A Pocket Guide to Analyzing Films

A Pocket Guide to Analyzing Films

Author: Robert Spadoni

Publisher: Univ of California Press

Published: 2014-08-30

Total Pages: 193

ISBN-13: 0520958764

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The perfect concise guide to the formal analysis of film. Designed to be used by readers at many levels of knowledge, this book moves systematically through the elements that make up most films, focusing on aspects of the art of cinema that are common across history and national cinemas. From form and narrative to mise-en-scène and cinematography to editing and sound, Robert Spadoni introduces and explains the principles and conventions of film in engaging, straightforward language. In addition to illustrating film techniques with almost 200 images—most of them in color—the book explains ways to find patterns and meaning in films through such concepts as motifs, development, and motivation. Thumbnail readings of exemplary films further lay out the essentials of formal analysis. Film illustrations include frame enlargements from Stagecoach, Psycho, Jeepers Creepers, Persepolis, Groundhog Day, Take Shelter, and more. Modestly priced and packed with images, A Pocket Guide to Analyzing Films is ideal for students in a wide range of film courses who are looking for an easy-to-read guide to film analysis to accompany and enhance their course materials.


How Popular Culture Destroys Our Political Imagination

How Popular Culture Destroys Our Political Imagination

Author: Eugene Nulman

Publisher: Taylor & Francis

Published: 2024-11-29

Total Pages: 260

ISBN-13: 1040184618

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How Popular Culture Destroys Our Political Imagination: Capitalism and Its Alternatives in Film and Television explores the representations of capitalism, the state, and their alternatives in popular screen media texts. Acknowledging the problems that stem systemically from capitalism and the state, this book investigates an often-overlooked reason why society struggles to imagine alternative economic and political systems in our neoliberal age: popular culture. The book analyzes 455 screen media texts in search of critiques and alternative representations of these systems and demonstrates the ways in which film and television shape the way we collectively see the world and imagine our political futures. It suggests that popular culture is the answer to the question of why it is easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism. Contributing to the areas of sociology, media studies, and utopian studies, this book provides insights into the topic of popular culture and politics in a theoretically informed and entertaining manner. The book will be useful to both students and scholars interested in these topics, as well as activists and organizers seeking to make the world a better place.


The Dread of Difference

The Dread of Difference

Author: Barry Keith Grant

Publisher: University of Texas Press

Published: 2015-04-01

Total Pages: 558

ISBN-13: 1477302425

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“The Dread of Difference is a classic. Few film studies texts have been so widely read and so influential. It’s rarely on the shelf at my university library, so continuously does it circulate. Now this new edition expands the already comprehensive coverage of gender in the horror film with new essays on recent developments such as the Hostel series and torture porn. Informative and enlightening, this updated classic is an essential reference for fans and students of horror movies.”—Stephen Prince, editor of The Horror Film and author of Digital Visual Effects in Cinema: The Seduction of Reality “An impressive array of distinguished scholars . . . gazes deeply into the darkness and then forms a Dionysian chorus reaffirming that sexuality and the monstrous are indeed mated in many horror films.”—Choice “An extremely useful introduction to recent thinking about gender issues within this genre.”—Film Theory


Merchants of Menace

Merchants of Menace

Author: Richard Nowell

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA

Published: 2014-04-10

Total Pages: 280

ISBN-13: 1623563941

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Even though horror has been a key component of media output for almost a century, the genre's industrial character remains under explored and poorly understood. Merchants of Menace: The Business of Horror Cinema responds to a major void in film history by shedding much-needed new light on the economic dimensions of one of the world's most enduring audiovisual forms. Given horror cuts across budgetary categories, industry sectors, national film cultures, and media, Merchants of Menace also promises to expand understandings of the economics of cinema generally. Covering 1930-present, this groundbreaking collection boasts fourteen original chapters from world-leading experts taking as their focus such diverse topics as early zombie pictures, post-WWII chillers, Civil Rights-Era marketing, Hollywood literary adaptations, Australian exploitation, "torture-porn" Auteurs, and twenty-first-century remakes.


Films from the Future

Films from the Future

Author: Andrew Maynard

Publisher: Mango Media Inc.

Published: 2018-11-15

Total Pages: 246

ISBN-13: 1633539067

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“Deftly shows how a seemingly frivolous film genre can guide us in shaping tomorrow’s world.” —Seth Shostak, senior astronomer, SETI Institute Artificial intelligence, gene manipulation, cloning, and interplanetary travel are all ideas that seemed like fairy tales but a few years ago. And now their possibilities are very much here. But are we ready to handle these advances? This book, by a physicist and expert on responsible technology development, reveals how science fiction movies can help us think about and prepare for the social consequences of technologies we don’t yet have, but that are coming faster than we imagine. Films from the Future looks at twelve movies that take us on a journey through the worlds of biological and genetic manipulation, human enhancement, cyber technologies, and nanotechnology. Readers will gain a broader understanding of the complex relationship between science and society. The movies mix old and new, and the familiar and unfamiliar, to provide a unique, entertaining, and ultimately transformative take on the power of emerging technologies, and the responsibilities they come with.


A Pocket Guide to Writing in History

A Pocket Guide to Writing in History

Author: Mary Lynn Rampolla

Publisher: Macmillan

Published: 2012-01-20

Total Pages: 174

ISBN-13: 0312610416

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A Pocket Guide to Writing in History provides all the advice students need to write effectively in any history course -- from introductory surveys to upper-level seminars -- in a quick-reference format.


Sleepless in Hollywood

Sleepless in Hollywood

Author: Lynda Obst

Publisher: Simon and Schuster

Published: 2013-06-11

Total Pages: 304

ISBN-13: 1476727740

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Explores how the DVD market's collapse has triggered a refocus on special effects and 3D over expensive actors and writers, drawing on insights from industry experts to consider if an increasingly eccentric movie business is salvageable.


Directing

Directing

Author: Michael Rabiger

Publisher: Taylor & Francis

Published: 2013-04-02

Total Pages: 690

ISBN-13: 1136042490

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Directing: Film Techniques and Aesthetics is a comprehensive manual that teaches the essentials of filmmaking from the perspective of the director. Ideal for film production and directing classes, as well as for aspiring and current directors, Directing covers all phases of preproduction and production, from idea development to final cut. Thoroughly covering the basics, Directing guides the reader to professional standards of expression and control, and goes to the heart of what makes a director. The book outlines a great deal of practical work to meet this goal, with projects, exercises. The third edition emphasizes the connection between knowing and doing, with every principle realizable through projects and exercises. Much has been enhanced and expanded, notably: aspects of dramaturgy; beats and dramatic units; pitching stories and selling one's work; the role of the entrepreneurial producer; and the dangers of embedded moral values. Checklists are loaded with practical recommendations for action, and outcomes assessment tables help the reader honestly gauge his or her progress. Entirely new chapters present: preproduction procedures; production design; script breakdown; procedures and etiquette on the set; shooting location sound; continuity; and working with a composer. The entire book is revised to capitalize on the advantages offered by the revolutionary shift to digital filmmaking.


Images of Children in American Film

Images of Children in American Film

Author: Kathy Merlock Jackson

Publisher: Metuchen, N.J. : Scarecrow Press

Published: 1986

Total Pages: 256

ISBN-13:

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Uses images of children in films as a benchmark to examine broadscale social change. Fascinating study...A lucid, authoritative and never ponderous examination of an important aspect of the cinema as social history. Highly recommended. --FILM REVIEW ANNUAL


The Film Sense

The Film Sense

Author: Sergei Eisenstein

Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

Published: 1947

Total Pages: 316

ISBN-13: 9780156309356

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A renowned Soviet director discusses his theory of film as an artistic medium which must appeal to all senses and applies it to an analysis of sequences from his major movies.