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A study was conducted to investigate the effects of certain cinematic choices on people’s ability to judge the posture of the wrist from video images. Deviated wrist postures, which are associated with the performance of many tasks, have been reported to play a role in hand and arm discomfort and in a variety of disorders. The goal of this study was to gain a better understanding of people’s performance in judging wrist posture as well as people’s ability to judge their performance. One objective was to determine the relative performance effects of one still image, two still images, and full-motion images. Other objectives were to determine the effect on performance relative to three different views and ten different wrist positions. It was also of interest to begin to understand how these three independent factors may interact with one another and also how the three dependent variables-accuracy, certainty, and decision time-related to one another. A second experiment also investigated the display effects of a single still image vs. full-motion video. A second factor that was investigated was the performance effects of more complex hand positions (i.e., while holding objects and performing real tasks). In the first Experiment it was found that a view which was normal to the thumb-side of the hand resulted in significantly better performance than a view oblique to the hand. This effect held for each of the Display Methods and for seven of the ten wrist positions. It was hypothesized that this effect may be due to the inherent superiority of one view over another. An alternative possibility is that the thumb-side view offered participants the opportunity to compare what they saw on the screen to their own hands. It was suggested that these alternative possibilities be tested as the results may either support efforts to find “the best view” or to develop ways to provide “comparison postures.” In the first experiment there were significant main and interaction effects for the dependent variable, accuracy. There were also significant main effects found for certainty and decision time, but no interaction effects were found. An interesting finding from the first experiment was that people were generally overly confident of their performance. In most instances, participants’ performances were not related to their perceived performances. For the full-motion images, half of the participants’ perception of their performance was negatively correlated with actual performance. As would be expected, two views were generally found to be better than one view. However, it was also found that a particular single view (thumb-side) resulted in a level of performance that was not significantly different from two-still combinations which did not include the thumb-side view. No significant effects were found for the second experiment and the levels of performance were found to be similar to the first experiment under the oblique view condition. As a background to the experimental investigations, literature pertaining to these four areas was reviewed: The relationship of wrist posture to hand and arm disorders, methods of observing posture, advancements in video technology, and considerations regarding the nature of video as a two-dimensional display format. Also explored were differences in public perception about the task-related “causes” of hand and arm disorders vs. the clinical and observational findings that were reviewed. It was suggested that the ergonomic community bears some responsibility for these differences. Better methods are needed not only to observe human factors, but also to communicate our observations amongst ourselves, to other professionals, and to anyone who could benefit by such knowledge. / Master of Science

Cinema, as a complex social and cultural phenomenon, has been recently challenged by digital media cultures and aesthetics since the 1990s. In this study, Hong Kong cinematic productions, blending the West and the East, and flexibly manoeuvring production and post-production with limited resources, are used to demonstrate the advent of new digital cinematic aesthetics and productions in the era of globalization and digitalization. The production culture and aesthetics of local cinema has been, to a great extent, internally modified by the impacts of digital media cultures and technologies, especially digital effects and computer animation of unprecedented imaginary spaces and perspectives for creative productions. The increasing complexity of digital cinematic productions and the rapidly changing cultural production systems bring in newcomers of alternative modes/choices of thoughts and interpretations, thus facilitating production/product differentiation and de-differentiation to cater for the increasing and changing demands of active audiences. The vigorous struggle for cultural representations in digital cinematic aesthetics by producers and consumers of disparate repertoires is the focus of analysis in this research. Empirical evidences suggest a new paradigmatic model to study cultural representations of digital cinematic aesthetics within contemporary creative systems of production and consumption. / The findings generally support the advent of the ten new aesthetics of digital cinema as a global trend as well as a new glocalism in the Hong Kong cases. While most interviewed producers and audiences articulate the new characteristics of digital cinematic aesthetics, many audiences show disjunctive judgments toward those local filmmakers' treatments to cross-fertilize video game with their cinematic productions. This reveals the inevitability of internal modifications of organization cultures and representational practices to create new digital cinematic aesthetics and productions within new dynamics of digital media cultures and technologies in the fast changing media ecology. Hong Kong filmmakers and computer animators show their strength and flexibility to glocalize digital cinematic aesthetics and productions by integrating digital visual effects with local film and production cultures, especially in comedic and martial arts cinematic productions. However, it seems that there are larger discrepancies concerning the tastes and aesthetic judgments toward cultural representations in digital cinematic aesthetics by cross-fertilization with video game between general audiences and professionals. This study reflects that the rigid, director-oriented Hong Kong film production system is too demanding on the film director's independent ability of coordination and greatly influences the development of cultural representations in digital cinema by collective imaginative inputs of increasing complexity and flexibility. Producers and consumers of disparate repertoires of cultural practices contribute to the meaning construction of multiple layers of digital effects and computer animation by systematic coordination and collaboration. In other words, the "spectrum of cultural representations", as a framework, helps us understand the complexity and creativity of the new digital cinematic aesthetics from production to consumption practices. / This study is a multidimensional investigation of the moments of creativity and struggles over organization cultures and representational practices by both cultural producers and audiences. There are case studies of the general trend of digital cinematic productions in Hollywood and the specific development of digital cinema in Hong Kong, as well as in China. From these empirical analyses, ten new characteristics of digital cinematic aesthetics are generalized. They include (l) amplification, (2) free referencing, (3) seamlessness and believability, (4) multiple-layered composition, (5) patterning, (6) imaginary perspectives, (7) collective imaginative inputs, (8) cross-fertilization with comic, (9) cross-fertilization with video game, and (10) cross-cultural, cross-historical, cross-genre production. Such inductive findings are also deployed to study the social functions of both producers and audiences in the meaning construction of digital cinematic aesthetics and productions within the dynamics of digitalization and globalization. Eighteen in-depth interviews of production insiders, five focus groups of disparate generations of movie audiences and amateurs, and eleven case studies of Hong Kong digital cinematic productions have been examined. The empirical validity about the ten new forms of digital cinematic aesthetics and their production and consumption is investigated, and also achieved by intensive and interactive case studies, production studies and audience studies, combining textual and discourse analyses and production and reception analyses. / Lam, Sui Kwong Sunny. / Advisers: Anthony Y. H. Fung; Eric K. W. Ma. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 73-06, Section: A, page: . / Thesis (Ph.D.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2011. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 536-562). / Electronic reproduction. Hong Kong : Chinese University of Hong Kong, [2012] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Electronic reproduction. [Ann Arbor, MI] : ProQuest Information and Learning, [201-] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Abstract also in Chinese.

Anotation The main gaol of this study is to systematically map the manifestation of God in film with the focus on Hollywood production because it influences the whole western cinematography from its beginning to the present day. It systematically reveals various approaches to adaptation of the topic with regard to the time, cultural and social kontext. It expounds the development of the main aspects and ground of film censorship, which is considerably influenced by religion in secularized societies. It describes the techniques and approaches of individual directors to the topic.

The diploma thesis Impact of Media Partnership on the Content of Film Reviews explores the relation between the content of film reviews in Czech press and media partnership. The first part, which is based on researches, briefly describes the development of the cultural journalism oriented on the cinematography in the Czech setting and analyses the issues theoretically. Than the diploma thesis examines the approach of Czech professional journalists and considers the limits of personal subjectivity of respective journalists and the ethics of Czech press. In the second part, which focuses on the analysis, the author chose two national journals and two national weekly magazines and analyzed the reviews of films, which were in media partnership with the journals or weekly magazines. She compared the attitude of media partners with others journals - either press or electronic. The analysis covers the period from 2007 to 2010 and allows not only comparison between the journalists or the media, but also between the selected years.

This thesis deals with the manipulation of history in the historical film trilogy Dny zrady, Sokolovo and Osvobození Prahy, directed by Otakar Vávra. This thesis tries to define, on the basis of a comparation of historiographical works of the communist and modern historiography, the amount of historical distortion presented in these films. The normalization regime endeavoured to revise the historical knowledge of the second half of the 60s and to resume the tendencies of the communist regime of the late 40s and 50s and attempted to create a myth of perception of mordern national history, in which the positive influence of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia in the 30s and 40s was emphasized. Moreover, this myth of the perception of history aimed to discredite figures that were unwanted by the regime and to emphasize friendship with the Soviet Union. Films and tv-series were an appropriate tool to form the perception of history among the people.

This thesis book describes the development and production of Escape Velocity, a short narrative film. The writing, pre-production, shooting, and editing of the film are reviewed. Script drafts and a final budget are included in the appendices. The film concerns Larry Pipe and Percy Knuckle, best friends who dream of moving to Barbados. They hope to open a beachside bar and spend the rest of their days relaxing and watching girls. When Percy starts dating Melinda Bundt, however, Larry's jealousy threatens to destroy the men's friendship. When Percy needs money to follow Melinda to Atlanta, Larry must choose between supporting his best friend or pursuing their dream of Barbados alone. Escape Velocity examines the ways we hold ourselves back from pursuing our dreams, the reasons we justify doing so, and the changes in our life that finally inspire us to move toward our goals.

[pt] Nesta dissertação, analisamos os aforismos reunidos no livro Notes sur le cinématographe (1975), do diretor Robert Bresson, com o objetivo de delimitar seu conceito de verdade. No livro, Bresson opõe seu ideal do cinema como arte pura, o cinematógrafo, ao cinema contaminado pela estética teatral de representação. O primeiro alcança a expressão verdadeira por ser consistente com sua essência, seguindo os princípios dados nos aforismos. Como estes não são organizados por qualquer tipo de divisão no livro, agrupamo-os em temas e subtemas que discernimos a partir da recorrência de certas palavras. A dissertação concentrou-se nos seguintes temas e sua relação com a verdade: técnicas elípticas contra a representação; realidade e falsidade; a figura do diretor-artista; os modelos e o automatismo; composição e montagem. Essa análise reforçou as abordagens que aproximam Bresson das concepções fenomenológicas, pela fundamentação da verdade nas percepções imediatas, pré-reflexivas. Tais sensações devem corresponder à essência do objeto real percebido, e deixam de ser verdadeiras quando a cognição as submete ao sistema linguístico. A verdade não está nas proposições, mas na sensação momentânea da presença do objeto em meio ao desconhecido externo e interno ao sujeito. A câmera pode tornar a realidade oculta parcialmente visível, captando os indícios da sua essência. Nos filmes, a composição apresenta essa realidade nas repetidas conjunções entre o desconhecido, em diversas formas de elipses, e a materialidade intensificada das coisas. / [en] In this dissertation, we analyzed the aphorisms collected in the book Notes on cinematography by film director Robert Bresson, to gain a more substantial understanding of his concept of truth. In the book, Bresson opposes his ideal of cinema as a pure art, or cinematography, to cinema contaminated by the representational esthetics of theater. The former attains truthful expression by remaining consistent with its essence, following the principles given in the aphorisms. Since these are not divided into any sections in the book, we grouped them by themes and subthemes discerned mainly through the recurrence of certain words. The dissertation focused on the following themes and their relation to truth: elliptical techniques against representation; reality and falsity; the figure of the director-artist; models and automatism; composition and editing. This analysis supported the views that link Bresson to phenomenological conceptions, given his grounding of truth in immediate, pre-reflexive perceptions. Such sensations must correspond to the essence of the perceived real object, and become untrue when cognition submits them to the linguistic system. Truth is not in propositions, but in the fleeting sensation of the perceived object amidst the unknown, which is both external to and inside the subject. The camera can make the hidden reality partly visible, capturing the glimmer of its essence. In his films, the composition presents this reality in repeated conjunctions between the unknown, in various forms of ellipses, and the intensified materiality of things.

Este trabalho tem como objetivo pensar a fotografia cinematográfica dentro dos estudos do cinema como um modo de ampliar as perspectivas de abordagem sobre sua imagem. A partir da explicitação de seus aspectos físicos e sua potência em fazer reverberar uma série de questionamentos acerca da dimensão imaterial de seu corpo, traçamos um percurso heterogêneo pelos domínios da filosofia, da teoria da imagem e do cinema para desenvolver um pensamento que tenha como base a conjugação de saberes que constituem o olhar fotográfico. Nossa ênfase está no ato cinematográfico e nas relações recíprocas de seus elementos, isto é, no momento em que os gestos [humanos e técnicos] são acolhidos pela câmera e constroem as camadas do corpo fílmico, sua carne. / This work aims to approach cinematography within film studies as a way to broaden our perspectives on cinema image. Starting from making explicit some of its physical aspects and their potential to reverberate a series of questions about the immaterial dimension of its body, we trace a heterogeneous path through the domains of philosophy, image and cinema theory in order to develop a thought based on the conjugation of knowledge that constitutes the photographic gaze. Our emphasis is on the cinematographic act and the reciprocal relations of its elements, meaning to say, the moment in which gestures [human and technical] are sheltered by the camera and build the layers of the filmic body, its flesh and blood.