This report will summarize the process of writing, developing, directing, and finishing the 35mm short film, Mnemosyne Rising. This film was produced as my graduate thesis film in the Department of Radio-Television-Film at the University of Texas at Austin in partial fulfillment of my Master of Fine Arts in Film Production degree. / text

En faisant du monde un objet déployé sous le regard du spectateur, le dispositif cinématographique semble mettre le film à la disposition de la science de la perception, qui pourrait alors rendre compte de cet objet spécifique en tous ses éléments, et même le plus inassignable – son style. La psychologie expérimentale peut alors devenir un instrument d’analyse privilégié dans l’étude des films, précisément parce que, comme eux, elle suppose un dispositif dualiste de perception. Il s’agit alors de déterminer dans quelle mesure la psychologie de la perception – notamment la Gestalttheorie – est susceptible d’éclairer le style au cinéma : si elle semble pertinente quand le film revêt l’apparence d’un objet à distance, elle achoppe et trouve ses limites quand elle cherche à analyser un style qui renoue avec notre présence au monde et brouille la distinction de l’objectif et du subjectif. / Films turn the world into an object that visually unfurls in front of the audience. In doing so, the filmmaking device seems to put films at the disposal of the science of perception. This science could very well, then, capture all the elements of this specific object, even the most elusive one: style. Therefore, experimental psychology can be used as a preferred tool for film analysis, as it presupposes, as all films do, that perception is a dualistic device. Our task is then to sort out how exactly the psychology of perception (and more particularly the Gestalttheorie) may throw some light on filmmaking style. On one hand, psychology of perception does clarify style, when it acts like an object: kept at a good distance. But, on the other hand, its limitations become evident when style is more about the way we actually inhabit the world, and when it tends to blur the distinction between subjectivity and objectivity.

Student Number : 9905214K - MA research report - School of Dramatic Art - Faculty of Arts / South Africa’s film industry presently has huge, unrealised potential for growth. Currently one of the most vibrant sectors of the local industry is short filmmaking. This research’s main contention is that, for a number of reasons the short form is the most viable form for film-making development to take. The short film’s value as a training tool and essential building block for local film-making is scrutinized. To this end the research incorporates a content and form analysis of selected short films, with special reference made to the modes and economic conditions of production that affect the film industry. To conclude, I take the position that film-making, as a form of artistic and cultural dialogue, has tremendous possibilities for the development of a national identity, the creation and perpetuation of local myths and the fostering of social cohesion. For these reasons the short form is worthy of more concerted institutional support.

Made available in DSpace on 2016-04-26T18:14:03Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Eduardo Tulio Baggio.pdf: 5735880 bytes, checksum: c5ca4bd8f711d7cccba22a0b54bba74a (MD5) Previous issue date: 2014-03-24 / The main objective of this research is the analysis of the experience of making a documentary film, considering the fundamental traditional theories of documentary filmmaking and also the thoughts of the documentary filmmakers. The starting point of it is that a problem was verified due to the low number of studies on filmmaking, especially on making documentaries, so it reaches up to this essential question: what does the experience of making a documentary film presents the theories do not contemplate? Some complementary objectives are the delimitation of the concept of documentary film, guided by realistic expectations and the organization of a theoretical framework on the thought of documentary filmmakers. The methodology is based on a comparative literature tracing that has three main theoretical routes. First, the realistic thinking that guides the conceptual definition of documentary that I work with, especially authors such as Charles Sanders Peirce and Ivo Assad Ibri, who allow the understanding of man's relationship with the world and its realistic representations, regardless of being filmic or not. Also, the theories of André Bazin, which consider a theoretical framework of realism in cinema, in his ontology of kinetic picture. Secondly, the theories of documentary filmmaking in its transit from the phenomenological perspective, through post- structuralism and coming to cognitive- analytic perspective, as proposed by Bill Nichols, Manuela Penafria, Carl Plantinga and Fernão Ramos. Finally, the thought of the documentary filmmakers, collected and organized in this work as theoretical proposals. The ten documentary filmmakers selected, following specific criteria are: Robert Flaherty, Dziga Vertov, John Grierson, Frederick Wiseman, Jean Rouch, Errol Morris, Sergei Dvortsevoy, Eduardo Coutinho, João Moreira Salles and Pedro Costa. Given the prevailing relativism concept presented in film studies today, both in brazilian and international film documentaries, I propose a realistic understanding of documentarism, with contribution of the predominant theoretical trends related to their ethical and formal styles of interaction with the world of documentary filmmakers and their logical consequent of representation thoughts. With this presented, I could then get to the analysis of the realization process itself. The object of analysis of this research is the realization process of the documentary Santa Teresa, which was created for this research, and at it, analyzed. The performance runs the period between mid-2011 and the end of 2013 / O objetivo principal da pesquisa é a análise da experiência de realização de um filme documentário, considerando como bases as teorias tradicionais do cinema documentário e o pensamento dos documentaristas. Parte-se do problema verificado quanto ao baixo número de pesquisas sobre realização fílmica, em especial sobre realização de documentários, e chegase até a questão essencial: o que a experiência de realização de um filme documentário apresenta que as teorias não contemplam? Tornam-se objetivos complementares a delimitação de um conceito de cinema documentário norteado por perspectivas realistas e a organização de um arcabouço teórico relativo ao pensamento de cineastas documentaristas. A metodologia de trabalho está fundada em um rastreamento bibliográfico comparativo que apresenta três percursos teóricos principais. Primeiro, o pensamento realista que norteia a definição conceitual de documentário com a qual trabalho, com destaque para autores como Charles Sanders Peirce e Ivo Assad Ibri, que permitem o entendimento da relação do homem com o mundo e suas representações realistas, independente de serem fílmicas ou não. Também, as teorias de André Bazin, que tratam de um aporte teórico do realismo no cinema, em sua ontologia da imagem cinética. Em segundo lugar, as teorias do cinema documentário em seu trânsito desde o viés fenomenológico, passando pelo pós-estruturalismo e chegando ao viés cognitivo-analítico, como proposto por Bill Nichols, Manuela Penafria, Carl Plantinga e Fernão Ramos. Por fim, o pensamento dos documentaristas, coletado e organizado no trabalho como propostas teóricas. Foram selecionados, seguindo critérios específicos, dez documentaristas: Robert Flaherty, Dziga Vertov, John Grierson, Frederick Wiseman, Jean Rouch, Errol Morris, Sergei Dvortsevoy, Eduardo Coutinho, João Moreira Salles e Pedro Costa. Diante do relativismo conceitual predominante nos estudos de cinema documentário atuais, brasileiros e internacionais, proponho um entendimento realista do documentarismo, com aporte das tendências teóricas predominantes em seus pensamentos relacionados aos estilos ético-formais de interação dos documentaristas com o mundo e suas consequentes lógicas de representação, para então chegar à análise do processo de realização propriamente dito. O corpus de análise da pesquisa é o processo de realização do documentário Santa Teresa, realizado para a pesquisa e, nela, analisado. A realização percorre o período compreendido entre a metade de 2011 e o fim de 2013

This qualitative grounded study explores the potential relationship between wildlife TV viewing and human-animal interactions for exotic pet owners. The method involved 13 in-depth interviews and a qualifying open-ended questionnaire with 37 individuals. The interviews gathered viewers' interpretations of two different human-wildlife interactions on TV and served as a launching point for discussion. Findings supported the literature in that wildlife TV was an important source of information, emotion, and contradictory messages. Themes also emerged regarding participants' characterizations of their relationships with their pets. Drawing from social cognitive theory, this thesis suggests the following potential motivators for participants to model animal interactions as seen on screen: 1) visual instruction that increases viewer efficacy; 2) identification with the spokesperson; and 3) emotional connection to the animal. The study concludes with preliminary recommendations for wildlife programming on TV.

According to the latest Celluloid Ceiling Report, conducted by the Center for the Study of Women in Television and Film at San Diego State University, only 7% of all directors working on the top 250 films in the United States in 2014 were women. These bleak statistics no doubt replicate the condition of women in countless other national cinemas. It is, therefore, critical that more attention be given to the women who do manage to succeed in the male-dominated film industry. In my dissertation, I examine the work of two major French women filmmakers, Catherine Breillat and Claire Denis, who have resisted the kind of marginalization and even erasure of women’s presence which this data represents, achieving along the way distinction not just in the French, but in the global cinema context. I analyze their work primarily through the lens of auteur theory and the Cixousian notion of the feminine. For the purpose of this work, I define an auteur as a filmmaker who has established a distinctive but evolving style as well as a set of thematic preoccupations across a significant number of films and a considerable span of time and whose films are recognizable no matter the subject they treat or the context in which they are made. At its inception, auteur theory signaled a radical break with the tradition of film adaptations and literary screenplays that either did not understand or did not care to exploit the specificity of the filmic medium. Yet, in spite of the revolutionary aspects of auteurism, it has remained somewhat regressive in its recognition of and engagement with gender problematics. The putative gender neutrality of auteurism is, in practice, an assumption of masculinity. Female film directors who achieve auteur status (a minority compared to the number of men given the same consideration) are then marked by their difference, they are not simply auteurs but female auteurs. While this designation is potentially limiting, I assert that it is, in fact, a valuable designation, since it has opened up a space for female filmmakers to rewrite dominant cultural narratives and from a feminine perspective. Claire Denis and Catherine Breillat consistently practice a feminine form of filmmaking, that is, filmmaking that opposes through form and representation, the logical, teleological narratives and adherence to patriarchal values associated with traditional filmmaking. While traditional, masculine filmmaking is designed to halt the proliferation of meaning, feminine filmmaking allows for ellipses, creates a space for the unsaid and the unknowable; it asks questions but does not answer them; it allows the reader or viewer to participate in the production of meaning. These are the kinds of films that Denis and Breillat are making and they need to be recognized for their exemplary artistic contributions as well as the space they have created for others to challenge the status quo in the film industry.

The concern with the following arguments started during a study of national and international cinemas, from the desire to account for a cinema that internationally was doing well, but was undervalued domestically. The aims were to account for the renewal of Italian filmmaking from 1988, the New Italian cinema, and understand the conditions behind this renewal. The thesis identifies in the historical theme and in the recurrence of features from Italian cinema history elements of coherence with previous cinema production. The first consideration that emerges is that a triangulation between a new generation of filmmakers, their audience and recent history shaped the recovery of Italian cinema from 1988. A second consideration is that no discussion of Italian cinema can be separated from a discussion of that which it represents: Italian society and politics. This representation has not only addressed questions of identity for a cohort of spectators, but on occasions has captured the attention of the international audience. Thus the thesis follows a methodologic approach that positions the texts in relation to certain traditions in Italian filmmaking and to the context by taking into consideration also industrial factors and social and historical changes. By drawing upon a range of disciplines, from political history to socio-psychological studies, the thesis has focussed on representation of history and memory in two periods of Italian film history: the first and the last decade of twentieth century. The concern has been not so much to interpret the films, but to understand the processes that made the films and how spectators have applied their knowledge structures to make meaning of the films. Thus the thesis abstains from ascribing implicit meanings to films, but acknowledges how films project cultural contingencies. This is because film is shaped by production conditions and cultural and historical circumstances that make the film intelligible. As Bordwell stated in Making Meaning, "One can do other things with films besides 'reading' them" (1989, p. xiii). Within this framework, the thesis proposes a project that understands history film within the norms that govern Italian filmic output, those norms that regulate conditions of production and consumption and the relation between films from various traditions.

In 2006, I began working collaboratively with People First members to use video as a means of telling experience-based stories. Although, I found little information that would help prepare me to work collaboratively with people who have been labeled with an intellectual disability. I was acquainted with participatory approaches to making video and with inclusive research methods with people with learning disabilities. After working for over two years and facing a variety of hurdles and barriers, The Freedom Tour documentary was released in DVD in 2008, and a year later, short video stories were published on the Internet as part of the Label Free Zone web-based project. After having worked intensely and with great urgency to “get these stories out,” I felt the need to pause. To reflect upon my experiences and to ask questions about the work I was doing, I chose to write stories adopting an auto-ethnographic approach. Experimenting with auto-ethnography as a method of inquiry and storytelling as a form of representation, gave me the opportunity to experience a process I had encouraged so many others to do: telling experience-based stories. I hope this study will increase our knowledge and understanding of collaborative video storytelling projects involving people who have been labelled. I also hope that by delving into and speaking from my experiences as filmmaker/facilitator, sibling and now auto-ethnographer I have contributed, if ever so slightly, to shifting our thinking about intellectual disability from a deficit perspective to an assumption of competence. / May 2013

This report will summarize the process of writing, developing, directing and finishing the high-definition short film, Rescue You, This film was produced as my graduate thesis film in the Department of Radio-Television-Film at the University of Texas at Austin in partial fulfillment of my Master of Fine Arts in Film Production degree. / text

This report summarizes the process of developing, writing, directing, and finishing Fatakra, a short narrative film. The film was produced as my graduate thesis film in the Department of Radio-Television-Film at the University of Texas at Austin in partial fulfillment of my Master of Fine Arts in Film Production. Additionally, this report contextualizes the making of FATAKRA within my development as an artist and filmmaker. Finally, the report looks forward as I complete what is commonly referred to as a “calling-card” film and leave an academic setting to pursue a filmmaking career. / text