Academic literature on the topic 'Animated films Motion pictures in education'

Abstract Esoteric symbolism of various kinds is dispersed in media for mass communication, and from the semiotic perspective, films, historically the primary medium for motion pictures, are the most powerful weapons for worldwide attraction. In this paper, two famous cartoon animated movies by Disney, Moana and Zootopia, are under analysis. For one thing, they use profound symbols in conveying a message to the audience, especially to children, and for another, their impact on society is wide due to the breadth and diversity of Disney-branded products. Thus, the present paper discusses these two movies using semiotic theories of signs, codes, and symbols, weaving them together to trace the system of communication between the text (here referring to the cinematic texts) and its audience, and especially how a heroine frame is built in the adventure genre. Interpreting the hidden meaning or occult symbolism requires a special kind of knowledge if we aim to convey the essence of the story to our children beyond merely knowing the plot of the film. The films Moana and Zootopia feature a number of interior or hidden elements such as metaphors and allegories, and illuminati or esoteric symbolism, even though they are animated ones.

AbstractModern computer-aided techniques foster the availability and quality of 3D visualization and reconstruction of extinct and extant species. Moreover, animated sequences of locomotion and other movements find their way into motion pictures and documentary films, but also gain attraction in science. While movement analysis is well advanced in vertebrates, particularly in mammals and birds, analyses in arthropods, with their much higher variability regarding general anatomy and size, are still in their infancies and restricted to a few laboratory species. These restrictions and deficient understanding of terrestrial arthropod locomotion in general impedes sensible reconstruction of movements in those species that are not directly observable (e.g., extinct and cryptic species). Since shortcomings like over-simplified approaches to simulate arthropod locomotion became obvious recently, in this review we provide insight into physical, morphological, physiological, behavioral, and ecological constraints, which are essential for sensible reconstructions of terrestrial arthropod locomotion. Such concerted consideration along with sensible evaluations of stability and efficiency requirements can pave the way to realistic assessment of leg coordination and body dynamics.

Going to the movies and viewing videos are very popular forms of entertainment. Cinematic stories and characters influence perceptions and opinions of many viewers. Studying film depictions, therefore, provides a unique perspective on society's views of individuals with disabilities. The purpose of this descriptive study was to investigate trends in Academy Award winning films that portray persons with disabilities. Over the decades, there have been an increasing number of awards involving “disability” movies; psychiatric disorders have been most frequently portrayed. Only two of the motion pictures identified presented children or youth with impairments, while none featured learning disabilities. Implications for special education professionals, with particular emphasis on using films for instructional purposes, are discussed.

In recent years, numerous marketing and organizational theorists have called attention to the analogy between jazz and management strategy. From the perspective of this jazz metaphor, key questions concern the implications of jazz training for marketing education. Too often—say, in motion pictures or television dramas—jazz is portrayed as an innocent folk music whose performance requires more feeling than knowledge. This inaccurate stereotype colors the treatment of music instruction found in the film Mr. Holland’s Opus (1995). A contrasting view of jazz as a technically demanding art form appears in the movie Whiplash (2014). These two films also represent diametrically opposed teaching styles—the first nurturing and customer-oriented, the second sadistic and product-oriented. A third motion picture entitled Keep On Keepin’ On (2014) presents a resolution of this dialectic in the form of a marketing-oriented instructor whose method of teaching combines kindness (the customer-oriented thesis) with rigor (the product-oriented antithesis) to achieve a balanced reconciliation (the marketing-oriented synthesis). From this perspective, like jazz training, marketing education is itself embarked on a marketing project that benefits from a rapprochement of customer-oriented and product-oriented impulses to attain a marketing-oriented synthesis. Thus, insights about jazz training become relevant to the challenges of marketing education—as illustrated by various examples from the author’s own experiences.

Animation is a medium that has the ability to represent a visual phenomenon as a whole. Animation is not just a work of image-driven, but the work depicted motion, as expressed by Norman McLaren, Canadian animator Academy Award winner. As the interpretation of the motion, the animation is not subject to the laws of nature, so there is no limitation including movements that cannot be done in the real world or recorded in the live-action movie. So is the characterization or characterizations in the animation can be so free and open more opportunities for exploration. This advantage makes the animation a favorite medium to draw the attention of the audience, especially in the growing era of digital animation technology. Animation is now not only used for entertainment purposes, but has penetrated other fields such as education, tourism, health care, and so on. As a cultural product, animation, as well as films and works of art of human culture in general, is a historical marker that describes the spirit of an era that functions inherent in the animated film documentation of socio-political dynamics of a nation in a given period. This paper describes the process of documentation of natural, intellectual, cultural and socio-political dynamics in countries that intensively utilize the medium of animation.

In the 1920 s, the politically heterogeneous Ukrainian emigration community in inter-war Czechoslovakia, with its back in World War I and losing national liberation competitions, desperately needed both physical and spiritual rest. However, the status of «emigrants» transformed the imagination of the natives about leisure and leisure. The recreational regulator was, on the one hand, the scientific and technical implications of the 'stormy twenties' and, on the other, the urgent need to keep 'one's band', that is, a collective form of rest and leisure. Ukrainian exiles visited various theatrical performances, book exhibitions, music concerts, sections and circles, and enjoyed excursions. Slowly, with some nuances, cinema was also part of the Ukrainian emigration leisure. It should be noted that the Ukrainian emigration in the inter-war Czechoslovakia, because of the 1920 s «quick return concept» and the priority, first of all, of its own political projects, did not leave any jobs or references to film vacations. The Great Depression of the 1930 s and the Losses dismissed the issue of leisure in general and film recreation in particular, making it difficult to physically work to survive. Contemporary scientific intelligence on the impact and role of cinema in the life of the Ukrainian emigration community in the interwar CSR is absent because of the fact that despite the status of Prague as a powerful political, cultural and scientific emigration center, it has not become a leading European cinema center, yielding here Berlin. Only those edited by Doctor of Historical Sciences, Professor IB Matyash, the book «Diplomatic History of Ukraine by Yevgeny Slabchenko (Eugene Deslav)», relevant to the subject of our intelligence, and the article by Roman Roslyak «Ukrainfilm».Based on the above, the purpose of the publication is to argue that, despite some efforts by the Ukrainian emigration community in the interwar CSR, a powerful European film center in Prague, unlike Paris, Vienna, Berlin and New York, never. The Ukrainian emigration community in the Czechoslovak Republic numbered about 20-22 thousand people. In its social composition, it was mainly peasant workers, the layer of her intelligentsia was small. Thus, most Ukrainian immigrants either used the moment to seek education in order to further have a higher social status or to work hard without being able to study. First of all, the Ukrainians, as a national community in exile with a lack of sufficient financial base, even in the «scientifically technical twenties» and «economically unstable thirties», were forced to stand in conservative positions on leisure issues. The first «moving pictures» appeared on the territory of the Czech Republic in 1896 in Prague and Karlovy Vary, thanks to the director and cameraman Jan Krzyzyniecki, who, since the second half of the 1890s, made several short documentary films. And a year later, one of the private American film companies came to the Czech Republic to start filming a black and white silent film in Bohemia. Whereas the first permanent cinema on Czech lands was started by the illusionist Victor Ponrepo (1858–1926) in 1907 in Prague. The Czechoslovakian film industry gained considerable momentum during the interwar period. Since 1921 professional film studios have started. And by 1932, the championship was kept by black and white silent films. The soundtrack of films in the Czechoslovakia began in 1930. In addition, in 1930 Czechoslovak authorities imposed a ban on the import of any German-language films. Prohibition of German-language film production leads to the fact that in 1933, the Czech studio «Barrandov Studio», established by the brothers Vaclav and Milos Havel in 1921, is firmly on its feet, and the number of cinemas is counted in 1938. 1824. However, there were attempts to create a quality Ukrainian emigration film product and, accordingly, Ukrainian (emigration) film studios in the Czechoslovak Republic. These attempts were linked to the names of Boris Khoslovsky and Roman Mishkevich. Khoslovsky since 1926 the head of production of advertising departments of the firm «Vira Film». Since 1928 organizer and owner of the «Mercury Film» Studio, specializing in the production of promotional films. Another Ukrainian film studio, «Terra Film», originated in Brno in the early 1930s on the initiative of Roman Mishkevich. This film studio tried to shoot science and plot (situational-natural) films. Until 1939, Myshkevich's firm remained the largest importer of motion pictures from the Czech Republic to Japan, China, India and Central America. Yet, to develop a powerful Ukrainian film industry in the Czechoslovakia proved impossible. There were several reasons for this. First, political (emigrant status) and economic (lack of sustainable financial flows from the Czechoslovakia) were hampered. Secondly, the Ukrainian film industry did not have the support of both Ukrainian and Czech (private) businesses. Thirdly, the low potential of Ukrainian film enthusiasts and the lack of professional education and experience were evident. Fourth, the Ukrainian Prague film production consisted mainly of documentaries, short films, plot films, reports and chronicles.

Introduction It is very common for children’s films to adapt, rework, or otherwise re-imagine existing cultural material. Such re-imaginings are potential candidates for fidelity criticism: a mode of analysis whereby an adaptation is judged according to its degree of faithfulness to the source text. Indeed, it is interesting that while fidelity criticism is now considered outdated and problematic by adaptation theorists (see Stam; Leitch; and Whelehan) the issue of fidelity has tended to linger in the discussions that form around material adapted for children. In particular, it is often assumed that the re-imagining of cultural material for children will involve a process of “dumbing down” that strips the original text of its complexity so that it is more easily consumed by young audiences (see Semenza; Kellogg; Hastings; and Napolitano). This is especially the case when children’s films draw from texts—or genres—that are specifically associated with an adult readership. This paper explores such an interplay between children’s and adult’s culture with reference to the re-imagining of the horror genre in children’s animated film. Recent years have seen an inrush of animated films that play with horror tropes, conventions, and characters. These include Frankenweenie (2012), ParaNorman (2012), Hotel Transylvania (2012), Igor (2008), Monsters Inc. (2001), Monster House (2006), and Monsters vs Aliens (2009). Often diminishingly referred to as “kiddie horror” or “goth lite”, this re-imagining of the horror genre is connected to broader shifts in children’s culture, literature, and media. Anna Jackson, Karen Coats, and Roderick McGillis, for instance, have written about the mainstreaming of the Gothic in children’s literature after centuries of “suppression” (2); a glance at the titles in a children’s book store, they tell us, may suggest that “fear or the pretence of fear has become a dominant mode of enjoyment in literature for young people” (1). At the same time, as Lisa Hopkins has pointed out, media products with dark, supernatural, or Gothic elements are increasingly being marketed to children, either directly or through product tie-ins such as toys or branded food items (116-17). The re-imagining of horror for children demands our attention for a number of reasons. First, it raises questions about the commercialisation and repackaging of material that has traditionally been considered “high culture”, particularly when the films in question are seen to pilfer from sites of the literary Gothic such as Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (1818) or Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1897). The classic horror films of the 1930s such as James Whale’s Frankenstein (1931) also have their own canonical status within the genre, and are objects of reverence for horror fans and film scholars alike. Moreover, aficionados of the genre have been known to object vehemently to any perceived simplification or dumbing down of horror conventions in order to address a non-horror audience. As Lisa Bode has demonstrated, such objections were articulated in many reviews of the film Twilight, in which the repackaging and simplifying of vampire mythology was seen to pander to a female, teenage or “tween” audience (710-11). Second, the re-imagining of horror for children raises questions about whether the genre is an appropriate source of pleasure and entertainment for young audiences. Horror has traditionally been understood as problematic and damaging even for adult viewers: Mark Jancovich, for instance, writes of the long-standing assumption that horror “is moronic, sick and worrying; that any person who derives pleasure from the genre is moronic, sick and potentially dangerous” and that both the genre and its fans are “deviant” (18). Consequently, discussions about the relationship between children and horror have tended to emphasise regulation, restriction, censorship, effect, and “the dangers of imitative violence” (Buckingham 95). As Paul Wells observes, there is a “consistent concern […] that horror films are harmful to children, but clearly these films are not made for children, and the responsibility for who views them lies with adult authority figures who determine how and when horror films are seen” (24). Previous academic work on the child as horror viewer has tended to focus on children as consumers of horror material designed for adults. Joanne Cantor’s extensive work in this area has indicated that fright reactions to horror media are commonly reported and can be long-lived (Cantor; and Cantor and Oliver). Elsewhere, the work of Sarah Smith (45-76) and David Buckingham (95-138) has indicated that children, like adults, can gain certain pleasures from the genre; it has also indicated that children can be quite media savvy when viewing horror, and can operate effectively as self-censors. However, little work has yet been conducted on whether (and how) the horror genre might be transformed for child viewers. With this in mind, I explore here the re-imagining of horror in two children’s animated films: Frankenweenie and ParaNorman. I will consider the way horror tropes, narratives, conventions, and characters have been reshaped in each film with a child’s perspective in mind. This, I argue, does not make them simplified texts or unsuitable objects of pleasure for adults; instead, the films demonstrate that the act of re-imagining horror for children calls into question long-held assumptions about pleasure, taste, and the boundaries between “adult” and “child”. Frankenweenie and ParaNorman: Rewriting the Myth of Childhood Innocence Frankenweenie is a stop-motion animation written by John August and directed by Tim Burton, based on a live-action short film made by Burton in 1984. As its name suggests, Frankenweenie re-imagines Shelley’s Frankenstein by transforming the relationship between creator and monster into that between child and pet. Burton’s Victor Frankenstein is a young boy living in a small American town, a creative loner who enjoys making monster movies. When his beloved dog Sparky is killed in a car accident, young Victor—like his predecessor in Shelley’s novel—is driven by the awfulness of this encounter with death to discover the “mysteries of creation” (Shelley 38): he digs up Sparky’s body, drags the corpse back to the family home, and reanimates him in the attic. This coming-to-life sequence is both a re-imagining of the famous animation scene in Whale’s film Frankenstein and a tender expression of the love between a boy and his dog. The re-imagined creation scene therefore becomes a site of negotiation between adult and child audiences: adult viewers familiar with Whale’s adaptation and its sense of electric spectacle are invited to rethink this scene from a child’s perspective, while child viewers are given access to a key moment from the horror canon. While this blurring of the lines between child and adult is a common theme in Burton’s work—many of his films exist in a liminal space where a certain childlike sensibility mingles with a more adult-centric dark humour—Frankenweenie is unique in that it actively re-imagines as “childlike” a film and/or work of literature that was previously populated by adult characters and associated with adult audiences. ParaNorman is the second major film from the animation studio Laika Entertainment. Following in the footsteps of the earlier Laika film Coraline (2009)—and paving the way for the studio’s 2014 release, Boxtrolls—ParaNorman features stop-motion animation, twisted storylines, and the exploration of dark themes and spaces by child characters. The film tells the story of Norman, an eleven year old boy who can see and communicate with the dead. This gift marks him as an outcast in the small town of Blithe Hollow, which has built its identity on the historic trial and hanging of an “evil” child witch. Norman must grapple with the town’s troubled past and calm the spirit of the vengeful witch; along the way, he and an odd assortment of children battle zombies and townsfolk alike, the latter appearing more monstrous than the former as the film progresses. Although ParaNorman does not position itself as an adaptation of a specific horror text, as does Frankenweenie, it shares with Burton’s film a playful intertextuality whereby references are constantly made to iconic films in the horror genre (including Halloween [1978], Friday the 13th [1980], and Day of the Dead [1985]). Both films were released in 2012 to critical acclaim. Interestingly, though, film critics seemed to disagree over who these texts were actually “for.” Some reviewers described the films as children’s texts, and warned that adults would likely find them “tame and compromised” (Scott), “toothless” (McCarthy) or “sentimental” (Bradshaw). These comments carry connotations of simplification: the suggestion is that the conventions and tropes of the horror genre have been weakened (or even contaminated) by the association with child audiences, and that consequently adults cannot (or should not) take pleasure in the films. Other reviewers of ParaNorman and Frankenweenie suggested that adults were more likely to enjoy the films than children (O’Connell; Berardinelli; and Wolgamott). Often, this suggestion came together with a warning about scary or dark content: the films were deemed to be too frightening for young children, and this exclusion of the child audience allowed the reviewer to acknowledge his or her own enjoyment of and investment in the film (and the potential enjoyment of other adult viewers). Lou Lumenick, for instance, peppers his review of ParaNorman with language that indicates his own pleasure (“probably the year’s most visually dazzling movie so far”; the climax is “too good to spoil”; the humour is “deliciously twisted”), while warning that children as old as eight should not be taken to see the film. Similarly, Christy Lemire warns that certain elements of Frankenweenie are scary and that “this is not really a movie for little kids”; she goes on to add that this scariness “is precisely what makes ‘Frankenweenie’ such a consistent wonder to watch for the rest of us” (emphasis added). In both these cases a line is drawn between child and adult viewers, and arguably it is the film’s straying into the illicit area of horror from the confines of a children’s text that renders it an object of pleasure for the adult viewer. The thrill of being scared is also interpreted here as a specifically adult pleasure. This need on the part of critics to establish boundaries between child and adult viewerships is interesting given that the films themselves strive to incorporate children (as characters and as viewers) into the horror space. In particular, both films work hard to dismantle the myths of childhood innocence—and associated ideas about pleasure and taste—that have previously seen children excluded from the culture of the horror film. Both the young protagonists, for instance, are depicted as media-literate consumers or makers of horror material. Victor is initially seen exhibiting one of his home-made monster movies to his bemused parents, and we first encounter Norman watching a zombie film with his (dead) grandmother; clearly a consummate horror viewer, Norman decodes the film for Grandma, explaining that the zombie is eating the woman’s head because, “that’s what they do.” In this way, the myth of childhood innocence is rewritten: the child’s mature engagement with the horror genre gives him agency, which is linked to his active position in the narrative (both Norman and Victor literally save their towns from destruction); the parents, meanwhile, are reduced to babbling stereotypes who worry that their sons will “turn out weird” (Frankenweenie) or wonder why they “can’t be like other kids” (ParaNorman). The films also rewrite the myth of childhood innocence by depicting Victor and Norman as children with dark, difficult lives. Importantly, each boy has encountered death and, for each, his parents have failed to effectively guide him through the experience. In Frankenweenie Victor is grief-stricken when Sparky dies, yet his parents can offer little more than platitudes to quell the pain of loss. “When you lose someone you love they never really leave you,” Victor’s mother intones, “they just move into a special place in your heart,” to which Victor replies “I don’t want him in my heart—I want him here with me!” The death of Norman’s grandmother is similarly dismissed by his mother in ParaNorman. “I know you and Grandma were very close,” she says, “but we all have to move on. Grandma’s in a better place now.” Norman objects: “No she’s not, she’s in the living room!” In both scenes, the literal-minded but intelligent child seems to understand death, loss, and grief while the parents are unable to speak about these “mature” concepts in a meaningful way. The films are also reminders that a child’s first experience of death can come very young, and often occurs via the loss of an elderly relative or a beloved pet. Death, Play, and the Monster In both films, therefore, the audience is invited to think about death. Consequently, there is a sense in each film that while the violent and sexual content of most horror texts has been stripped away, the dark centre of the horror genre remains. As Paul Wells reminds us, horror “is predominantly concerned with the fear of death, the multiple ways in which it can occur, and the untimely nature of its occurrence” (10). Certainly, the horror texts which Frankenweenie and ParaNorman re-imagine are specifically concerned with death and mortality. The various adaptations of Frankenstein that are referenced in Frankenweenie and the zombie films to which ParaNorman pays homage all deploy “the monster” as a figure who defies easy categorisation as living or dead. The othering of this figure in the traditional horror narrative allows him/her/it to both subvert and confirm cultural ideas about life, death, and human status: for monsters, as Elaine Graham notes, have long been deployed in popular culture as figures who “mark the fault-lines” and also “signal the fragility” of boundary structures, including the boundary between human and not human, and that between life and death (12). Frankenweenie’s Sparky, as an iteration of the Frankenstein monster, clearly fits this description: he is neither living nor dead, and his monstrosity emerges not from any act of violence or from physical deformity (he remains, throughout the film, a cute and lovable dog, albeit with bolts fixed to his neck) but from his boundary-crossing status. However, while most versions of the Frankenstein monster are deliberately positioned to confront ideas about the human/machine boundary and to perform notions of the posthuman, such concerns are sidelined in Frankenweenie. Instead, the emphasis is on concerns that are likely to resonate with children: Sparky is a reminder of the human preoccupation with death, loss, and the question of why (or whether, or when) we should abide by the laws of nature. Arguably, this indicates a re-imagining of the Frankenstein tale not only for child audiences but from a child’s perspective. In ParaNorman, similarly, the zombie–often read as an articulation of adult anxieties about war, apocalypse, terrorism, and the deterioration of social order (Platts 551-55)—is re-used and re-imagined in a childlike way. From a child’s perspective, the zombie may represent the horrific truth of mortality and/or the troublesome desire to live forever that emerges once this truth has been confronted. More specifically, the notion of dealing meaningfully with the past and of honouring rather than silencing the dead is a strong thematic undercurrent in ParaNorman, and in this sense the zombies are important figures who dramatise the connections between past and present. While this past/present connection is explored on many levels in ParaNorman—including the level of a town grappling with its dark history—it is Norman and his grandmother who take centre stage: the boundary-crossing figure of the zombie is re-realised here in terms of a negotiation with a presence that is now absent (the elderly relative who has died but is still remembered). Indeed, the zombies in this film are an implicit rebuke to Norman’s mother and her command that Norman “move on” after his grandmother’s death. The dead are still present, this film playfully reminds us, and therefore “moving on” is an overly simplistic and somewhat disrespectful response (especially when imposed on children by adult authority figures.) If the horror narrative is built around the notion that “normality is threatened by the Monster”, as Robin Wood has famously suggested, ParaNorman and Frankenweenie re-imagine this narrative of subversion from a child’s perspective (31). Both films open up a space within which the child is permitted to negotiate with the destabilising figure of the monster; the normality that is “threatened” here is the adult notion of the finality of death and, relatedly, the assumption that death is not a suitable subject for children to think or talk about. Breaking down such understandings, Frankenweenie and ParaNorman strive not so much to play with death (a phrase that implies a certain callousness, a problematic disregard for human life) but to explore death through the darkness of play. This is beautifully imaged in a scene from ParaNorman in which Norman and his friend Neil play with the ghost of Neil’s recently deceased dog. “We’re going to play with a dead dog in the garden,” Neil enthusiastically announces to his brother, “and we’re not even going to have to dig him up first!” Somewhat similarly, film critic Richard Corliss notes in his review of Frankenweenie that the film’s “message to the young” is that “children should play with dead things.” Through this intersection between “death” and “play”, both films propose a particularly child-like (although not necessarily child-ish) way of negotiating horror’s dark territory. Conclusion Animated film has always been an ambiguous space in terms of age, pleasure, and viewership. As film critic Margaret Pomeranz has observed, “there is this perception that if it’s an animated film then you can take the little littlies” (Pomeranz and Stratton). Animation itself is often a signifier of safety, fun, nostalgia, and childishness; it is a means of addressing families and young audiences. Yet at the same time, the fantastic and transformative aspects of animation can be powerful tools for telling stories that are dark, surprising, or somehow subversive. It is therefore interesting that the trend towards re-imagining horror for children that this paper has identified is unfolding within the animated space. It is beyond the scope of this paper to fully consider what animation as a medium brings to this re-imagining process. However, it is worth noting that the distinctive stop-motion style used in both films works to position them as alternatives to Disney products (for although Frankenweenie was released under the Disney banner, it is visually distinct from most of Disney’s animated ventures). The majority of Disney films are adaptations or re-imaginings of some sort, yet these re-imaginings look to fairytales or children’s literature for their source material. In contrast, as this paper has demonstrated, Frankenweenie and ParaNorman open up a space for boundary play: they give children access to tropes, narratives, and characters that are specifically associated with adult viewers, and they invite adults to see these tropes, narratives, and characters from a child’s perspective. Ultimately, it is difficult to determine the success of this re-imagining process: what, indeed, does a successful re-imagining of horror for children look like, and who might be permitted to take pleasure from it? Arguably, ParaNorman and Frankenweenie have succeeded in reshaping the genre without simplifying it, deploying tropes and characters from classic horror texts in a meaningful way within the complex space of children’s animated film. References Berardinelli, James. “Frankenweenie (Review).” Reelviews, 4 Oct. 2012. 6 Aug. 2014 ‹http://www.reelviews.net/php_review_template.php?identifier=2530›. Bode, Lisa. “Transitional Tastes: Teen Girls and Genre in the Critical Reception of Twilight.” Continuum: Journal of Media & Cultural Studies 24.5 (2010): 707-19. Bradshaw, Peter. “Frankenweenie: First Look Review.” The Guardian, 11 Oct. 2012. 6 Aug. 2014 ‹http://www.theguardian.com/film/2012/oct/10/frankenweenie-review-london-film-festival-tim-burton›. Buckingham, David. Moving Images: Understanding Children’s Emotional Responses to Television. Manchester and New York: Manchester University Press, 1996. Cantor, Joanne. “‘I’ll Never Have a Clown in My House’ – Why Movie Horror Lives On.” Poetics Today 25.2 (2004): 283-304. Cantor, Joanne, and Mary Beth Oliver. “Developmental Differences in Responses to Horror”. The Horror Film. Ed. Stephen Prince. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers UP, 2004. 224-41. Corliss, Richard. “‘Frankenweenie’ Movie Review: A Re-Animated Delight”. Time, 4 Oct. 2012. 6 Aug. 2014 ‹http://entertainment.time.com/2012/10/04/tim-burtons-frankenweenie-a-re-animated-delight/›. Frankenweenie. Directed by Tim Burton. Walt Disney Pictures, 2012. Graham, Elaine L. Representations of the Post/Human: Monsters, Aliens and Others in Popular Culture. Manchester: Manchester UP, 2002. Hastings, A. Waller. “Moral Simplification in Disney’s The Little Mermaid.” The Lion and the Unicorn 17.1 (1993): 83-92. Hopkins, Lisa. Screening the Gothic. Austin: U of Texas P, 2005. 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McCarthy, Todd. “Frankenweenie: Film Review.” The Hollywood Reporter, 20 Sep. 2012. 6 Aug. 2014 ‹http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movie/frankenweenie/review/372720›. Napolitano, Marc. “Disneyfying Dickens: Oliver & Company and The Muppet Christmas Carol as Dickensian Musicals.” Studies in Popular Culture 32.1 (2009): 79-102. O’Connell, Sean. “Middle School and Zombies? Awwwkward!” Washington Post, 17 Aug. 2012. 3 Jun. 2015 ‹http://www.washingtonpost.com/gog/movies/paranorman,1208210.html›. ParaNorman. Directed by Chris Butler and Sam Fell. Focus Features/Laika Entertainment, 2012. Platts, Todd K. “Locating Zombies in the Sociology of Popular Culture”. Sociology Compass 7 (2013): 547-60. Pomeranz, Margaret, and David Stratton. “Igor (Review).” At the Movies, 14 Dec. 2008. 6 Aug. 2014 ‹http://www.abc.net.au/atthemovies/txt/s2426109.htm›. Scott, A.O. “It’s Aliiiive! And Wagging Its Tail: ‘Frankenweenie’, Tim Burton’s Homage to Horror Classics.” New York Times, 4 Oct. 2012. 6 Aug. 2014 ‹http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/05/movies/frankenweenie-tim-burtons-homage-to-horror-classics.html›. Semenza, Gregory M. Colón. “Teens, Shakespeare, and the Dumbing Down Cliché: The Case of The Animated Tales.” Shakespeare Bulletin 26.2 (2008): 37-68. Shelley, Mary. Frankenstein, or, The Modern Prometheus. Hertfordshire: Wordsworth Editions, 1993 [1818]. Smith, Sarah J. Children, Cinema and Censorship: From Dracula to the Dead End Kids. London: I.B. Tauris, 2005. Stam, Robert. “Introduction: The Theory and Practice of Adaptation.” Literature and Film: A Guide to the Theory and Practice of Film Adaptation. Eds. Robert Stam and Alessandra Raengo. Oxford: Blackwell, 2005. 1-52. Wells, Paul. The Horror Genre: From Beelzebub to Blair Witch. London: Wallflower, 2000. Whelehan, Imelda. “Adaptations: the Contemporary Dilemmas.” Adaptations: From Text to Screen, Screen to Text. Eds. Deborah Cartmell and Imelda Whelehan. London: Routledge, 1999. 3-19. Wolgamott, L. Kent. “‘Frankenweenie’ A Box-Office Bomb, But Superior Film.” Lincoln Journal Star, 10 Oct. 2012. 18 Aug. 2014 ‹http://journalstar.com/entertainment/movies/l-kent-wolgamott-frankenweenie-a-box-office-bomb-but-superior/article_42409e82-89b9-5794-8082-7b5de3d469e2.html›. Wood, Robin. “The American Nightmare: Horror in the 70s.” Horror: The Film Reader. Ed. Mark Jancovich. London: Routledge, 2002. 25-32.

La ciencia ha estado presente en el hecho cinematográfico desde sus orígenes, ya como impulsora de la invención misma del cinematógrafo en el ocaso del siglo XIX, ya como promotora del continuo desarrollo técnico que los soportes audiovisuales han ido experimentando y garante de la calidad de la imagen y el sonido, a la vez que elemento propiciador de la reciente apertura del cine hacia la digitalización. En este artículo nos proponemos hacer un breve recorrido por los insignos científicos que han sido protagonistas de la historia del medio en un contexto amplio, desde aquellos primeros inventores y pioneros de los efectos especiales y el trucaje hasta los crudos estereotipos sociológicos que el ámbito audiovisual nos ha ofrecido durante décadas, deteniéndonos a analizar el rol propagandístico o admonitorio que la imagen en movimiento ha desempeñado a la hora de reflejar las bienandanzas o adversidades que el progreso tecno-científico puede llegar a acarrear. Abstract:It is an undisputed fact that scientific discovery has been notably present in cinema since its early origins, either as a precursor of the Cinématographe's invention in the twilight of the nineteenth century or even as a tool intended for the technical improvement of the audiovisual aids and the progressive quality of image and sound, as well as a driving force in the opening-up to modern digitalization nowadays. Our aim in this article is to have a short tour around the most prominent scientists that have led the history of film in a wide sense, from the early inventors and the pioneers of special effects and trick photography to the on-screen sociologically stereotypes that audiovisual means have provided for decades. Finally, we also discuss the advertising or warning role that motion pictures have carried out to mainly reflect the prosperities and adversities that techno-scientific progress may entail.Palabras clave:Innovación tecnológica; cinematógrafo; documental científico; cine de animación; estereotipos; biopic.Keywords:Technological Innovation; Cinématographe; Scientific Documentary; Animated Films; Stereotypes; Biopic.

The paper considers the problem of forced rather than self-actualized teaching of a foreign language to students, educators and representatives of other practical fields of activity. Theoretical and methodological backgrounds for solving this problem are revealed on the basis of the humanistic and activity-based traditions of psychological and pedagogical knowledge. Activity-related traditions are analyzed in regard with the potentialities of appropriate approaches to learning to stir cognitive interest while educational process. Humanistic traditions designed to individualize education are explored in the context of psycho-corrective capabilities of educational activity, its conformity to the world outlook, cultural needs and psychological characteristics of a learner. The practical side of this study consists of methodological recommendations on the application of Baitukalov’s method of teaching foreign languages. Within the framework of Baitukalov’s methodology, the activity-related aspect of sociocultural foreign-language immersion is actualized through feature films. Fragments from feature films are used for the humanization of education as well. In the paper it is also substantiated that the fragments of motion pictures recommended for memorization through role playing not only contribute to the development of the communicative competence, but also make the psycho-correcting effect on the learner’s consciousness. The paper makes emphasis on fairy-tale stories, positive situations from films, where heroes overcome external circumstances successfully and change and grow personally. Besides, a characterization of a number of feature films is given. The criteria for the selection of feature films should be based on the individual characteristics of a person. It is recommended to unite the efforts of specialists for the experience exchange of using the feature films potential. The provision of «ecological safety» (that concerns ethics, moral, etc.) and aesthetics while selecting the certain fragments of film production for education purposes is asserted as the essential problem of the noted experience exchange. Further development of Baitukalov’s methodology is suggested in the aspect of the teaching potential of feature films, as well as in increasing the efficiency of cognitive activity at the expense of equal time intervals between key semantic units (words, images, etc.) with at least threefold repetition of key information


 
 
 From elephants to ABBA fans, silicon to hormone, the following discussion uses a new research method to look at printed text, motion pictures and a teenage rebel icon. If by ‘print’ we mean a mechanically reproduced impression of a cultural symbol in a medium, then printing has been with us since before microdot security prints were painted onto cars, before voice prints, laser prints, network servers, record pressings, motion picture prints, photo prints, colour woodblock prints, before books, textile prints, and footprints. If we accept that higher mammals such as elephants have a learnt culture, then it is possible to extend a definition of printing beyond Homo sapiens. Poole reports that elephants mechanically trumpet reproductions of human car horns into the air surrounding their society. If nothing else, this cross-species, cross-cultural reproduction, this ‘ability to mimic’ is ‘another sign of their intelligence’. Observation of child development suggests that the first significant meaningful ‘impression’ made on the human mind is that of the face of the child’s nurturer – usually its mother. The baby’s mind forms an ‘impression’, a mental print, a reproducible memory data set, of the nurturer’s face, voice, smell, touch, etc. That face is itself a cultural construct: hair style, makeup, piercings, tattoos, ornaments, nutrition-influenced skin and smell, perfume, temperature and voice. A mentally reproducible pattern of a unique face is formed in the mind, and we use that pattern to distinguish ‘familiar and strange’ in our expanding social orbit. The social relations of patterned memory – of imprinting – determine the extent to which we explore our world (armed with research aids such as text print) or whether we turn to violence or self-harm (Bretherton). While our cultural artifacts (such as vellum maps or networked voice message servers) bravely extend our significant patterns into the social world and the traversed environment, it is useful to remember that such artifacts, including print, are themselves understood by our original pattern-reproduction and impression system – the human mind, developed in childhood. The ‘print’ is brought to mind differently in different discourses. For a reader, a ‘print’ is a book, a memo or a broadsheet, whether it is the Indian Buddhist Sanskrit texts ordered to be printed in 593 AD by the Chinese emperor Sui Wen-ti (Silk Road) or the US Defense Department memo authorizing lower ranks to torture the prisoners taken by the Bush administration (Sanchez, cited in ABC). Other fields see prints differently. For a musician, a ‘print’ may be the sheet music which spread classical and popular music around the world; it may be a ‘record’ (as in a ‘recording’ session), where sound is impressed to wax, vinyl, charged silicon particles, or the alloys (Smith, “Elpida”) of an mp3 file. For the fine artist, a ‘print’ may be any mechanically reproduced two-dimensional (or embossed) impression of a significant image in media from paper to metal, textile to ceramics. ‘Print’ embraces the Japanese Ukiyo-e colour prints of Utamaro, the company logos that wink from credit card holographs, the early photographs of Talbot, and the textured patterns printed into neolithic ceramics. Computer hardware engineers print computational circuits. Homicide detectives investigate both sweaty finger prints and the repeated, mechanical gaits of suspects, which are imprinted into the earthy medium of a crime scene. For film makers, the ‘print’ may refer to a photochemical polyester reproduction of a motion picture artifact (the reel of ‘celluloid’), or a DVD laser disc impression of the same film. Textualist discourse has borrowed the word ‘print’ to mean ‘text’, so ‘print’ may also refer to the text elements within the vision track of a motion picture: the film’s opening titles, or texts photographed inside the motion picture story such as the sword-cut ‘Z’ in Zorro (Niblo). Before the invention of writing, the main mechanically reproduced impression of a cultural symbol in a medium was the humble footprint in the sand. The footprints of tribes – and neighbouring animals – cut tracks in the vegetation and the soil. Printed tracks led towards food, water, shelter, enemies and friends. Having learnt to pattern certain faces into their mental world, children grew older and were educated in the footprints of family and clan, enemies and food. The continuous impression of significant foot traffic in the medium of the earth produced the lines between significant nodes of prewriting and pre-wheeled cultures. These tracks were married to audio tracks, such as the song lines of the Australian Aborigines, or the ballads of tramping culture everywhere. A typical tramping song has the line, ‘There’s a track winding back to an old-fashion shack along the road to Gundagai,’ (O’Hagan), although this colonial-style song was actually written for radio and became an international hit on the airwaves, rather than the tramping trails. The printed tracks impressed by these cultural flows are highly contested and diverse, and their foot prints are woven into our very language. The names for printed tracks have entered our shared memory from the intersection of many cultures: ‘Track’ is a Germanic word entering English usage comparatively late (1470) and now used mainly in audio visual cultural reproduction, as in ‘soundtrack’. ‘Trek’ is a Dutch word for ‘track’ now used mainly by ecotourists and science fiction fans. ‘Learn’ is a Proto-Indo-European word: the verb ‘learn’ originally meant ‘to find a track’ back in the days when ‘learn’ had a noun form which meant ‘the sole of the foot’. ‘Tract’ and ‘trace’ are Latin words entering English print usage before 1374 and now used mainly in religious, and electronic surveillance, cultural reproduction. ‘Trench’ in 1386 was a French path cut through a forest. ‘Sagacity’ in English print in 1548 was originally the ability to track or hunt, in Proto-Indo-European cultures. ‘Career’ (in English before 1534) was the print made by chariots in ancient Rome. ‘Sleuth’ (1200) was a Norse noun for a track. ‘Investigation’ (1436) was Latin for studying a footprint (Harper). The arrival of symbolic writing scratched on caves, hearth stones, and trees (the original meaning of ‘book’ is tree), brought extremely limited text education close to home. Then, with baked clay tablets, incised boards, slate, bamboo, tortoise shell, cast metal, bark cloth, textiles, vellum, and – later – paper, a portability came to text that allowed any culture to venture away from known ‘foot’ paths with a reduction in the risk of becoming lost and perishing. So began the world of maps, memos, bills of sale, philosophic treatises and epic mythologies. Some of this was printed, such as the mechanical reproduction of coins, but the fine handwriting required of long, extended, portable texts could not be printed until the invention of paper in China about 2000 years ago. Compared to lithic architecture and genes, portable text is a fragile medium, and little survives from the millennia of its innovators. The printing of large non-text designs onto bark-paper and textiles began in neolithic times, but Sui Wen-ti’s imperial memo of 593 AD gives us the earliest written date for printed books, although we can assume they had been published for many years previously. The printed book was a combination of Indian philosophic thought, wood carving, ink chemistry and Chinese paper. The earliest surviving fragment of paper-print technology is ‘Mantras of the Dharani Sutra’, a Buddhist scripture written in the Sanskrit language of the Indian subcontinent, unearthed at an early Tang Dynasty site in Xian, China – making the fragment a veteran piece of printing, in the sense that Sanskrit books had been in print for at least a century by the early Tang Dynasty (Chinese Graphic Arts Net). At first, paper books were printed with page-size carved wooden boards. Five hundred years later, Pi Sheng (c.1041) baked individual reusable ceramic characters in a fire and invented the durable moveable type of modern printing (Silk Road 2000). Abandoning carved wooden tablets, the ‘digitizing’ of Chinese moveable type sped up the production of printed texts. In turn, Pi Sheng’s flexible, rapid, sustainable printing process expanded the political-cultural impact of the literati in Asian society. Digitized block text on paper produced a bureaucratic, literate elite so powerful in Asia that Louis XVI of France copied China’s print-based Confucian system of political authority for his own empire, and so began the rise of the examined public university systems, and the civil service systems, of most European states (Watson, Visions). By reason of its durability, its rapid mechanical reproduction, its culturally agreed signs, literate readership, revered authorship, shared ideology, and distributed portability, a ‘print’ can be a powerful cultural network which builds and expands empires. But print also attacks and destroys empires. A case in point is the Spanish conquest of Aztec America: The Aztecs had immense libraries of American literature on bark-cloth scrolls, a technology which predated paper. These libraries were wiped out by the invading Spanish, who carried a different book before them (Ewins). In the industrial age, the printing press and the gun were seen as the weapons of rebellions everywhere. In 1776, American rebels staffed their ‘Homeland Security’ units with paper makers, knowing that defeating the English would be based on printed and written documents (Hahn). Mao Zedong was a book librarian; Mao said political power came out of the barrel of a gun, but Mao himself came out of a library. With the spread of wireless networked servers, political ferment comes out of the barrel of the cell phone and the internet chat room these days. Witness the cell phone displays of a plane hitting a tower that appear immediately after 9/11 in the Middle East, or witness the show trials of a few US and UK lower ranks who published prints of their torturing activities onto the internet: only lower ranks who published prints were arrested or tried. The control of secure servers and satellites is the new press. These days, we live in a global library of burning books – ‘burning’ in the sense that ‘print’ is now a charged silicon medium (Smith, “Intel”) which is usually made readable by connecting the chip to nuclear reactors and petrochemically-fired power stations. World resources burn as we read our screens. Men, women, children burn too, as we watch our infotainment news in comfort while ‘their’ flickering dead faces are printed in our broadcast hearths. The print we watch is not the living; it is the voodoo of the living in the blackout behind the camera, engaging the blood sacrifice of the tormented and the unfortunate. Internet texts are also ‘on fire’ in the third sense of their fragility and instability as a medium: data bases regularly ‘print’ fail-safe copies in an attempt to postpone the inevitable mechanical, chemical and electrical failure that awaits all electronic media in time. Print defines a moral position for everyone. In reporting conflict, in deciding to go to press or censor, any ‘print’ cannot avoid an ethical context, starting with the fact that there is a difference in power between print maker, armed perpetrators, the weak, the peaceful, the publisher, and the viewer. So many human factors attend a text, video or voice ‘print’: its very existence as an aesthetic object, even before publication and reception, speaks of unbalanced, and therefore dynamic, power relationships. For example, Graham Greene departed unscathed from all the highly dangerous battlefields he entered as a novelist: Riot-torn Germany, London Blitz, Belgian Congo, Voodoo Haiti, Vietnam, Panama, Reagan’s Washington, and mafia Europe. His texts are peopled with the injustices of the less fortunate of the twentieth century, while he himself was a member of the fortunate (if not happy) elite, as is anyone today who has the luxury of time to read Greene’s works for pleasure. Ethically a member of London and Paris’ colonizers, Greene’s best writing still electrifies, perhaps partly because he was in the same line of fire as the victims he shared bread with. In fact, Greene hoped daily that he would escape from the dreadful conflicts he fictionalized via a body bag or an urn of ashes (see Sherry). In reading an author’s biography we have one window on the ethical dimensions of authority and print. If a print’s aesthetics are sometimes enduring, its ethical relationships are always mutable. Take the stylized logo of a running athlete: four limbs bent in a rotation of action. This dynamic icon has symbolized ‘good health’ in Hindu and Buddhist culture, from Madras to Tokyo, for thousands of years. The cross of bent limbs was borrowed for the militarized health programs of 1930s Germany, and, because of what was only a brief, recent, isolated yet monstrously horrific segment of its history in print, the bent-limbed swastika is now a vilified symbol in the West. The sign remains ‘impressed’ differently on traditional Eastern culture, and without the taint of Nazism. Dramatic prints are emotionally charged because, in depicting Homo sapiens in danger, or passionately in love, they elicit a hormonal reaction from the reader, the viewer, or the audience. The type of emotions triggered by a print vary across the whole gamut of human chemistry. A recent study of three genres of motion picture prints shows a marked differences in the hormonal responses of men compared to women when viewing a romance, an actioner, and a documentary (see Schultheiss, Wirth, and Stanton). Society is biochemically diverse in its engagement with printed culture, which raises questions about equality in the arts. Motion picture prints probably comprise around one third of internet traffic, in the form of stolen digitized movie files pirated across the globe via peer-to-peer file transfer networks (p2p), and burnt as DVD laser prints (BBC). There is also a US 40 billion dollar per annum legitimate commerce in DVD laser pressings (Grassl), which would suggest an US 80 billion per annum world total in legitimate laser disc print culture. The actively screen literate, or the ‘sliterati’ as I prefer to call them, research this world of motion picture prints via their peers, their internet information channels, their television programming, and their web forums. Most of this activity occurs outside the ambit of universities and schools. One large site of sliterate (screen literate) practice outside most schooling and official research is the net of online forums at imdb.com (International Movie Data Base). Imdb.com ‘prints’ about 25,000,000 top pages per month to client browsers. Hundreds of sliterati forums are located at imdb, including a forum for the Australian movie, Muriel’s Wedding (Hogan). Ten years after the release of Muriel’s Wedding, young people who are concerned with victimization and bullying still log on to http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0110598/board/> and put their thoughts into print: I still feel so bad for Muriel in the beginning of the movie, when the girls ‘dump’ her, and how much the poor girl cried and cried! Those girls were such biartches…I love how they got their comeuppance! bunniesormaybemidgets’s comment is typical of the current discussion. Muriel’s Wedding was a very popular film in its first cinema edition in Australia and elsewhere. About 30% of the entire over-14 Australian population went to see this photochemical polyester print in the cinemas on its first release. A decade on, the distributors printed a DVD laser disc edition. The story concerns Muriel (played by Toni Collette), the unemployed daughter of a corrupt, ‘police state’ politician. Muriel is bullied by her peers and she withdraws into a fantasy world, deluding herself that a white wedding will rescue her from the torments of her blighted life. Through theft and deceit (the modus operandi of her father) Muriel escapes to the entertainment industry and finds a ‘wicked’ girlfriend mentor. From a rebellious position of stubborn independence, Muriel plays out her fantasy. She gets her white wedding, before seeing both her father and her new married life as hollow shams which have goaded her abandoned mother to suicide. Redefining her life as a ‘game’ and assuming responsibility for her independence, Muriel turns her back on the mainstream, image-conscious, female gang of her oppressed youth. Muriel leaves the story, having rekindled her friendship with her rebel mentor. My methodological approach to viewing the laser disc print was to first make a more accessible, coded record of the entire movie. I was able to code and record the print in real time, using a new metalanguage (Watson, “Eyes”). The advantage of Coding is that ‘thinks’ the same way as film making, it does not sidetrack the analyst into prose. The Code splits the movie print into Vision Action [vision graphic elements, including text] (sound) The Coding splits the vision track into normal action and graphic elements, such as text, so this Coding is an ideal method for extracting all the text elements of a film in real time. After playing the film once, I had four and a half tightly packed pages of the coded story, including all its text elements in square brackets. Being a unique, indexed hard copy, the Coded copy allowed me immediate access to any point of the Muriel’s Wedding saga without having to search the DVD laser print. How are ‘print’ elements used in Muriel’s Wedding? Firstly, a rose-coloured monoprint of Muriel Heslop’s smiling face stares enigmatically from the plastic surface of the DVD picture disc. The print is a still photo captured from her smile as she walked down the aisle of her white wedding. In this print, Toni Collette is the Mona Lisa of Australian culture, except that fans of Muriel’s Wedding know the meaning of that smile is a magical combination of the actor’s art: the smile is both the flush of dreams come true and the frightening self deception that will kill her mother. Inserting and playing the disc, the text-dominant menu appears, and the film commences with the text-dominant opening titles. Text and titles confer a legitimacy on a work, whether it is a trade mark of the laser print owners, or the household names of stars. Text titles confer status relationships on both the presenters of the cultural artifact and the viewer who has entered into a legal license agreement with the owners of the movie. A title makes us comfortable, because the mind always seeks to name the unfamiliar, and a set of text titles does that job for us so that we can navigate the ‘tracks’ and settle into our engagement with the unfamiliar. The apparent ‘truth’ and ‘stability’ of printed text calms our fears and beguiles our uncertainties. Muriel attends the white wedding of a school bully bride, wearing a leopard print dress she has stolen. Muriel’s spotted wild animal print contrasts with the pure white handmade dress of the bride. In Muriel’s leopard textile print, we have the wild, rebellious, impoverished, inappropriate intrusion into the social ritual and fantasy of her high-status tormentor. An off-duty store detective recognizes the printed dress and calls the police. The police are themselves distinguished by their blue-and-white checked prints and other mechanically reproduced impressions of cultural symbols: in steel, brass, embroidery, leather and plastics. Muriel is driven in the police car past the stenciled town sign (‘Welcome To Porpoise Spit’ heads a paragraph of small print). She is delivered to her father, a politician who presides over the policing of his town. In a state where the judiciary, police and executive are hijacked by the same tyrant, Muriel’s father, Bill, pays off the police constables with a carton of legal drugs (beer) and Muriel must face her father’s wrath, which he proceeds to transfer to his detested wife. Like his daughter, the father also wears a spotted brown print costume, but his is a batik print from neighbouring Indonesia (incidentally, in a nation that takes the political status of its batik prints very seriously). Bill demands that Muriel find the receipt for the leopard print dress she claims she has purchased. The legitimate ownership of the object is enmeshed with a printed receipt, the printed evidence of trade. The law (and the paramilitary power behind the law) are legitimized, or contested, by the presence or absence of printed text. Muriel hides in her bedroom, surround by poster prints of the pop group ABBA. Torn-out prints of other people’s weddings adorn her mirror. Her face is embossed with the clown-like primary colours of the marionette as she lifts a bouquet to her chin and stares into the real time ‘print’ of her mirror image. Bill takes the opportunity of a business meeting with Japanese investors to feed his entire family at ‘Charlie Chan’’s restaurant. Muriel’s middle sister sloppily wears her father’s state election tee shirt, printed with the text: ‘Vote 1, Bill Heslop. You can’t stop progress.’ The text sets up two ironic gags that are paid off on the dialogue track: “He lost,’ we are told. ‘Progress’ turns out to be funding the concreting of a beach. Bill berates his daughter Muriel: she has no chance of becoming a printer’s apprentice and she has failed a typing course. Her dysfunction in printed text has been covered up by Bill: he has bribed the typing teacher to issue a printed diploma to his daughter. In the gambling saloon of the club, under the arrays of mechanically repeated cultural symbols lit above the poker machines (‘A’ for ace, ‘Q’ for queen, etc.), Bill’s secret girlfriend Diedre risks giving Muriel a cosmetics job. Another text icon in lights announces the surf nightclub ‘Breakers’. Tania, the newly married queen bitch who has made Muriel’s teenage years a living hell, breaks up with her husband, deciding to cash in his negotiable text documents – his Bali honeymoon tickets – and go on an island holiday with her girlfriends instead. Text documents are the enduring site of agreements between people and also the site of mutations to those agreements. Tania dumps Muriel, who sobs and sobs. Sobs are a mechanical, percussive reproduction impressed on the sound track. Returning home, we discover that Muriel’s older brother has failed a printed test and been rejected for police recruitment. There is a high incidence of print illiteracy in the Heslop family. Mrs Heslop (Jeannie Drynan), for instance, regularly has trouble at the post office. Muriel sees a chance to escape the oppression of her family by tricking her mother into giving her a blank cheque. Here is the confluence of the legitimacy of a bank’s printed negotiable document with the risk and freedom of a blank space for rebel Muriel’s handwriting. Unable to type, her handwriting has the power to steal every cent of her father’s savings. She leaves home and spends the family’s savings at an island resort. On the island, the text print-challenged Muriel dances to a recording (sound print) of ABBA, her hand gestures emphasizing her bewigged face, which is made up in an impression of her pop idol. Her imitation of her goddesses – the ABBA women, her only hope in a real world of people who hate or avoid her – is accompanied by her goddesses’ voices singing: ‘the mystery book on the shelf is always repeating itself.’ Before jpeg and gif image downloads, we had postcard prints and snail mail. Muriel sends a postcard to her family, lying about her ‘success’ in the cosmetics business. The printed missal is clutched by her father Bill (Bill Hunter), who proclaims about his daughter, ‘you can’t type but you really impress me’. Meanwhile, on Hibiscus Island, Muriel lies under a moonlit palm tree with her newly found mentor, ‘bad girl’ Ronda (Rachel Griffiths). In this critical scene, where foolish Muriel opens her heart’s yearnings to a confidante she can finally trust, the director and DP have chosen to shoot a flat, high contrast blue filtered image. The visual result is very much like the semiabstract Japanese Ukiyo-e woodblock prints by Utamaro. This Japanese printing style informed the rise of European modern painting (Monet, Van Gogh, Picasso, etc., were all important collectors and students of Ukiyo-e prints). The above print and text elements in Muriel’s Wedding take us 27 minutes into her story, as recorded on a single page of real-time handwritten Coding. Although not discussed here, the Coding recorded the complete film – a total of 106 minutes of text elements and main graphic elements – as four pages of Code. Referring to this Coding some weeks after it was made, I looked up the final code on page four: taxi [food of the sea] bq. Translation: a shop sign whizzes past in the film’s background, as Muriel and Ronda leave Porpoise Spit in a taxi. Over their heads the text ‘Food Of The Sea’ flashes. We are reminded that Muriel and Ronda are mermaids, fantastic creatures sprung from the brow of author PJ Hogan, and illuminated even today in the pantheon of women’s coming-of-age art works. That the movie is relevant ten years on is evidenced by the current usage of the Muriel’s Wedding online forum, an intersection of wider discussions by sliterate women on imdb.com who, like Muriel, are observers (and in some cases victims) of horrific pressure from ambitious female gangs and bullies. Text is always a minor element in a motion picture (unless it is a subtitled foreign film) and text usually whizzes by subliminally while viewing a film. By Coding the work for [text], all the text nuances made by the film makers come to light. While I have viewed Muriel’s Wedding on many occasions, it has only been in Coding it specifically for text that I have noticed that Muriel is a representative of that vast class of talented youth who are discriminated against by print (as in text) educators who cannot offer her a life-affirming identity in the English classroom. Severely depressed at school, and failing to type or get a printer’s apprenticeship, Muriel finds paid work (and hence, freedom, life, identity, independence) working in her audio visual printed medium of choice: a video store in a new city. Muriel found a sliterate admirer at the video store but she later dumped him for her fantasy man, before leaving him too. One of the points of conjecture on the imdb Muriel’s Wedding site is, did Muriel (in the unwritten future) get back together with admirer Brice Nobes? That we will never know. While a print forms a track that tells us where culture has been, a print cannot be the future, a print is never animate reality. At the end of any trail of prints, one must lift one’s head from the last impression, and negotiate satisfaction in the happening world. References Australian Broadcasting Corporation. “Memo Shows US General Approved Interrogations.” 30 Mar. 2005 http://www.abc.net.au>. 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Muriel’s Wedding. Dir. PJ Hogan. Perf. Toni Collette, Rachel Griffiths, Bill Hunter, and Jeannie Drynan. Village Roadshow, 1994. O’Hagan, Jack. On The Road to Gundagai. 1922. 2 Apr. 2005 http://ingeb.org/songs/roadtogu.html>. Poole, J.H., P.L. Tyack, A.S. Stoeger-Horwath, and S. Watwood. “Animal Behaviour: Elephants Are Capable of Vocal Learning.” Nature 24 Mar. 2005. Sanchez, R. “Interrogation and Counter-Resistance Policy.” 14 Sept. 2003. 30 Mar. 2005 http://www.abc.net.au>. Schultheiss, O.C., M.M. Wirth, and S.J. Stanton. “Effects of Affiliation and Power Motivation Arousal on Salivary Progesterone and Testosterone.” Hormones and Behavior 46 (2005). Sherry, N. The Life of Graham Greene. 3 vols. London: Jonathan Cape 2004, 1994, 1989. Silk Road. Printing. 2000. 20 Feb. 2005 http://www.silk-road.com/artl/printing.shtml>. 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As a doctoral student, I was asked to teach a course based on emerging technologies and postmodern methods of inquiry in the field of art education. The course was titled Issues and Applications of Technology in Art Education and I developed a method of inquiry called animated autoethnography for pre-service art educators while teaching this course. Through this dissertation, I describe, analyze, interrogate, value, contextualize, reflect on, and artistically react to the autoethnographic animated processes of five pre-service art educators who were enrolled in the course. I interviewed the five participants before and after the creation of their animated autoethnographies and incorporated actor-network theory within the theoretical analysis to study how the insights of my students’ autoethnographies related to my own animations and life narratives. The study also examines animated autoethnography as a method of inquiry that may develop or enhance future teaching practices and encourage empathic connections through researching the self. These selected students created animations that accessed significant life moments, personal struggles, and triumphs, and they exhibited unique representations of self. Pre-service art educators can use self-research to create narrative-based short animations and also use socio-emotional learning to encourage the development of empathy within the classroom. I show diverse student examples, compare them to my own animations, and present a new model of inquiry that encourages the development of self by finding place in chaos, loving the unknown, embracing uncertainty, and turning shame into a celebration of life.

Teachers are required to be reflective practitioners: that is, they must constantly assess and evaluate their performance, and its effectiveness. In addition, of course, they come under external scrutiny from government and parents. However, what of the way the public look at teachers? Teachers and schools may be read about in newspapers, comics and journals, discussed on television and the radio; they may even fall foul of social networking sites on the Internet. Popular films may be regarded as ninety-minute essays, presented dramatically for the entertainment of their audiences; the teacher or school film has been a staple of popular cinema in this country for almost eighty years. Moreover, the representations of teachers in British films have tended to retain a continuity of message despite the many changes that have taken place in education over this period. This thesis looks at those representations, and changes in education, and attempts to make connections, backed up with a philosophical approach that seeks to explain the visual turn in terms of successive orders of simulation. My hope is that new generations of teachers may reflect on the cultural heritage of which they, and their chosen profession, are very much a part.

This qualitative inquiry explores the use of Hollywood films depicting teachers (teacher-films) as an approach to reflective practice and social change with 60 undergraduate students in a teacher education programme in the Bahamas. In order to facilitate critical reflection on the preservice teachers' perceptions of teaching, on themselves as teachers, and on their teaching experience, a module comprised of five teacher-films (To Sir With Love, Blackboard Jungle, Stand and Deliver, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, and SARAFINA!) is designed and employed. The depictions of teaching are deconstructed as a means of introducing the complexity of teaching as well as unveiling the relevance of issues such as class, race, gender, and the politics of power and position to the life of a teacher. Central to the study is exploring how prospective teachers "read" these films and what insights prospective teachers gain from the films.<br>The study generates four main data sources: (1) transcriptions of audio-taped group discussions with the preservice teachers, (2) the preservice teachers' written responses to questionnaires relating to the teacher-films, (3) reflective journals kept by the preservice teachers, and (4) the preservice teachers' written responses to the entire teacher-film module. The analysis of the data is presented in two parts. First, the preservice teachers' overall response to the teacher-film module is detailed. Next, their close reading of teaching and learning as portrayed in two of the films, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie and SARAFINA!, is discussed. A number of themes that emerge within the data such as the role, influence, and power of teachers are explored.<br>This inquiry has revealed how teacher-films can be utilized within teacher education to prompt neophyte teachers to examine their identity as teachers, to scrutinize their perceptions and assumptions, as well as to stimulate questions with regard to the perplexities of teaching. Film pedagogy also has potential to heighten awareness of vital issues of teaching such as race, class, and gender, to provoke self-study, and prompt social change. In addition, educators and researchers can learn much by examining preservice teachers' responses to popular screen images of teachers as well as other popular culture images of teachers. This information can be used to design teacher education curricula that more adequately prepare neophyte teachers for the challenges of teaching.

Animator-producer Paul Houlton Terry has been portrayed as having little passion for the animation he produced and being more concerned with making a profit than producing entertaining cartoons with high production values. The purpose of the dissertation is to re-evaluate Terry‘s legacy to animated cartooning by analyzing his business philosophies, production values, and studio practices. Application of four psychodynamic factors to the early life and career of Terry, 1887-1929, found that his economic decision making was characterized by: an external locus of control, risk-averse financial behaviour, extreme saving behaviour through precaution, and shrewd money management practices. Based on Terry‘s historical responses to twelve major economic, technological, or institutional forces of change for the period 1929-1955, the psychodynamic factors were found to provide accurate explanations for his studio practices and production decisions. There was no evidence to support the conclusion that three early career disappointments undermined Terry‘s intrinsic motivation to create animated cartoons. Rather, Terry‘s lack of risk taking, external locus of control, tight studio production schedule, desire to compete with neighbour studio Fleischer, difficulty in separating financial rewards from creative processes in animation, and practice of undertaking surveillance measures on staff may have undermined his and his studio‘s creativity. Archival research found Terry to possess strong passions for and to have made significant creative contributions to the field of animation. Biographical research found that Terry retained a stable nucleus of highly talented artists who dedicated a significant portion of their working careers to the studio. An analysis of the cel aesthetics of a random sample of animated cartoons produced during the years 1930-1955 found that Terry created animated cartoons with above average cel aesthetics when compared to the other studios thereby supporting an inference that Terry was motivated to producing quality crafted animation. Further research is suggested into the role psychodynamic factors and economic decision-making play in the film production process and a clarification of Terry‘s legacy to the field of animated cartoons.

Thesis (MPhil)--Stellenbosch University, 2014.<br>ENGLISH ABSTRACT: This thesis investigates stop motion animation as a form of socially engaged visual storytelling. It aims to expand commonly held perceptions that associate animation with the mass media and entertainment industries by investigating three non-industry related contexts: the artist studio, the classroom and the community. In each respective context the coauthoring of stop motion animation was employed as a means to promote collaboration between artists, students and members of the public. This was intended to encourage participants to share their stories regardless of language differences, contrasting levels of academic development and diverse socio-cultural backgrounds. Thus, animation making provided a means of promoting inclusivity through active participation and visual communication. This process is perceived as valuable in a South African context where eleven official languages and a diversity of cultures and ethnicities tend to obstruct an integrated society. My fundamental argument is that animation can be used as a tool to facilitate the materialisation, dissemination and archiving of stories whilst promoting the creative agency of the storyteller.<br>AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Hierdie tesis ondersoek stop-aksie animasie as ‘n tipe van sosiaal-geaktiveerde visuele vertelkuns. Die studie is daarop gerig om algemene aannames oor animasie – wat animasie assosieer met die massamedia en die vermaaklikheidsindustrie – te verbreed deur drie nienywerheidsverbonde kontekste te ondersoek: die kunstenaar se ateljee, die klaskamer en die gemeenskap. In elk van die onderskeie kontekste word die gesamentlike skepping van die stop-aksie animasie gebruik as ‘n manier om samewerking tussen kunstenaars, studente en die algemene publiek te bevorder. Die doel is om deelnemers aan te moedig om hul stories te deel, ongeag taalverskille, verskillende vlakke van akademiese ontwikkeling, en diverse sosio-kulturele agtergronde. Daarom verskaf die skepping van animasie ‘n geleentheid om samewerking te bevorder deur aktiewe deelname en visuele kommunikasie. Die proses word veral in die Suid Afrikaanse konteks as waardevol beskou, waar elf amptelike tale, asook ‘n diversiteit van kulture en etniese groepe, dikwels die skep van ‘n geïntegreerde samelewing belemmer. My hoofargument is dat animasie met vrug gebruik kan word as ‘n metode om die skepping, disseminasie en argivering van stories te fasiliteer en terselfdertyd ook die kreatiewe rol van die storieverteller aan te moedig.

Esta pesquisa trata da prática de fazer vídeos no Colégio Estadual Professora Ottília Homero da Silva, cidade de Pinhais, região metropolitana de Curitiba; diferenciando o que se pode perceber a partir da comparação entre dois gêneros distinguidos como: um vídeo-ficção experimental e outro, um vídeo-documentário institucional. Aborda a produção de vídeos no âmbito de uma escola pública, partindo da concepção da pesquisa como prática social tendo como aporte teórico os estudos da cultura, da arte e da tecnologia como ação coletiva, com ênfase nos processos de ensino-aprendizagem. Nesta pesquisa o estudo se concentra na prática de fazer vídeos por um grupo de alunos de uma escola pública, com o objetivo de encontrar algumas evidências das implicações geradas por tal prática como construção simbólica e ruptura de determinadas situações impostas pelo cotidiano compreendendo-a como um ato cultural complexo e transformador. Por que essas pessoas fazem vídeos? Como se dá esta prática nestas circunstâncias? Como se dá este processo de construção cultural simbólica? Entre as evidências encontradas figuram a busca pela inserção social, e a ampliação da reflexão crítica, quando as pessoas envolvidas na prática passaram a questionar suas posições na construção de suas identidades, reflexo e refração do contexto em que estão imersas.<br>This research deals with the practice of making videos at the Colégio Estadual Professora Ottília Homero da Silva, in Pinhais city, in the metropolitan region of Curitiba, differentiating what you can see from the comparison between two different genres: one, a experimental video-fiction, another, a institutional video-documentary. It addresses the production of videos at a public school, based on studies of culture and art and technology as a collective action, with emphasis on the teaching-learning processes. This research study focuses on the practice of making videos by a group of students at a public school, with the goal of finding some evidence of the implications generated by such practice as a symbolic construction and disruption of daily life imposed by certain situations, as a complex act cultural and process. Why do these people make videos over there? How this practice occurs in theses circumstances? How we give this process of building cultural symbolic? The evidence founded included the search for social integration, and extension of critical reflection, when people involved in the practice began to question their positions in the construction of their identities.

Esta investigación analiza el panorama de largometrajes animados digitalmente en la ciudad de Lima, Perú, durante los años 2004-2016. Se aborda el proceso de realización de las películas, sus dificultades y características primordiales, a través del estudio de tres productoras: Origami Studio, Red Animation y Aronnax. El presente texto ofrece una perspectiva de la industria de la animación en Lima y desagrega tanto sus capacidades como sus posibilidades de desarrollo<br>The aim of this research is to analyze the feature film digital animation scene, in the city of Lima, Peru, between the years of 2005-2016. To achieve this, the realization process of the animated movies made in the present, along with its main characteristics and difficulties, is investigated through the study of three different production companies: Origami Studio, Red Animation and Aronnax. The text offers an outlook of the animated movie industry and it divides both their capabilities and their development possibilities.<br>Trabajo de investigación