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.

This thesis seeks to interpret the cinematic representations of Hong Kongers’ identity quest during a transitional state/stage related to the sovereignty transfer. The Handover transition considered is an ideological one, rather than the overnight polity change on the Handover day. This research approaches contemporary Hong Kong cinema on two fronts and the thesis is structured accordingly: Upon an initial review of the existing Hong Kong film scholarship in the Introduction, and its 1997-related allegorical readings, Part I sees new angles (previously undeveloped or underdeveloped) for researching Hong Kong films made during 1982-2002. Arguments are built along the ideas of Hong Kongers’ situational, diasporic consciousness, and transformed ‘Chineseness’ because Hong Kong has lacked a cultural/national centrality. This part of research is informed by the ideas of Jacques Derrida, Homi Bhabha and Stuart Hall, and the diasporic experiences of Ien Ang, Rey Chow and Ackbar Abbas. With these new research angles and references to the circumstances, Part II reads critically the text of eight Hong Kong films made during the Handover transition. In chronological order, they are Boat People (Hui, 1982), Song of the Exile (Hui, 1990), Days of Being Wild (Wong, 1990), Happy Together (Wong, 1997), Made in Hong Kong (Chan, 1997), Ordinary Heroes (Hui, 1999), Durian Durian (Chan, 2000), and Hollywood Hong Kong (Chan, 2002). They meet several criteria related to the undeveloped / underdeveloped areas in the existing Hong Kong film scholarship. Hamid Naficy’s ‘accented cinema’ paradigm gives the guidelines to the film analysis in Part II. This part shows that Hong Kongers’ self-transformation during transition is alterable, indeterminate, and interminable, due to the people’s situational, diasporic consciousness, and transformed ‘Chineseness’. This thesis thus contributes to Hong Kong cinema scholarship in interpreting films with new research angles, and generating new insights into this cinematic tradition and its wider context.

Iu, Yiu. / Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2007. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 163-173). / Abstracts in English and Chinese ; questionnaires also in Chinese. / Abstracts --- p.i / Acknowledgements --- p.iii / Table of Contents --- p.iv / Introduction --- p.1 / Chapter A. --- Objectives and Significance --- p.1 / Chapter B. --- Academic Issues and Literature Review --- p.4 / Chapter C. --- Theories and Methodologies --- p.18 / Chapter D. --- Structure of the Thesis --- p.20 / Chapter Part I: --- The Making of a Seiyu Culture in Japan / Chapter Chapter 1: --- What is Seiyu? --- p.24 / Chapter 1.1 --- Definition of Seiyu --- p.24 / Chapter 1.2 --- Scope of Works --- p.27 / Chapter 1.3 --- Training Institutions and Agencies --- p.32 / Chapter Chapter 2: --- The Historical Development of the Seiyu Profession in Japan --- p.38 / Chapter Part II: --- Cultural and Social Significance of Seiyu Culture / Chapter Chapter 3: --- Seiyu as Art and Industry --- p.56 / Chapter 3.1 --- Internal Factors --- p.58 / Chapter 3.2 --- External Factors --- p.64 / Chapter Chapter 4: --- Cultural and Social Impact of the Seiyu Culture --- p.78 / Chapter 4.1 --- Cultural Impact --- p.78 / Chapter 4.2 --- Social Impact --- p.92 / Chapter Part III: --- Comparative Study on Japanese Seiyu and Hong Kong Voice Artists / Chapter Chapter 5: --- The Popularization of the Japanese Seiyu and Local Voice Artists in Hong Kong --- p.101 / Chapter 5.1 --- Japanese Seiyu Steal the Limelight in Hong Kong --- p.102 / Chapter 5.2 --- Hong Kong Voice Artists Move out from the Backstage --- p.112 / Chapter 5.3 --- The Comparison of the Reception of Japanese Seiyu with That of Local Voice Artists in Hong Kong --- p.117 / Chapter Chapter 6: --- Comparison of the Dubbing Profession between Japan and Hong Kong --- p.123 / Chapter 6.1 --- Structural Differences in Dubbing Profession --- p.126 / Chapter 6.2 --- The Role of Voice Dubbing in Popular Culture --- p.135 / Concluding Analysis --- p.147 / References --- p.163 / Appendix --- p.174 / Chapter I) --- Questionnaire of Seiyu Culture in Hong Kong --- p.174 / Chapter II) --- Sample Interview Questions for Seiyu Fans --- p.177 / Chapter III) --- Sample Interview Questions for Voice Artists --- p.178