This Master of Arts project in Creative Writing was submitted to the School of Creative Media at Royal Melbourne University of Technology. It contains a full length feature screenplay for an un-produced road movie entitled Free Radicals. It is primarily a dark love story between the drug-addicted rent boy Roman and the budding actor, the protagonist Jonathan. It is however written in a conventional structure familiar to Hollywood professionals, and a good deal of humour is used to attract interest in the story. The storyline itself is more familiar to the audience of road movies and independent features in the US or European Art House ventures. The exegesis explores the history and the conventions of the road movie genre, in addition to the established and not often debated conventions of screenwriting theory. The thesis attempts to show how these theories were applied to the screenplay and how they influenced the process of writing it within an academic and commercial context. The MA project shows how different expectations may create a conflict in the personal writing process and inspire a product that makes compromises. The reason for reading this project may not only be the product itself but also the insight it offers into a screenwriting profession where it is often important to meet expectations.

Welcome to the movies! Welcome to the stars! Welcome to this grand illusion! All of it's yours. New Urbanism. Hollywood thinks you're stupid. Scientology. Retro-futurism. Taking back color from toiletries. Personal politics. Cutting off the legs of the bioscopes. The architecture of Fun. The death of Entertainment. Freedom of speech. Sticky floors. Googie. Suburbia. Popcorn. The way we live our lives. All seen through the limelight of a night at the movies. / Master of Architecture

Esta dissertação tem por objetivo analisar a origem e os fundamentos históricos dos movimentos em defesa da utilização de recursos audiovisuais na educação. A partir do contexto histórico-cultural em que se situa o sistema educacional brasileiro, procura-se resgatar no período compreendido entre 1920 a 1940, a história dos projetos educacionais que buscavam integrar os meios de comunicação e a educação.. Nesse período surgiram as primeiras teorias e discursos favoráveis ao emprego do rádio e do cinema na política educacional brasileira. O cinema emergiu como objeto de importância fundamental nesta pesquisa porque, enquanto imagem-movimento ou projeção animada (SERRANO, Jonathas & VENÂNCIO FILHO, 1930), foi motivo de amplas discussões por parte dos escolanovistas, na primeira metade do século XX, que enfatizavam a sua eficiente contribuição no processo ensino-aprendizagem e na formação da mentalidade no contexto educacional. Por outro lado, sob o ponto de vista da Igreja Católica e do Estado Novo tal aparelho ideológico de informação (ALTHUSSER, Louis, s.d.), poderia difundir a ideologia de reconstrução social e nacional. Esta pesquisa foi direcionada por uma concepção de totalidade, buscando-se compreender a construção histórica das relações Cinema/Educação/Igreja/Estado. A periodização (1920-1945) se justifica porque nessa época, foram encontrados os primeiros debates e críticas a respeito do mau uso do cinema e paralelamente o surgimento da necessidade de se aplicar a cinematografia à educação e consequentemente nas práticas pedagógicas escolares, tendo em vista a veiculação do processo de disciplinarização, moralização, higienização da sociedade, especialmente da juventude, bem como a efetivação do projeto de reconstrução nacional, voltado para a formação de uma coletividade histórica e para a consolidação do nacionalismo. / This thesis aims to analyze the origin and historical background of the movements in defense of the use of audiovisual resources in education. From the historical and cultural context in which lies the Brazilian educational system, seeks to rescue the period 1920-1940, the history of educational projects seeking to integrate the media and education. During this period, the first two theories and speeches in favor of the use of radio and film in Brazilian educational policy. The film emerged as crucial object in this research because, while \"movement-image\" or \"animated projection\" (SERRANO, Jonathas & SON VENÂNCIO, 1930), was subject of extensive discussions by the New School in the first half of the twentieth century which emphasized its efficient contribution to the teaching-learning process and the formation of mentality in the educational context. On the other hand, from the point of view of the Catholic Church and the New State such \"ideological apparatus of information\" (Althusser, Louis, s.d.) could spread the ideology of social and national reconstruction. This research was directed by a totality of design, seeking to understand the historical construction of relations Movie/ Education / Church / State. The periodization (1920-1945) is justified because this time, the first debate and criticism about the \"misuse of cinema\" were found in parallel the emergence of the need to apply the cinematography education and consequently in teaching practices, and a view to serving the process of \"disciplining\", \"moralizing\", \"sanitization\" of society, especially the youth, as well as the realization of the national reconstruction project, aimed at the formation of a historical society and the consolidation of nationalism.

My thesis analyzes China’s most famous commercial film director, Feng Xiaogang, and his New Year Films against the background of infrastructure reform in the Chinese movie industry. The past three decades have witnessed dramatic changes in the Chinese film industry and phenomenal growth in commercial film production due to the movie industry reform that was launched by the Chinese government in order to commercialize the film industry. Feng Xiaogang is both a beneficiary and a contributor to the commercialization of the movie industry, and his unprecedented success in the movie industry also reflected the cultural changes within the film industry. This thesis first examines the transformation of the film industry due to the movie reform that allowed Feng Xiaogang to cross over from the television industry to the film industry, and the emergence of independent film companies also provided Feng with the opportunity to make commercial films. Next, I particularly analyze Feng’s first New Year film, The Dream Factory, which shows Feng’s approach of combining entertainment and social criticism in the film. Finally, I will analyze the popularity of his New Year films from an ‘auteur’ perspective. / text

The present thesis focuses on the translation of sociocultural phenomena in movie subtitles. The paper is of a theoretical-empirical nature. Firstly it outlines the basic terms, namely "dialect", "sociolect" and "realia" and describes their function in movie dialogue. Subsequently the attention is given to the technical and linguistic characteristics of subtitling. The paper then examines the ways of translating the given sociocultural aspects from both descriptive and prescriptive perspectives. In the empirical part, actual examples of the transfer of substandard sociolects and realia, stemming from the movies Entre les murs and Un prophète, are analyzed and commented on. Keywords: movie translation, subtitling, sociocultural phenomena, substandard language, realia

Master of Science / Department of Psychological Sciences / Richard J. Harris / To date, no research has been conducted to establish the discourse goals accomplished through social movie quoting. In this thesis four studies were conducted to learn what discourse goals are accomplished through social movie quoting and if Roberts and Kreuz’ (1994) discourse goal taxonomy for figurative language would be a suitable theoretical framework for the study of the social movie quoting phenomenon. Study 1 examined movie quoting without being tied to any specific movie quotes. Demographic variables were correlated with common movie viewing preferences, behaviors, and attitudinal responses. Study 2 had participants generate a realistic movie quote they would actually use for accomplishing each of several specific discourse goals in conversation. Study 3 had participants generate a plain English interpretation of the movie quotes selected from Study 2. Study 4 participants rated the movie quotes and plain English equivalents generated in studies 2 and 3 for aptness and likelihood for use in conversation with the knowledge (Condition 1) and without the knowledge (Condition 2) of the underlying discourse goal. Quotes were randomized and counterbalanced so that half the participants in each condition received all movie quotes first (Group 1) and half the plain English first (Group 2). Results indicated that movie quotes were used to accomplish a set of discourse goals most similar to the traditional figures of speech of hyperbole, understatement, metaphor, and simile. The most common purposes of social movie quoting were to compare similarities and either downplay or exaggerate these similarities. Knowledge of the underlying discourse goal significantly increased the aptness and likelihood of both quote types for several discourse goals. The order of presentation did not significantly affect participants’ ratings. The aptness of the quote was strongly related to participants’ likelihood of using a particular quote, regardless of quote type. Future research should focus on capturing naturally occurring language to further increase the ecological validity of these results. It appears that the act of quoting movie lines in conversation is heavily dependent on individual preferences and a method should be developed to capture movie quoting in such a way. Suggestions for enhanced selection of movie quotes is discussed.

The screenplay for a narrative film is the key starting point in the development process, and writing a feature length screenplay is a particularly grueling process. This thesis traces my efforts to write a full, strong draft of a feature length screenplay, from conception to the current draft. The essay catalogs the notes I received on the screenplay, as well as my own ideas for changes and developments as I wrote the screenplay. After the essay, the current (as of this date, May of 2012) draft of the screenplay is attached as a presentation of my work reflected in the essay.

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Genre is a very important characteristic for movies and generates utility for the audience, therefore, it is very useful for producers and investors to study the correlation between annual genre performance and consumer preference of the audience. How are genre elements reflecting the audience’s taste every year? Does it change over time and does this change have a pattern? With Lancaster’s characteristic consumption theory as an approach, we explored the balance and shifting trends of the popularity of genre elements, thus providing guidance and predictions for the producers and investors for decision making reference. A study based on 15 years of movie performance in box offices and award ceremonies indicates that consumer’s preference on genre elements follow certain patterns and could be predicted. The importance of genre elements deserves more attention from decision makers, and perhaps a special unit on genre studies should be established  economy-wised to much more deeply exploit their value.

Title:                     Factors of online movie services that influence the intention of Swedish people to adopt it. Background:      Currently there are very few providers of online movie services.  There are no established or well known companies that provide such a service in Sweden.  One thought is that this may be a reason why the illegal download and piracy industry is still rife in Sweden.  With this in mind, it is the authors’ aim to discover what factors influence the intention of Swedish people to adopt an online movie service.    Theory:                The conceptual framework used in this report is based on the Theory of Planned Behavior. After a critical literature review, this theory was adapted and other variables were added in order to create the most suitable conceptual framework for this research. Method:             This descriptive research was done with quantitative approach. The primary data was collected from Swedish people by a questionnaire in Swedish and it was distributed to them via online and in person. Conclusion:       There are several important factors for online movie services that influence the intention of Swedish people to adopt it. First, the subjective norm is one of the most important factors. A person is influenced by other people close to him/her and if those other people are positive about watching movies online, he/she is more likely to adopt the service. The second factor is the current way of watching movies. When people watch movies on the computer, laptop or via DVD, they are more likely to adopt the service, but it is the other way round for people who often watch movies on their TV. The third relevant factor that influences the intention to adopt is price consciousness. People are variously divided on this issue; some are willing to pay, whilst others rather want to watch free movies with commercials. However, most of the people do not want to pay to watch movie online and they look for the cheapest option. Finally, the attitude toward the service, a positive attitude is determined mostly by the relative advantages and the low complexity of the online movie services. People who think that online movies have advantages and it is not complicated are likely to adopt the services. Furthermore women are more likely to adopt than men and people older than 45 are not very likely to adopt the services.