Fredonia's Got Talent!

My students in Fantasy Fiction and Novels and Tales did some amazing work throughout the semester, and particularly at the end.  Unfortunately, most of them chose not to do web authoring projects, so I can't share their work here.  Fortunately, a good number did; here are links to their work:

• Alexandra Atseff, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone:  Book to Film [blog]
• Aubrey Cunningham, Fantasy Fiction [blog]
• Halie Degnan, Alternate Worlds [web site]
• Paige Jones, Fairy Tale Seamstress [blog on making of fairy tale dress for character in her fairy tale revision of Beauty and the Beast]
• Jessica Krajacic and Skylar Pratt, Fantasy Fiction and the Harry Potter Generation [blog]
• Kyle Roof, Harry Potter vs. LotR vs. GoT--Fantasy Fiction Club [live-action on youtube]
• Rhiannon Vercant, A Neapolitan Cinderella in Oz [animation on vimeo]
• Ashley Weinheimer, History of Magic School [blog]
• Kristal Zarczynski, Fantasy Blog [blog]

Please check 'em out while you're waiting for me to finish grading and get back to posting student essays that respond to the questions my students generated at the start of the semester!

[cross-posted at Mostly Harmless and Citizen of Somewhere Else]

Check It Out: Fall 2009 Student Web Projects

From ENGL 208/AMST 210: American Popular and Mass Cultures

Disney vs. Grimm
Panic at the Cinema
Video Games and Film
Viral Media Check

And don't miss Steve Bosco's post on his decision to re-score the "star gate" sequence in Stanley Kubrick's 2001.

From ENGL 427: Major Writers

Gary Aloisio on myth and Tolkien, Donaldson, and Pullman
Max Soule-Oneto on Pullman's His Dark Materials

Book Review of Film Studies: The Basics by Amy Villarejo (first draft).

As the name suggests, Film Studies: The Basics by Amy Villarejo provides a brief but comprehensive overview of the field of film studies. Throughout much of the book, Villarejo focuses on the technical aspects of film production. She offers an explanation of some of the key terms related to film production and also lays out a brief historical overview so that the reader may understand how the that has developed and evolved over time. In the later sections Villarejo delves into more of the issues that the media of cinema raises and provides some critical contexts through which those issues can be understood.

The main strengths of Villarejo's effort are her brevity and her concise use of language. The book covers a broad range of issues for its length, which can be overwhelming, but all of the information is laid out in a kind of outline in the introductory chapter and the rest of the book stays fairly close to that basic outline. The information in each chapter is presented in a clear and organized way that makes it both interesting and easy to follow. Villarejo does not use overly complex language or terms that presume that the reader has had an extensive amount of experience in the field prior to reading the book. She also explains most of the references to significant films or important individuals in film so that the reader can understand the points that she is trying to make without previously being familiar with the specific references themselves. All of these factors make the book more accessible not only to individuals outside the field of film studies but potentially to individuals outside academia altogether. Anyone with an interest in film could potentially pick up this book and use it to supplement their previous knowledge and experience.

While providing a brief and concise overview of the field of film studies is a strength overall, it also made the book seem as if it may have been lacking in some areas. My own analysis of the concepts and critical contexts that I would have liked to see expounded upon further is unavoidably subjective. The areas of the book that I felt were lacking were of course the ideas and critical approaches that I find the most interesting and useful for my own purposes. The focus on the technical aspects of film and the production side of things seems like a logical and necessary choice for a book like this. These issues are a large part of the field of film studies and since this book is an introduction those parts would be useful for anyone who is interested in the field or could potentially delve further into the process of film production. Unfortunately I am not one of those individuals so I found the parts of the book devoted to the technical and production aspects of film least useful. I am more interested in film as it relates to literature and society and other critical issues that are involved with film studies. While I think that the sections on production, history, and technology were well written and justified I found myself impatient to get to the later sections of the book that were devoted to issues that I found more relevant to my own research interests.

Toward the end of the chapter devoted to production and exhibition and on into the chapter on reception, Villarejo explains some of the critical contexts that can be used to better understand film. In this section of the book, some of the areas that I found the most interesting were when Villarejo began to use Deconstruction to understand and interpret issues regarding film. One instance appears in a discussion of the exhibition of film. Villarejo discusses some of the inherent contradictions of ideology that occur when a television is placed in a public setting (Villarejo 106). She states that while placing a television near the ceiling allows everyone to watch, it also restricts control of what is on to the owners or operators of the establishment. I found this observation fascinating and I would have liked to see the approach used more throughout the book. Villarejo uses it again to some extent in discussing the contradictions that are present within the notion of authorship in cinema but as a whole I would have liked to see how the approach of Deconstruction could be used in other areas of film studies.

Another area that I would have liked to see more in depth elaboration was the discussions of value judgments in film. Villarejo delves into this to some extent in the chapter on the reception of film by providing various lists of several “essential” films and talking about the way that value judgments are made both formally with awards and informally with reviews. It seemed that Villarejo did a good job at explaining the question of why value judgments are made in film in general. Her discussion of the way that official value judgments in film serve to create a cannon and the way that the cannon affects the preservation of film expanded my understanding of the subject to a great degree. I liked the way that she examined the concept through both the lens of profit structures and also the validation of the medium as an art form. This allowed me to see that evaluative criticism in film could be used to achieve very different ends.

I would have liked to see Villarejo elaborate a little bit more on why and how specific value judgments are made in film. She set up the context for understanding evaluative criticism in film in a few different ways but failed to examine the ways in which motivations influence the specific judgments that critics make. I was interested to see, for example, whether critics motivated more by profit chose to elevate different films than those motivated by art. She also mentioned that informal movie review criticism is often driven by real or perceived generic conventions and authorial intent but failed to explain the way that those two concepts work to influence the judgments of the critic. I think it would have been helpful to have a brief overview of some of the generic conventions and an explanation of how there may be different sets of them for different types of movies. I would have liked to see what some of the supposed conventions of various types of movies are and the ways in which the perceived authorial conformity to or reinvention of those conventions tends to have in impact on critical evaluative judgments made by film critics at all levels. It seemed that Villarejo only scratched the surface of some of these issues and by the end of the chapter I was left wanting more. In a way though this could be seen as an advantage rather than a disadvantage because it seems that one of the main purposes for the book is to generate interest and promote further research and education.

The only thing that I felt was largely missing from Villarejo's book that absolutely should have been included was a discussion of film adaptations. The phenomenon of the adaptation of other media into film is one that has recently become very big with more films being produced based on comics, video games, and books but also it seems that it is something that has occurred throughout the history of film. I was surprised and disappointed to see that Villarejo did not provide an overview of the history and process of adaptation as it seems that it is a major part of the field of film studies. I was especially disappointed because my project is focused on the adaptation process and this information probably would have been the most useful to my research. I would have liked to see a discussion of the way that adaptations of particular genres and media have become more popular in film recently and also why some adaptations are more successful than others. This could have been tied into the discussion of generic conventions in film as they relate to evaluative criticism. It also may have been interesting to include a discussion of some arguments against the use of adaptation in film and see how advocates of adaptation have responded to such arguments.

As a whole I feel that Villarejo's book was successful in achieving what it sought to accomplish. Despite some of its shortcomings, the book provided a fairly comprehensive overview of the field and allowed the reader to cultivate interest in various aspects of the field. In an introductory book this brief will always be room to expand on the material that is present and that some issues and concepts should be left out seems inevitable. For the most part I defend the choices that Villarejo made in regards to what material she chose to include and I feel that she presented that material in a way that is interesting and accessible to a fairly wide audience. As a result I would recommend this book to anyone who has an interest in film and would like to expand their knowledge of film and film studies.

Film

I'm really glad that we got to read a really basic introductory book for the film part of our class. I'm also glad that we got to hear from outside sources and their experience with film. I never really about what goes into making a movie, and what certain elements go into making a viewer feel a certain emotion at a certain time.

I have seen a lot of different types of movies and documentaries, and I never once thought about how the music influences you to feel a certain way about what may be going on between the characters. I recently watched a movie entitled There Will Be Blood which is about an oil-man and his son, H.W. It starts in the early 1900s and skips ahead a lot in the first half an hour or so. There were some pretty traumatic things that happened in the beginning, but because the director didn't give you a long enough chance to get to know, or connect with the characters, you don't feel as much emotion when bad things happen to them. This particular movie used a lot of popular classical music as well instead of having music composed for the film.

I'm glad that we had a good introductory book to read for the film portion of the class because it's easy to understand and went well with the time period we had to discuss film.

Things I generally hated about the Golden Compass movie

After reading The Golden Compass by Phillip Pullman I decided to check out the movie version despite numerous warnings from other people who had also read the book. I really liked the story and since reading and re-watching the Lord of the Rings trilogy I have learned to be a little bit easier on film adaptations. I thought that I would check it out for myself. The result was a rekindled hatred in film adaptations of books. There were so many things that I hated about this movie but before I get into those I would like to point out that the film did have two redeeming qualities; Sam Elliot as Lee Scoresby and Ian McKellen as the voice of Iorek Byrnison. That being said, two well casted roles were not enough for me to like this movie.

Let's start from the beginning. The movie opens with the voice of a narrator, I am assuming Lyra's voice, that blatantly explains that there are multiple worlds and that in "her" world people's souls reside outside their bodies in the form of daemons. As soon as this voice began to speak I should have realized how bad the film was going to be but for some reason I kept watching. I don't like this narrative voice for a couple reasons. For one, the beginning is the ONLY time that it appears in the film. I think that is just seems kind of lazy or sloppy or both. If you are going to set up a film in the context of a narrative the narrative voice should probably be consistent throughout the movie. Otherwise you don't get a sense of who the narrator is and why they are speaking or telling the story. Essentially the voice becomes a tool to throw some information at the viewer. That is really what it felt like. In Pullman's novel he begins with the story in progress and allows the reader to make inferences about the world that he sets up through sensory details, interaction between characters and interesting scenes that develop the plot as well as the world. In the film it felt as if they were shoving Pullman's world down our throats both with this opening narrative voice and awkward expository dialogue throughout.

On that note I also feel that many of the transitions and major changes throughout the film seemed incredibly forced. I'm thinking of when Serafina Pekkala literally drops in from out of nowhere and decides to introduce herself to Lyra for no apparent reason. Also the scene where Lyra and Iorek go off to find the severed child then the gyptians storm in and a battle erupts. It was like they just mashed together a bunch of parts from the book without really thinking about it too much. I just kept wondering where the Gyptians came from and how they got there so fast. Quite possibly the worst transition in this movie and probably the worst transition I have seen in ANY movie was the shift from Svalbard to Bolvangar. After the battle is over Iorek just says, "And now, I will take you to Bolvangar" and immediately there is a cut to her riding him across a snow covered field. I actually had to rewind that part and watch it again because it was so unbelievably bad. In general all of these forced transitions and moments in the film made me feel as if I were being beaten over the head with the plot of Pullman's novel.

There is also the matter of one of the most fundamental changes to the plot in the film adaptation. They completely switched the events of Svalbard and Bolvangar for the sole purpose of hyping up the battle scene at the end. I felt that this switch really took away from the complexity of the events at Svalbard. In the film we didn't get any sense that Iofur Raknison (renamed Lord Rakna in the film, presumably because it sounds cooler) is trying to go against his bear nature and act more human. Moreover, we don't see that the struggle between Iorek and Iofur is really about the conflict between two ideologies that will ultimately determine the fate of the bear race. They might as well have cut the entire sequence from the movie altogether. I also found the actual battle scene between the bears pretty tame and disappointing. When Iorek knocks off the other bear's jaw I was really hoping to see his tongue flop out like it describes in the book...then Iorek doesn't even eat his heart! It seems like they tried to downplay some of the more gruesome elements of the story in an effort to make the movie appeal to a younger audience. I found this disappointing because one of the things I liked about Pullman was that he did not seem to censor or restrict himself despite the fact that he wrote for a younger audience.

Related to the issues of censorship and restriction is the ending of the movie...Lyra and Roger fly off into the sunset in Scoresby's balloon. Credits. It seems like in an effort to make the end more appealing to younger audiences they really limited the possibility of a sequel. So how does the Subtle Knife movie start? They land the balloon, Lord Asriel brutally murders Roger in an effort to tear open the fabric of reality and thousands of kids expecting another delightful romp featuring talking bears run from the movie theater screaming and crying. I don't see it happening. If they are going adapt the whole trilogy it seems like it would almost make more sense to start again by remaking The Golden Compass with the whole project in mind. I can only hope that happens because the movie version I saw butchered a story that I really liked. It would be nice to see a version come out that actually does it justice.

The Control of Video Games

America is all about freedom and subsequently control and power. There is no such thing as complete freedom and there never will be. Media is no exception. Television and film give us limited freedom. We can choose to watch a comedy movie instead of a horror, but generally we can't decide what the content of a movie or a television show will be.

In the past two decades video games have risen to the top tier of entertainment. Everyone I know has at least one gaming system and most Americans have computers which allow gameplay on the internet as well as PC games. Humans like to be in control or feel as if they are, even if it is a character in a video game. If I want to shoot someone just to take their money on Grand Theft Auto, I can. There are a few different results that can come from this, which were programmed into the game therefore giving me no control over, but how I have the character react to the consequences is up to me.

When I was little all I wanted to do was watch my sister and cousins play video games. When I was between the ages of about 4-10 I mostly watched them rather than play. I knew how to play and I would every once in awhile, but mostly I was too young to get very far. As I got older I wasn't as comfortable watching and I would irritate my sister by being a sort of "back-seat driver." I would tell her go over there or jump here. I was growing up and I wanted more control over what I was seeing. Needless to say, my sister and I are still avid video gamers now (as much as we can be on a limited budget and working our way through college).

Video games can be an escape into a world where we are something better than ourselves. Who wouldn't love to explode a gas station without consequences in Grand Theft Auto, kill hordes of zombies in Resident Evil, or create and live the perfect life in The Sims (PC version). I can see how easy it would be to get lost in these non-existant (and sometimes fantastical) worlds. Yes, there are limits to what a certain game is programmed to do and content is created by someone else, but there's a level of control in video games that's unavailable in other forms of media (and life itself). However, there are books and movies starting to profit off of the idea of audience control. Choose your own adventure books are a great example and Final Destination 3 on DVD follows the same sort of idea. The movie can be watched in it's intended progression and conclusion or you can click on the choose your path version on the DVD menu. In this version of the film there are places where it will stop and ask which way you would prefer to go or which action should be taken providing many different paths through the movie. While this is more time-consuming and expensive for the filmmakers (more scenes need to be made and a lot more editing needs to be done), it gives the audience control that they want and if you give the people what they want the profits will follow.

In video games we aren't just along for the ride (keeping our hands and feet in the vehicle at all times) we make the ride and navigate our way through it. So who knows where video games will lead us, maybe all movies will function like Final Destination 3. We'll just have to wait and see.

The Ken Burns Revolution: Television and Film

A major omission of both Lotz's and Villarejo's textbooks on television and film is the failure to mention the noted documentarian Ken Burns. Ken Burns is one of the few filmmakers left who actually shoot their footage on celluloid, and edit it manually. I will discuss about some of his best works and talk about how he has revolutionized both film and telelvision.

Ken Burns, started out working by producing 1-2 hour films, made for PBS, back in the early 1980s. By the mid-1980s, one of his films, "The Statue of Liberty," was nominated for an Academy Award. It was at this same time he premiered his "Huey Long" film in theatres. Ken Burns was still an unknown in the film and television world, but that would all change by 1990. During that year, Burns aired his first serious work, "The Civil War," which ran at an 11 hour running time. Although broken up into five segments, it reached 40 million viewers, unheard of for public television. To this day, it has remained his best and critically acclaimed work. Instead of using old film footage of recreated Civil War battles by actors, Burns used various camera movements to bring old paintings and photographs from the Civil War to life. One of his camera movements is named the "Ken Burns Effect," in which various panning and scanning movements are used to bring life to still images.

Since 1990, Ken Burns has produced several documentary epics, such as "Baseball," "Jazz," "The War," and "The National Parks." While watching a behind the scenes documentary on Ken Burns' films, he has a small production company based out of Walpole, New Hampshire, with a staff of about 10 to 12 people. Everything from the research aspect to the editing aspect is done with minimal use of computers. The footage is shot on actual celluoid film, left to develop and dry, and editied by hand. Even sound effects and voice-overs are preserved on magnetic tape. This by no means indicates that Burns is not with the times. He makes most of his money with licensing fees and lending his name to no more than 25 compact discs made for his "Jazz" film, all containing digitally remastered vintage recordings.

Although Ken Burns does not air his films on commercial television or in theatres, he makes notices to public television as being the best place for his works. I agree, because channels such as Discovery and TLC have lost most of their identity where education is concerned, turning into pop culture stations. PBS has and still hasn't lost its identity over the past 40-odd years with educational programming. I myself couldn't see Burns premiering his films on TLC, with 5-10 minute commercial breaks. He has built a credibility and identity with public television. Credit must go where credit is due.

Just as a sidenote to wrap things up, Ken Burns and all his films can be accessed at his company's website: Florentine Films. YouTube has many videos of his works. I used a segment of his film "Jazz" for one of my classes. And last but not least, a picture of Burns is at the top of this post. I didn't know what he looked like until 2004, when I saw that behind the scenes documentary at that time.