alongside its emergence as a powerful if alien force in filmmaking and film culture during the 1980s and 1990s but took off after the crucial year of 1999, when The Matrix heralded the fusion of analogue and digital cinema. CGI has become a key focus of popular attention on “behind the scenes” information, and an industrial entry point for fledgling filmmakers with access to cheap digital production tools. But even as it extends the powers and profits of the film industry, CGI has challenged established practices and definitions, destabilizing film’s ontological base, its indexical relationship to reality, the tenets of classical narrative structure, and even the boundaries separating film from other media such as video games, experimental art, and virtual reality.</p

The 'Sphinx' Head from the Cult Center at Mycenae

This study identifies the well-known plaster female head (often called a sphinx head) as the head of a cult statue

More Than Meets The Eye: Special Effects And The Fantastic Transmedia Franchise

From comic book universes crowded with soaring superheroes and shattering skyscrapers to cosmic empires set in far-off galaxies, today’s fantasy blockbusters depend on visual effects. Bringing science fiction from the studio to your screen, through film, television, or video games, these special effects power our entertainment industry. More Than Meets the Eye delves into the world of fantastic media franchises to trace the ways in which special effects over the last 50 years have become central not just to transmedia storytelling but to worldbuilding, performance, and genre in contemporary blockbuster entertainment. More Than Meets the Eye maps the ways in which special effects build consistent storyworlds and transform genres while traveling from one media platform to the next. Examining high-profile franchises in which special effects have played a constitutive role such as Star Trek, Star Wars, The Matrix, and The Lord of the Rings, as well as more contemporary franchises like Pirates of the Caribbean and Harry Potter, Bob Rehak analyzes the ways in which production practices developed alongside the cultural work of industry professionals. By studying social and cultural factors such as fan interaction, this book provides a context for understanding just how much multiplatform storytelling has come to define these megahit franchises. More Than Meets the Eye explores the larger history of how physical and optical effects in postwar Hollywood laid the foundation for modern transmedia franchises and argues that special effects are not simply an adjunct to blockbuster filmmaking, but central agents of an entire mode of production

Immortal and Ageless: Artemis in a Fresco from Akrotiri, Thera

This abstract of a paper sketches out an interpretation of the goddess in the women-oriented wall paintings from Xeste 3, Akrotiri, Thera (ca. 1600 BCE). The author proposes that she is Artemis

Saffron Crocus and Yellow Garments in Aegean Wall-Painting

This paper was prepared for the conference, Colour in the Ancient Mediterranean World, Edinburgh, 9-11 September 2001. The author revised the paper and published it in the volume dedicated to Sara Immerwahr (online at this site). The study looks at saffron-dyed costumes, with a focus on their appearance in Aegean art

Women and Children on the Ara Pacis Augustae

This paper explores the possibility of identifying all the figures on the Ara Pacis, and concludes that it is not possible, especially since the women and children are not organized by families

Off line Parallax Correction for Neutral Particle Gas Detectors

In a neutral particle gas detector, the parallax error resulting from the perpendicular projection on the detection plane or wire of the radial particle trajectories emanating from a point like source (such as a scattering sample) can significantly spoil the apparent angular resolution of the detector. However, as we will show, the information is not lost. We propose an off line data treatment to restore as much as possible the original scattering information in the case of a one-dimensional parallax effect. The reversibility of parallax follows from the algebraic structure of this effect, which is different from the resolution loss which is essentially irreversible. The interplay between finite resolution and parallax complicates the issue, but this can be resolved