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Lecture 10:Lecture 10:High-tech, Low-tech:High-tech, Low-tech:

Professor Victoria Meng

What do “emerging digital media”What do “emerging digital media”look and sound like?look and sound like?

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Lecture TopicsLecture Topics

• Forms and Styles

• “I’m Sorry Dave, I’m Afraid I Can’t Do That” (McClean, 2007)

• “The Eye of the Frog” (Tudor, 2008)

• Screenings and film clips

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Key Term: FormKey Term: Form

• Check their dictionary definitions!

• Which do you think is closest to the ones we use?

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Key Term: FormKey Term: Form

FormForm FormatFormat

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Key Term: FormKey Term: Form

What is a movie?

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Reading 2: McCleanReading 2: McClean

FormForm FormatFormat

>Film form: “the total system that the viewer perceives in the film.” (Film Art, quoted in McClean, 50)

What is digital media form?

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Key Term: FormKey Term: Form

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Key Term: FormKey Term: Form

Form: all the properties and elements of the media under study, and how these properties and elements relate to each other.

Medium specificity is the other side of Medium continuity.

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Reading 2: McCleanReading 2: McClean

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Shilo McClean, 2007

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Concept: Media ContinuityConcept: Media Continuity

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“Much of the documentation and analysis of physical camera techniques and their effects pertains to computer-generated camera practice, if for no other reason than that these techniques and the artifacts of the physical technology have set the standard for how the virtual camera is used.” (51)

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Concept: Media ContinuityConcept: Media Continuity

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How to Kill a Mockingbird (Scodary and Benitez, 2004)

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Concept: Media ExtensionsConcept: Media Extensions

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• DVFx: digital visual effects.

1. Media continuity as an antidote to technological determinism.

2. Media extend human abilities.

- Virtual cameras

- CG extras and actor

- Morphs

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Concept: Digital SpecificityConcept: Digital Specificity

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3. Digital visual effects have specific properties that have changed how we produce and perceive movies (and other motion picture media).

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Concept: Digital SpecificityConcept: Digital Specificity

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Dynasty, season 3 (1983)

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Concept: Digital SpecificityConcept: Digital Specificity

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Dynasty, season 3 (1983)

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Concept: Digital StyleConcept: Digital Style

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Veronica Mars, season 2 (2005)

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Concept: Digital StyleConcept: Digital Style

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Veronica Mars, season 3 (2006)

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Readings 1 and 2Readings 1 and 2

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• Digital visual effects have specific properties that have changed how we produce and perceive motion picture media and the world.

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Readings 1 and 2Readings 1 and 2

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• Digital visual effects have specific properties that have changed how we produce and perceive motion picture media and the world.

• Digital media are not neutral. Composite space/time can lead to disembodiment.

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Real Space, Real Time,Real Space, Real Time,and Real Peopleand Real People

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2001: A Space Odyssey, (Kubrick, 1968)

End of Lecture 10End of Lecture 10

Next Lecture: David’s Slingshot:

Do digital media help the underdog?21