From 1966 to1976, science fiction films tended to depict civilizations of the future that had become intrinsically antagonistic to their inhabitants as a result of some internal or external cataclysm. This dystopian turn in science fiction films, following a similar move in science fiction literature, reflected concerns about social and ecological changes occurring during the late 1960s and early 1970s and their future implications. In these films, "dystopian" conditions are indicated as such by music incorporating distinctly modernist sounds and techniques reminiscent of twentieth-century concert works that abandon the common practice. In contrast, music associated with the protagonists is generally more accessible, often using common practice harmonies and traditional instrumentation. These films appeared during a period referred to as the "New Hollywood," which saw younger American filmmakers responding to developments in European cinema, notably the French New Wave. New Hollywood filmmakers treated their films as cinematic "statements" reflecting the filmmaker's artistic vision. Often, this encouraged an idiosyncratic use of music to enhance the perceived artistic nature of their films. This study examines the scores of ten science fiction films produced between 1966 and 1976: Fahrenheit 451, Planet of the Apes, 2001: A Space Odyssey, THX-1138, A Clockwork Orange, Silent Running, Soylent Green, Zardoz, Rollerball, and Logan's Run. Each is set in a dystopian environment of the future and each reflects the New Hollywood's aspirations to artistic seriousness and social relevance. The music accompanying these films connoted an image of technological and human progress at odds with the critical notions informing similar music for the concert hall. These film scores emphasized the extrapolated consequences of developments occurring during the 1950s and 1960s that social activists, science fiction writers, and even filmmakers regarded as worrisome trends. Filmmakers drew on the popular perceptions of these musical sounds to reinforce pessimistic visions of the future, thereby imbuing these sounds with new meanings for listeners of the contemporaneous present.

This dissertation explores the embodied and sensory dimensions of fantastic film, those elements that are generally held up in contrast to and, often, in excess of, narrative structure. I suggest a departure from the traditional approach to genre study which has been preoccupied with narrative formulas, themes, and iconographies. My goal is not to dispense with those kinds of analyses but to complement them and, importantly, to point to some neglected dimensions of genre pleasure. I propose to transform the presumably excessive pleasures of the fantastic genre into something essential to it. First, I explore the disavowal or avoidance of embodied sensation within popular genre criticism. I then turn to critique existing models of film reception, focusing particularly upon a critique of the ocularcentric or visualist framework. From this critique, I am able to suggest some criteria for an alternative theoretical model based upon embodiment. I propose a theoretical framework based, first, on the phenomenology of Maurice Merleau-Ponty, who demonstrates that human subjects are constituted materially and culturally through their perceptual relations within the world. Second, I rely upon a further interpretation of this phenomenology by the American philosopher Don Ihde. Ihde’s work, configured as “postphenomenology,” draws variously from technoscience studies, the philosophy of science, feminist, and posthumanist theory, and sketches a system for the application of an experimental phenomenology. With this method, I explore various embodied, sensational aspects of fantastic genre films, i.e., spectacle, gore, musical genre conventions. I describe and relate these aspects of fantastic film to other cultural venues, exploring common themes and structures among them. From this, I draw some conclusions as to the nature of these sensational genre pleasures for embodied human individuals. Simultaneously, I consider the possibilities for embodied difference among individuals. / text

Thesis (Ph.D.)--McMaster University, 2005. / Advisor: Susie O'Brien. Includes bibliographical references (p. 250-262). Also available via World Wide Web.

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Wyoming, 2008. / Title from PDF title page (viewed on Nov. 11, 2009). Includes bibliographical references (p. 89-90).

TiAlN and TiAlN-based coatings that are used of relevance as protection of cutting tool inserts used in metal machining have been studied. All coatings were deposited by reactive cathodic arc evaporation using industrial scale deposition systems. The metal content of the coatings was varied by using different combinations of compound cathodes. The as-deposited coatings were temperature annealed at ambient pressure and in some cases also at high pressure. The resulting microstructure was first evaluated through a combination of x-ray diffraction and transmission electron microscopy. In addition, mechanical properties such as hardness by nanoindentation were also reported. TiAlN coatings with two different compositions were deposited on polycrystalline boron nitride substrates and then high pressure high temperature treated in a BELT press at constant 5.35 GPa and at 1050 and 1300 °C for different times. For high pressure high temperature treated TiAlN it has been shown that the decomposition is slower at higher pressure compared to ambeint pressure and that no chemical interaction takes place between TiAlN and polycrystalline cubic boron nitride during the experiments. It is concluded that this film has the potential to protect a polycrystalline cubic boron nitride substrate during metal machining due to a high chemical integrity. TiZrAlN coatings with different predicted driving forces for spinodal decomposition were furthermore annealed at different temperatures. For this material system it has been shown that for Zr-poor compositions the tendency for phase separation between ZrN and AlN is strong at elevated temperatures and that after spinodal decomposition stable TiZrN is formed.

Ce mémoire de recherche-création explore les différentes modalités de la représentation d’une théorie scientifique—la théorie de la relativité, développée par Albert Einstein au début du XXe siècle—et se concentre sur le voyage dans le temps. Le mémoire est divisé en deux parties : un texte de recherche et un projet de création. Dans le texte de recherche, le premier chapitre rappelle ce qu’est la théorie de la relativité et fait un bref historique des films sur le voyage dans le temps; le second chapitre est une analyse du film Interstellar réalisé par Christopher Nolan en collaboration avec le physicien américain, Kip Thorne. Dans ce film, la théorie de la relativité n’est pas un élément secondaire, mais le coeur même de l’histoire. Ma création, présentée ici dans un document de jeu (Concept narratif d’un jeu vidéo), est un projet de jeu vidéo se déroulant pendant la seconde guerre mondiale, dans lequel le joueur devra voyager dans le temps pour sauver l’humanité du pouvoir nazi. / This research-creation master’s thesis explores the different modalities of the representation of the Theory of Relativity, developed by Albert Einstein in the beginning of the 20th century and focuses on time travel. The dissertation is divided into two parts: a research essay and a creation project. The first chapter of the research explains the basis of the Theory of Relativity and gives a brief history of time-travel in cinema. The second chapter analyses the movie Interstellar, produced by Christopher Nolan in collaboration with the American physicist Kip Thorne. This motion picture is a prime example of the Theory of Relativity in modern cinema. The creation section, presented here in a Video game narrative concept, is a video game project set during the Second World War, in which the player will have to travel through time in order to save humanity from the Nazis.

Bad Pixels is a feature-length, microbudget, digital motion picture, produced, written, and directed by Alexander Jon Bowser as part of the requirements for earning a Master of Fine Arts in Film & Digital Media from the University of Central Florida. The materials contained herein serve as a record of the microbudget filmmaking experience. This thesis documents the challenges confronted by a first-time feature filmmaker; an evaluation of both the theory and application of a dynamic microbudget approach to digital content creation. From script development to digital distribution, the thesis aims to reflect on technical and procedural decisions made and assess their impact on the overall experience and final product.

Techronomicon Techronomicon is a science fiction novel that examines far-future military actions from several different perspectives. Human beings have colonized several planets with help from the enigmatic and more technologically advanced Zhir, who gave spaceships and habitable worlds to those they deemed suitable and their descendants. The Joint Expeditionary Force is the military arm of the Universal Faith, called in when conflicts arise that the Faith decides are beyond the local government and militia and require their intervention. Leneveldt and Roader are JEF officers assigned to Operation Techronomicon, investigating what seems to be a Zhir-built defence shield around the planet Lassana. Another JEF company sent to Kalaabhavan after the murder of the planets Confessor-General loses its CO to a land-mine, and Lieutenant Hellerman reluctantly accepts command. Chevalier, a civilian pilot, takes refugees fleeing military-run detention camps on Ararat to a biological research station on otherwise uninhabited Lila. The biologists on Lila discover a symbiote that enables humans to photosynthesize, which comes to the attention of Operation Techronomicon and the JEF's Weapons Research Division. Leneveldt and Roeder, frustrated by the lack of progress on Lassana, are sent to Lila to detain the biologists, who flee into the swamps. Hellerman's efforts to restore peace on Kalaabhavan are frustrated by the Confessors, and his company finds itself besieged by insurgents. The novel explores individuals' motives for choosing or rejecting violence and/or military service; the lessons they learn about themselves and their enemies; and the possible results of attempts to forcibly suppress ideas.

Text in English / This study offers a fine-grained analysis of James Cameron’s film, Avatar (2009), on several theoretical fronts to provide a view of the film from a cognitive cultural studies perspective. The insights gained from cognitive theory are used to situate the debate by indicating the value cognitive theories have in cultural criticism. The critical discourse analysis of Avatar that results is a vehicle for the central concern of this study, which is to understand the diverse, often contradictory, meaning-making exhibited by Avatar audiences. A focus on the construction of empathic responses to the film’s messages investigates the success of this polysemy. Ihe central propositions of the study are that meanings and interpretations of the experience of viewing Avatar are made discursively; they are situated in definable traditions, mores and values; and this meaning-making takes place in a cognitive framework which allows for the technical reproduction and reception of the experience while providing powerful, emerging and cognitively plausible narratives. In an attempt to situate the film’s commercial success and its plethora of awards, including an Oscar for best art direction, the analysis takes a critical view of Cameron’s use of cultural stereotypes and the framing of the exotic other, and considers the continuing development of these elements over the whole series and product line or, as Henry Jenkins (2007) defines it, “transmedia”. In drawing the theoretical boundaries of the methodologies used in this study and in arguing for their complementarities, the study contributes to a renewal of Raymond Williams’ (1961) mostly forgotten claim of the cross-disciplinary cognitive dimension of cultural studies and demonstrates an affirmation of this formulation as cognitive cultural studies. / Art History, Visual Arts and Musicology / M.A. (Art History)