Easy Prey is a three-dimensional (3D) animated action comedy short film about stereotypes, expectations, and portrayals of strength that follows a ballerina as she is cornered in an alley. The fight that ensues expresses women's empowerment, physically and emotionally, by challenging preconceptions of ballerinas and the performance of femininity. This expression is founded on the intentional inclusion and exclusion of common cinematic tropes to efficiently convey key information while undermining common stereotypes. The action and atmosphere utilize classic film techniques to heighten and release tension. Easy Prey is inspired by my personal journey in healing my relationship with femininity and its societal performance, finding value and strength where I once felt shame and inferiority. In confronting preconceptions in this film, the viewer is encouraged to reflect upon their own biases and views on strength while being entertained.

Users sharing their experiences on social media and streaming sites becomes increasingly important for marketing games. Virtual reality has the added challenge that the head movement is sometimes too erratic to capture and present on a flat screen. This paper solves this issue by automatically generating highlight cinematics for virtual reality action games using new camera angles to create easily shareable media focusing on non-players. The problem is solved by first identifying the interest over time, then split it into sequences of coherent action. The most interesting sequences are selected for the highlight reel where each sequence is split into clips tied to a specific camera angle. The highlight cinematics was evaluated using a survey. The results suggest that dynamic cameras are more engaging and interesting than static cameras. The selection of camera angles gave more significant results than the length of the highlight or the intensity of the action, pointing towards the presentation of the highlight cinematic being more important than the actual highlighted material for non-players. / Det blir alltmer viktigt att spelare delar med sig av sina upplevelser på sociala medier som en form av marknadsföring för spel. Denna delning blir svårare från virtuell verklighet till vanliga skärmar då de snabba huvudrörelserna gör det svårt att följa vad som händer. Detta problem kan lösas genom att automatiskt identifiera höjdpunkter i spel och filma in dem med nya kameravinklar för att generera en video som är enkelt delbar. Höjdpunkterna identifieras genom att först analysera intresset över tid i matchen. Därefter delas det upp i olika sekvenser där de mest intressanta sekvenserna gör upp videon. Sekvenserna delas upp i olika klipp där varje klipp är kopplat till en kameravinkel. Programmet utvärderades med en enkät där målgruppen var de som inte spelat spelet tidigare. Resultatet tyder på att dynamiska kameravinklar ses som mer engagerande och intressanta än statiska kameravinklar. Valet av kameravinklar gav mer betydande resultat än längden på videorna och intensiteten i handlingen, vilket tyder på att framläggandet av videorna är viktigare än det underliggande materialet för de som inte spelat spelet tidigare.

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My graduate film at Virginia Commonwealth University, "Nunna Mia e la Barca," explores the traditions behind narrative and documentary film construction. With this project, my goal was to blend narrative story telling techniques - for example continuity editing - with that of documentary approaches in order to communicate the story of my Italian grandmother, Nunna, and her journey on the Andrea Doria in 1956. These documentary approaches focus more on the specific details of Nunna's American home as I have experienced them growing up. Everything in the motion picture frame has been lit, composed, rehearsed, and edited as in any fictional film, but the actors are my family and do play themselves and others throughout the piece. Although the work is scripted, the actuality of Nunna being herself and acting out her daily tasks creates a soft merging of fiction and nonfiction that makes the film nearly docudramatic. The docudramatic elements(elements dramatized from a true story) stem from both the biographical information as well as the perception of the abstracted objects in Nunna's house. As in most of my films, my interest lies in the relationship between past and present events and the effect they have on the individual experiencing them. In order for me to tackle the combination of narrative and documentary, I had to define the terms as I understood them to be.

This essay investigates the ecological values present in antagonists and protagonists in the narrative revolving the Avengers of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. The analysis concludes that biocentric ideals primarily are embodied by the main antagonist of the film series, whereas the protagonists mainly represent anthropocentric perspectives. Since there is a continuum between these two ideals some variations were found within the characters themselves, but philosophical conflicts related to the environment were also found within the group of the Avengers. Excerpts from the films of the study can thus be used to discuss and highlight complex ecological issues within the EFL-classroom.

Nesta dissertação, partimos da base teórica da semiótica francesa para abordar o sincretismo da linguagem cinematográfica, sistema semiótico no qual é possível obter a significação homogênea da forma códica sincrética a partir da sincretização de linguagens concorrentes. Procuramos estabelecer o lugar do cinema na teoria semiótica para que a análise dos objetos sincréticos possa ser elaborada de maneira ampla considerando todas as linguagens envolvidas em sua manifestação. Assim, partimos das colocações do conceito de sincretismo de Hjelmslev (1975), Greimas e Courtés (1979) e dos avanços teóricos de Beividas (1983) para aprofundar a discussão a respeito de como pode ocorrer o arranjo e a organização das linguagens participantes do sistema de sincretização na linguagem do cinema, tendo em vista que se colocariam como funções do sistema sincrético e também como funtivos de novas funções que seriam criadas. Pretendemos demonstrar com a proposta do modelo de sincretização da forma códica sincrética que um filme pode ser analisado em uma abordagem abrangente da sincretização para que se alcance a complexidade da linguagem que constrói sua significação por meio da organização de diversas formas códicas, as linguagens individuais que participam do sistema sincrético. Por fim, buscamos abarcar as peculiaridades formais e materiais da linguagem cinematográfica com a análise semiótica de seu sistema de significação. / In this dissertation, we depart from the theoretical basis of French semiotics to treat the syncretism of cinematic language, semiotic system in which it is possible to obtain the homogeneous signification of the syncretic code form from the syncretization of concurrent languages. We aim at establishing the place of cinema in semiotic theory so that the analysis of syncretic objects can be broadly elaborated considering all languages involved in its manifestation. Thus, we assume the conceptualization of syncretism by Hjelmslev (1975), Greimas and Courtés (1979) and the theoretical advances proposed by Beividas (1983) to deepen the discussion about how the arrangement and the organization of languages that participate in the system of syncretization in the language of cinema may occur, assuming that they would act as functions of the syncretic system, and also as functives of new functions which would be created. We intend to demonstrate with a model of syncretization of the syncretic code form that a movie can be analyzed in a broad approach of syncretization so that the complexity of the language that constructs its signification is achieved through the organization of several code forms, the individual languages that participate in the syncretic system. Finally, we aim at covering the formal and material peculiarities of cinematic language through the semiotic analysis of its system of signification.

Nous avons tous un corps, et seulement un corps. Grâce à lui, nous nous déplaçons dans l’espace, nous interagissons avec le monde extérieur et les autres individus qui l’habitent, nous percevons, bref, nous vivons. Il s’agit d’un objet unique et essentiel. Cependant, bien que nous ayons un seul corps, il en existe dans le cerveau plusieurs représentations. Peu d’accord existe en littérature sur le nombre de représentation, mais tout le monde concorde sur le fait qu’il en existe plus qu’une. Les modèles de la représentation corporelle sont basés sur une notion de séparation des fonctions, selon laquelle activités différentes requièrent différentes représentations. Au cours de ma thèse j’ai étudié une de ces représentations dont la fonction principale est de fournir une connaissance du corps utile à l’action. Cette représentation est nommée Schéma Corporel. En particulier, en utilisant une technique comportementale puissante telle que la cinématique, j’ai pu montrer, pour la première fois, que le Schéma Corporel est une représentation extrêmement plastique, capable d’intégrer des outils lorsqu’ils sont utilisés pour effectuer une action. Ensuite, j’ai pu décrire cette propriété plastique du Schéma Corporel en montrant quelles informations sensorielles sont nécessaires et quels aspects des outils sont intégrés dans la représentation du corps. Les résultats de mes études expérimentales, ainsi que mon travail de synthèse de la littérature, m’ont permis d’élaborer une définition opérative du Schéma Corporel et de sa plasticité / We all have a body : our own body and just one body. Through it, we move, we interact with the world and other persons, we perceive, basically we live. It’s a unique essential object. If it is true that we have only one physical body, we also have many representations of it in the brain. There is little agreement about the exact number of body representations in the brain, but not on the fact that we have more than one. The multi-componential models of body representation are based on the notion, supported by scientific evidence that different activities demand and rely on specifically adapted representations. In my thesis, I studied one particular body representation that is used and involved in action planning and execution, i.e. the Body Schema. I have been able to describe and measure the plasticity of the Body Schema and its level of specificity in healthy individuals. In particular, using a tool-use paradigm, I showed that the Body Schema is quickly and efficiently updated once a change in the body configuration occurs. With a series of kinematic studies, I contributed unveiling the ingredients that rule the plasticity of the BS and the sensory information that is used to this purpose. As a result of my thesis, I suggest that a clearer definition and operational description of the Body Schema, as an action-devoted repertoire of effectors representations, is possible, particularly thanks to its plastic features

Nesta dissertação, partimos da base teórica da semiótica francesa para abordar o sincretismo da linguagem cinematográfica, sistema semiótico no qual é possível obter a significação homogênea da forma códica sincrética a partir da sincretização de linguagens concorrentes. Procuramos estabelecer o lugar do cinema na teoria semiótica para que a análise dos objetos sincréticos possa ser elaborada de maneira ampla considerando todas as linguagens envolvidas em sua manifestação. Assim, partimos das colocações do conceito de sincretismo de Hjelmslev (1975), Greimas e Courtés (1979) e dos avanços teóricos de Beividas (1983) para aprofundar a discussão a respeito de como pode ocorrer o arranjo e a organização das linguagens participantes do sistema de sincretização na linguagem do cinema, tendo em vista que se colocariam como funções do sistema sincrético e também como funtivos de novas funções que seriam criadas. Pretendemos demonstrar com a proposta do modelo de sincretização da forma códica sincrética que um filme pode ser analisado em uma abordagem abrangente da sincretização para que se alcance a complexidade da linguagem que constrói sua significação por meio da organização de diversas formas códicas, as linguagens individuais que participam do sistema sincrético. Por fim, buscamos abarcar as peculiaridades formais e materiais da linguagem cinematográfica com a análise semiótica de seu sistema de significação. / In this dissertation, we depart from the theoretical basis of French semiotics to treat the syncretism of cinematic language, semiotic system in which it is possible to obtain the homogeneous signification of the syncretic code form from the syncretization of concurrent languages. We aim at establishing the place of cinema in semiotic theory so that the analysis of syncretic objects can be broadly elaborated considering all languages involved in its manifestation. Thus, we assume the conceptualization of syncretism by Hjelmslev (1975), Greimas and Courtés (1979) and the theoretical advances proposed by Beividas (1983) to deepen the discussion about how the arrangement and the organization of languages that participate in the system of syncretization in the language of cinema may occur, assuming that they would act as functions of the syncretic system, and also as functives of new functions which would be created. We intend to demonstrate with a model of syncretization of the syncretic code form that a movie can be analyzed in a broad approach of syncretization so that the complexity of the language that constructs its signification is achieved through the organization of several code forms, the individual languages that participate in the syncretic system. Finally, we aim at covering the formal and material peculiarities of cinematic language through the semiotic analysis of its system of signification.

No description available.

Scholarship on the cultural status of the child in America has taken diverse and fruitful forms, yet there exists a significant ellipsis within theories of filmic spectatorship regarding cinematic children. This study engages the child figure's relation to the cinematic apparatus and analyzes spectator responses to the child's presentation as a desiring subject and desired object. Within contemporary American culture, the child figure generates at once a mise-en-scène of desire and a mise-en-abime of potential stigmatization, self-abjection and shame. The vexed relation to the image of the child that characterizes the contemporary adult citizen and, more pointedly, the adult spectator, is a symptom of the contradictory discourses of childhood at play in contemporary American media and within its political bodies. The Columbine shootings, the murder of child beauty queen JonBenet Ramsey, the Catholic Church scandals, many well-publicized child abductions, and countless occurrences over the past decade have produced a climate of moral panic over children's endangerment. Yet, more than ever, the eroticization of children's bodies has inundated cinematic and other media productions, generating anxieties within the adult spectator concerning the propriety of gazing at children. Juvenile desires suggests that the dissonances produced by the contradictory signposts of moral panic and sexual objectification have too often given rise to a homophobically polarizing model of the adult spectator: one the one hand, the ostensibly heterosexual spectator whose relation to the child image is aesthetically distanced, moral, and nostalgic; and on the other, a perverse, likely homosexual spectator whose relation is libidinal, regressive, and genitally oriented. As a theoretical intervention and a reception study, this dissertation examines the term pedophilia as one both culturally over-determined and critically under-investigated. The deployment of the term pedophilia has the rhetorical effect of reducing the complex relations sustained among adult spectators and children to a space of inarticulate abjection or criminality. The dissertation proposes that a deconstructive queer theory can unsettle the recalcitrant association of pedophilia with homosexual pathology, and thereby afford a complex and nuanced account of the roles cinematic children play in generating visual and narrative pleasure across gendered and sexually oriented subject positions. / text