Making available massive amounts of data that are generated, distributed, and modeled, digital media provide us with the possibility of abundant information and knowledge. This possibility has been attracting various scenarios in which technology either eliminates non-knowledge or plants it deep within contemporary cultures through the universal power and opacity of algorithms. This volume comp…
This book charts and analyses the work of Oliver Stone – arguably one of the foremost political filmmakers in Hollywood during the last thirty years. Drawing on previously unseen production files from Oliver Stone’s personal archives and hours of interviews both with Stone and a range of present and former associates within the industry, the book employs a thematic structure to explore Ston…
"Han Hyung-mo was a major figure within South Korea’s Golden Age cinema. The director of Madame Freedom (1956), the most famous film of the 1950s, Han made popular films that explored women’s relationship to modernity. He was also a master stylist who introduced technological innovations and fresh ideas about film form and genre into Korean cinema. This book offers a transnational cultural …
Screen Space Reconfigured is the first edited volume that critically and theoretically examines the many novel renderings of space brought to us by 21st century screens. Exploring key cases such as post-perspectival space, 3D, vertical framing, haptics, and layering, this volume takes stock of emerging forms of screen space and spatialities as they move from the margins to the centre of contemp…
In contrast with media constructed as vast, ontologically homogeneous, non-localized systems, formats show material networks of interoperability and exclusions, inscribed in local specificities, and involving precise conditions for the circulation of images and sounds. Formats, institutionalized as standards, frame the “technical networks” defined by Gilbert Simondon, that unfold technical …
Film criticism is in crisis. Dwelling on the many film journalists made redundant at newspapers, magazines, and other 'old media' in past years, commentators have voiced existential questions about the purpose and worth of the profession in the age of WordPress blogospheres and proclaimed the 'death of the critic'. Bemoaning the current anarchy of internet amateurs and the lack of authoritative…
This important and first-of-its-kind collection addresses the emerging challenges in the field of media art preservation and exhibition, providing an outline for the training of professionals in this field. Since the emergence of time-based media such as film, video and digital technology, artists have used them to experiment with their potential. The resulting artworks, with their basis in rap…
The global film industry has witnessed significant transformation in the past few years. Regions outside the US have begun to prosper while non-traditional production companies, such as Netflix have assumed a larger market share, and online movies adapted from literature have continued to gain in popularity. How have these trends shaped the global film industry? This book answers this question …
This is an open access book. Media industry research and EU policymaking are predominantly tailored to large (and, in the latter case, Western) European markets. This open access book addresses the specific qualities of smaller media markets, highlighting their vulnerability to global digital competition and outlining survival strategies for them. New online distribution models and new trends i…
The globalization and digitalization of cultural markets presents formidable challenges for local cinema and storytelling. The essays in this collection address some of these challenges from the perspective of a critical political economy of local cinema. Inspiring these contributions is the effort of supporting local cinema as a form of valuable storytelling that is at risk of market-driven ex…
Independent Filmmaking across Borders in Contemporary Asia examines an array of auteur-driven fiction and documentary independent film projects that have emerged since the turn of the millennium from East and Southeast Asia, a strand of transnational filmmaking that converges with Asia’s vibrant yet unevenly developed independent film movements amidst global neoliberalism. These projects bear…
"Lúcia Nagib redefines realism not as a mere question of rhetoric or style, or a product of a certain age and place, but as a deep and steadfast commitment of filmmakers to an "ethics of the real" based on various forms of engagement with physical reality, which may include "passages" provided by the other arts. Her incisive theoretical arguments and finely nuanced close readings will change f…
Advertising has played a central role in shaping the history of modern media. While often identified with American consumerism and the rise of the 'Information Society', motion picture advertising has been part of European visual culture since the late nineteenth century. With the global spread of ad agencies, moving image advertisements became a privileged cultural form to make people experien…
This book examines the history of concert dance in China from 1935 to 2015, with a focus on Chinese dance and its relationship to revolutionary performance culture in PRC history. The book argues that Chinese dance, not revolutionary ballet, was the primary legacy of Maoist dance research and innovation. Showing the relationship between dance and politics, it discusses dance developments during…
Players and Arenas brings together a diverse group of experts to examine the interactions between political protestors and the many strategic players they encounter, such as cultural institutions, religious organizations, and the mass media—as well as potential allies, competitors, recruits, and funders. Discussing protestors and players as they interact within the “arenas” of specific so…
This book analyses the authoring of ethnographic films between 1895 and 2015. It is based on the general argument that the ethnographicness of a film should not be gauged according to whether it is about an exotic culture, but rather by the degree to which it conforms to the norms of ethnographic practice more generally. On these grounds, it considers films made in a broad range of styles, on a…
Animating Truth examines the rise of animated documentary in the 21st century, and addresses how non-photorealistic animation is increasingly used to depict and shape reality.
"Han Hyung-mo was a major figure within South Korea’s Golden Age cinema. The director of Madame Freedom (1956), the most famous film of the 1950s, Han made popular films that explored women’s relationship to modernity. He was also a master stylist who introduced technological innovations and fresh ideas about film form and genre into Korean cinema. This book offers a transnational cultural …
Frank Herbert’s »Dune« (1965) is considered to be one of the most successful Science Fiction novels of the 20th century. It introduces its readers to a future universe, in which the production of the most valuable resource of the universe – ›spice‹ – is only possible on one vast desert planet called Arrakis. »Dune« offers many different motifs, including a hero that eventually tur…
"Han Hyung-mo was a major figure within South Korea’s Golden Age cinema. The director of Madame Freedom (1956), the most famous film of the 1950s, Han made popular films that explored women’s relationship to modernity. He was also a master stylist who introduced technological innovations and fresh ideas about film form and genre into Korean cinema. This book offers a transnational cultural …
This book provides the production history and a contextual interpretation of The Beatles' movies (A Hard Day's Night, Help!, Yellow Submarine, Let It Be) and describes their ability to project the group's image at different stages in their career. It also includes a discussion of all of The Beatles' promotional films and videos, as well as their television cartoon series and the self-produced t…
Fifty years of feminist thought have made the idea that women stay at home while men dominate the streets seem outdated; nevertheless, Ceuterick argues that theoretical considerations of gender, space, and power in film theory remain limited by binary models. Looking instead to more fluid models of spatial relations inspired by Sara Ahmed, Rosi Braidotti, and Doreen Massey, this book discovers …
Animating Film Theory provides an enriched understanding of the relationship between two of the most unwieldy and unstable organizing concepts in cinema and media studies: animation and film theory. For the most part, animation has been excluded from the purview of film theory. The contributors to this collection consider the reasons for this marginalization while also bringing attention to key…
Uncanny computer-generated animations of splashing waves, billowing smoke clouds, and characters’ flowing hair have become a ubiquitous presence on screens of all types since the 1980s. This Open Access book charts the history of these digital moving images and the software tools that make them. Unpredictable Visual Effects uncovers an institutional and industrial history that saw media indus…