Vampires in Silent Cinema
Despite the enormous cultural impact of Nosferatu (1922) on modern entertainment, the history of vampires in silent film is largely unknown. Vampires in Silent Cinema covers the subject from 1896-1931, reclaiming a large array of forgotten films from countries ranging from the United States and France to Hungary and Russia. Drawing on thousands of primary sources, Rhodes explores vampirism in all of its manifestations, from the supernatural undead to the natural vamp.
Archivability of Television
This anthology critically evaluates archives and archival processes that collect, order, and preserve elements of television as historically, culturally, socially, politically, and economically significant material. What do we know about how television moved from ephemeral broadcasts and mounds of paperwork documenting bureaucratic and creative processes to become historical material housed in archives? This book's guiding principles are to interrogate where television as historical material "lives" and to collect the stories of some ways television preservation has been and continues to be deeply circumstantial and idiosyncratic. Bringing together work by academics, archivists, and practitioners, the book offers insights into the archival processes that confer television programs with historical value. With a focus on television's archival spaces, the book contributes more broadly to theories, histories, and practices of archiving. Likewise, the theories and questions about archives provide insights into the specificities of the medium, the relations between technologies and culture, the political economy of the culture industries, and the minutiae of television's "place" in American society.
Gooey Media
The Graphic User Interface, or GUI, is the adhesive centre of today's screen entertainment web. From films and television to apps and videogames, it holds together a multitude of media and shapes the way they are accessed, organised, created, consumed, and manipulated. However, it does not do so without leaving viscous traces, and Gooey Media: Screen Entertainment and the Graphic User Interface examines this residue and its consequences, revealing how the GUI exerts a powerful influence on contemporary media.Focusing on aesthetics and adopting a media agnostic approach, Jones explores cinema, streaming platforms, television, user-generated content, videogames, apps, virtual reality, VFX, design software, and more in order to show how they cross-pollinate with one another and with our desktop interfaces. The result is a new approach for analysing convergent media in the digital era.
Charting Asian German Film History
Provides a diachronic view of Asian German film history from early Orientalism to increasing collaboration as well as exploration of difference and alternate forms of national and cultural belonging. From re-creating seedy opium dens and Hindu temples on set to capturing dazzling sights of Tokyo's neon-lit streets and Berlin's bustling Dong Xuan Center on location, cinema has provided German-speaking audiences a window into the "exotic" cultures of Asia since the early 1900s. Over time, unilateral German imaginings of Asian cultures and people increasingly gave way to collaboration with Asian countries and more variegated portrayals of the diasporic experiences of Asians in Europe, though Orientalist tropes have not been fully mitigated. The present volume embraces several understudied regions of Asia as well as Austria and Switzerland. It incorporates archival research, close scene analyses, and genre overviews that elucidate the production and reception histories of individual films, drawing on the knowledge of film historians, cultural studies scholars, and Germanists based in North America, Europe, and Asia. The volume approaches film history by observing three distinct phenomena: early German cinematic imaginings of Asia, co-productions shot on location, and representations of the Asian German diaspora. The book aims to chart unwritten chapters of film history by pitching new readings of old masterpieces, exploring lesser-known works of prolific directors, and uncovering the roles of Asian collaborators from the early twentieth century to the new millennium.
Mutants, Androids, and Aliens
In both literature and film, mutants, androids, and aliens have long functioned as humanity's Other--nonhuman bodies serving as surrogates to explore humanity's prejudice, bigotry, and hatred. Scholars working in fields of feminism, ethnic studies, queer studies, and disability studies, among others, have deconstructed representations of the Othered body and the ways these fictional depictions provide insight into the contested terrains of identity, subjectivity, and personhood. In science fiction more broadly and the superhero genre in particular, the fictional Other--often a superhero or a villain--is juxtaposed against the normal human, and such Others have long been the subject of academic investigation. Author James A. Tyner shifts this scholarly focus to consider the ordinary humans who ally with or oppose Othered superheroes. Law enforcement officers, military officials, politicians, and the countless, nameless civilians are all examples of humans who try to make sense of a rapidly changing more-than-human and other-than-human universe. The resulting volume, Mutants, Androids, and Aliens: On Being Human in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, provides a critical posthumanist reading of being human in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU). Centering the MCU's secondary human characters, including Matthew Ellis, Ellen Nadeer, Rosalind Price, as well as Jimmy Woo, Sadie Deever, Holden Radcliffe, and others, Tyner considers how these characters attempt to monitor, incarcerate, or exterminate those beings considered "unnatural" and thus threatening. Placing into conversation posthumanism, environmental ethics, and myriad philosophical and biological ontologies of life and death, Tyner maintains that the superhero genre reflects the current complexities of meaningful life--and of what happens in society when "the human" is no longer the unquestioned normative standard.
Mutants, Androids, and Aliens
In both literature and film, mutants, androids, and aliens have long functioned as humanity's Other--nonhuman bodies serving as surrogates to explore humanity's prejudice, bigotry, and hatred. Scholars working in fields of feminism, ethnic studies, queer studies, and disability studies, among others, have deconstructed representations of the Othered body and the ways these fictional depictions provide insight into the contested terrains of identity, subjectivity, and personhood. In science fiction more broadly and the superhero genre in particular, the fictional Other--often a superhero or a villain--is juxtaposed against the normal human, and such Others have long been the subject of academic investigation. Author James A. Tyner shifts this scholarly focus to consider the ordinary humans who ally with or oppose Othered superheroes. Law enforcement officers, military officials, politicians, and the countless, nameless civilians are all examples of humans who try to make sense of a rapidly changing more-than-human and other-than-human universe. The resulting volume, Mutants, Androids, and Aliens: On Being Human in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, provides a critical posthumanist reading of being human in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU). Centering the MCU's secondary human characters, including Matthew Ellis, Ellen Nadeer, Rosalind Price, as well as Jimmy Woo, Sadie Deever, Holden Radcliffe, and others, Tyner considers how these characters attempt to monitor, incarcerate, or exterminate those beings considered "unnatural" and thus threatening. Placing into conversation posthumanism, environmental ethics, and myriad philosophical and biological ontologies of life and death, Tyner maintains that the superhero genre reflects the current complexities of meaningful life--and of what happens in society when "the human" is no longer the unquestioned normative standard.
Crafting Short Screenplays That Connect
Crafting Short Screenplays That Connect, Sixth Edition, stands alone among screenwriting books by emphasizing that human connection, though often overlooked, is as essential to writing effective screenplays as conflict.Award-winning writer and director Claudia Hunter Johnson teaches you the all-important basics of dramatic technique and guides you through the challenging craft of writing short screenplays with carefully focused exercises of increasing length and complexity. In completing these exercises and applying Johnson's techniques and insights to your own work, you will learn how to think more deeply about the screenwriter's purpose, craft effective patterns of human change, and strengthen your storytelling skills. This 25th Anniversary Edition features 11 short screenplays, including Academy Award winning Barry Jenkins' (Moonlight, If Beale Street Could Talk) luminous short film, My Josephine (now in the Criterion Collection), and an accompanying companion website that features the completed films and additional screenplay examples. The book has also been updated and expanded to include more excerpts from leading films and TV series as well as collaboration exercises and invaluable guidance about giving and receiving effective feedback.This ground-breaking book will show you how to advance and deepen your screenwriting skills, increasing your ability to write richer, more resonant short screenplays that will connect with your audience. It remains an absolute must-have resource for students of screenwriting.
Producing Film and Television
This book is about what it takes to be a producer, the person responsible for getting a project off the ground and seeing it through to a conclusion sometimes years after things got started. For this reason, a thing often said about producers is that they are "first in and last out", meaning they are there at the start of a film or television series and still there when everyone else has gone on to their next project. Written by two highly experienced television and film producers, this is the ultimate guide to navigating the world of film and television production in the UK - with lessons for anyone working or wanting to work in these industries across the world.The book covers all types of television and film production, including drama, documentary, entertainment, comedy and children's programming. Through its step-by-step breakdowns of industry practices, first-hand insights and unique checklists, it gives readers a behind-the-scenes look at what it takes to succeed in these competitive fields. In addition, each section presents a deep dive into the mysteries of getting into the industry and useful infographics on key elements of the producing process.Directed towards students, recent graduates or seasoned professionals looking to change direction, this book will help readers break into film and television industries or take their career to the next level.
