This book develops a critical and theoretical approach to the semiotics of motion pictures as they are applied to a broader range of constructions than traditional commercial narrative productions. This interdisciplinary approach begins with the problems posed by motion perception to develop a model of cinematic interpretation that includes both narrative and non-narrative types of productions. Contrasting traditional theatrical projection and varieties of new media, this book integrates analyses of title sequences, music videos, and visual effects with discussions on classic and avant-garde films. It further explores the intersection between formative audio-visual cues identified by viewers and how viewers’ desires direct engagement with the motion picture to present a framework for understanding cinematic articulation. This new theoretical model incorporates much of what was neglected and gives greater prominence to formerly critical marginal productions by showing the fundamental connections that link all moving imagery and animated text, whether it tells a story or not. This insightful work will appeal to students and academics in film and media studies.

This book explores the question of realism in motion pictures. Specifically, it explores how understanding the role of realism in the history of title sequences in film can illuminate discussions raised by the advent of digital cinema. Ideologies of the Real in Title Sequences, Motion Graphics and Cinema fills a critical and theoretical void in the existing literature on motion graphics. Developed from careful analysis of André Bazin, Stanley Cavell, and Giles Deleuze’s approaches to cinematic realism, this analysis uses title sequences to engage the interface between narrative and non-narrative media to consider cinematic realism in depth through highly detailed close readings of the title sequences for Bullitt (1968), Kolchak: The Night Stalker (1974), The Number 23 (2007), The Kingdom (2008), Blade Runner: 2049 (2017) and the James Bond films. From this critique, author Michael Betancourt develops a modal approach to cinematic realism where ontology is irrelevant to indexicality. His analysis shows the continuity between historical analogue film and contemporary digital motion pictures by developing a framework for rethinking how realism shapes interpretation.

This book explores the factors contributing to the under-representation of African American female directors in mainstream cinema leadership. It also unmasks the potential strategies African American female film directors might pursue to reduce this inequity. Author Tracy L. F. Worley draws on research around ethics to conclude that there are specific consequences of the male gaze on women in cinema leadership, especially African American female directors of box office cinema. Combining extensive analysis of ethics and ethical stance relative to the motion picture industry with perspectives from working African American female directors, the text discusses the ethical considerations and historical inequities, including the male gaze, and uses those findings to define how the inequities can be opportunities. The efficacy model for cinematic leadership is presented as a mechanism for viewing obstacles through the lenses of gender, ethnicity, and culture so they become drivers for African American women to achieve success. Ideal for students of directing and filmmaking, as well as aspiring professional filmmakers wishing to gain a better understanding of the industry as it stands today.

This book focuses on key challenges related to conducting research on mediatisation, presenting the most current theoretical, empirical, and methodological challenges and problems, addressing ignored and less frequently discussed topics, critical and controversial themes, and defining niches and directions of development in mediatisation. With a focus on the under-representation of certain topics and aspects, as well as methodological, technological, and ethical dilemmas, the chapters consider the main critical objections formulated against mediatisation studies and exchange critical positions. Moving beyond areas of common focus – culture, sport, and religion – to emerging areas of study such as fashion, the military, business, and the environment, the book then offers a critical assessment of the transformation of fields and the relevance of new and dynamic (meta)processes including datafication, counter-mediatisation, and platformisation. Charting new paths of development in mediatisation, this book will be of interest to scholars and students of mediatisation, media studies, media literacy, communication studies, and research methods.

Evaluating the existing position of film as research, Filmmaking in Academia offers clear guidance and practical advice from the planning and conception of research films to the making, evaluation, dissemination and impact of practice-based research. This book aspires to serve as a guide for new and current researchers in screen-based media and creative practice. It seeks to explore the scope, definitions, methodologies, and interdisciplinary (and post-disciplinary) nature of film research projects. Author Agata Lulkowska focuses on how to manage potential challenges when artistic creativity meets research requirements, emphasising how finding the middle ground that serves both purposes often requires redesigning brand-new methodological approaches. Looking specifically at the publication routes for research films, the book highlights current dissemination practices and raises the question of impact throughout to re-contextualise current publication methodologies for practice-based projects. This exciting new work provides key reading for graduate students, academics, and filmmakers looking to move into academia.

While many live-action films portray disability as a spectacle, "crip animation" (a genre of animated films that celebrates disabled people's lived experiences) uses a variety of techniques like clay animation, puppets, pixilation, and computer-generated animation to represent the inner worlds of people with disabilities. Crip animation has the potential to challenge the ableist gaze and immerse viewers in an alternative bodily experience. In Animated Film and Disability, Slava Greenberg analyzes over 30 animated works about disabilities, including Rocks in My Pockets, An Eyeful of Sound, and A Shift in Perception. He considers the ableism of live-action cinematography, the involvement of filmmakers with disabilities in the production process, and the evocation of the spectators' senses of sight and hearing, consequently subverting traditional spectatorship and listenership hierarchies. In addition, Greenberg explores physical and sensory accessibility in theaters and suggests new ways to accommodate cinematic screenings. Offering an introduction to disability studies and crip theory for film, media, and animation scholars, Animated Film and Disability demonstrates that crip animation has the power to breach the spectator's comfort, evoking awareness of their own bodies and, in certain cases, their social privileges.

In his third book on the semiotics of title sequences, Title Sequences as Paratexts, theorist Michael Betancourt offers an analysis of the relationship between the title sequence and its primary text—the narrative whose production the titles credit. Using a wealth of examples drawn from across film history—ranging from White Zombie (1931), Citizen Kane (1940) and Bullitt (1968) to Prince of Darkness (1987), Mission: Impossible (1996), Sucker Punch (2011) and Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 2 (2017)—Betancourt develops an understanding of how the audience interprets title sequences as instances of paranarrative, simultaneously engaging them as both narrative exposition and as credits for the production. This theory of cinematic paratexts, while focused on the title sequence, has application to trailers, commercials, and other media as well.

Film: The Key Concepts presents a coherent, clear and exciting overview of film theory for beginning readers. The book takes the reader through the often conflicting analyses that make up film theory, illustrating arguments with examples from mainstream and independent films. Concise and comprehensive, the book guides the reader through realism, formalism, structuralism, semiotics, Marxism, psychoanalysis, feminism, cognitivism, post-colonialism, postmodernism, gender and queer film theory, stardom and film audience research. The book as a whole provides a complete overview of the evolution of film theory. Throughout, the analysis is illustrated with lively boxed studies of key mainstream and independent films. Bulleted chapter summaries, questions and guides to further reading are also provided.

In the earliest years of cinema, travelogues were a staple of variety film programs in commercial motion picture theaters. These short films, also known as "scenics," depicted tourist destinations and exotic landscapes otherwise inaccessible to most viewers. Scenics were so popular that they were briefly touted as the future of film. But despite their pervasiveness during the early twentieth century, travelogues have been overlooked by film historians and critics. In Education in the School of Dreams, Jennifer Lynn Peterson recovers this lost archive. Through innovative readings of travelogues and other nonfiction films exhibited in the United States between 1907 and 1915, she offers fresh insights into the aesthetic and commercial history of early cinema and provides a new perspective on the intersection of American culture, imperialism, and modernity in the nickelodeon era. Peterson describes the travelogue's characteristic form and style and demonstrates how imperialist ideologies were realized and reshaped through the moving image. She argues that although educational films were intended to legitimate filmgoing for middle-class audiences, travelogues were not simply vehicles for elite ideology. As a form of instructive entertainment, these technological moving landscapes were both formulaic and also wondrous and dreamlike. Considering issues of spectatorship and affect, Peterson argues that scenics produced and disrupted viewers' complacency about their own place in the world.

From Bangladesh and Hong Kong to Iran and South Africa, film industries around the world are rapidly growing at a time when new digital technologies are fundamentally changing how films are made and viewed. Larger film industries like Bollywood and Nollywood aim to attain Hollywood's audience and profitability, while smaller, less commercial, and often state-funded enterprises support various cultural and political projects. The contributors to Anthropology, Film Industries, Modularity take an ethnographic and comparative approach to capturing the diversity and growth of global film industries. They outline how modularity—the specialized filmmaking tasks that collectively produce a film—operates as a key feature in every film industry, independent of local context. Whether they are examining the process of dubbing Hollywood films into Hindi, virtual reality filmmaking in South Africa, or on-location shooting in Yemen, the contributors' anthropological methodology brings into relief the universal practices and the local contingencies and deeper cultural realities of film production. Contributors. Steven C. Caton, Jessica Dickson, Kevin Dwyer, Tejaswini Ganti, Lotte Hoek, Amrita Ibrahim, Sylvia J. Martin, Ramyar D. Rossoukh