Tagged: Media Technologies

Take a Summer Course with Me

I’m teaching a summer session course at Queens College. The course is Media Studies 300W: Media Criticism. My version of the course will cover current issues in media technology and will focus on a limited number of topics. There will not be any overwhelming amount of material to memorize. Instead, we will read and respond to some very engaging issues in today’s media and technology environment.

This class satisfies the all-important writing requirement, but instead of stretching it out over fourteen grueling weeks, we will be condensing the class into six weeks. And because it’s summer, it will be more relaxed than it is during the fall or spring semesters.

Students will not need to purchase a textbook. We will be using the online research databases, available for free for all registered students, and the open web.

Some of the topics we’re going to address include…

  1. Cinema in the Digital Age
  2. Cable Television and Cord Cutters
  3. Beware of Big Data
  4. Is Google Evil?
  5. Intellectual Property and Digital Media
  6. Open Media and the Commons

The class meets Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday evenings, 5:30 — 7:45 PM, between June 4 and July 16.

To enroll, visit Summer Session website. Be sure to enroll in section 5833.

Update

This class has been cancelled.

It’s All Digital Now

This semester’s History of Cinema course concluded with the contemporary Hollywood entertainment economy. One of the themes we continually encountered was Hollywood pursuing spectacle and scale in order to remain relevant. This contrast with what we have seen throughout the semester with emerging cinemas relying more on New Wave priorities of stylistic experimentation and character development.

One of the main topics we covered was the new exhibition technologies of 3D and Digital Projection. While these have been around for decades, and for over a century in the case of 3D photography, the new push for faster frame rates seem as a new way for Hollywood to separate itself from other cinemas from around the world.

David Bordwell has recently covered the campaign for 48 frames per second—double that of the traditional sound film frame rate of 24 frames—led by Peter Jackson and James Cameron as a way to eliminate the artifacts visible in their digital-effects-heavy films. I won’t repeat everything he has to say in that illuminating article but I found a few points relevant for our discussion.

  • In order for theater owners to adopt new hardware, there needs to be a viable path to recovering those costs with profitable software. It’s hard to imagine filmmakers with a better profit potential than Jackson and Cameron.
  • By pioneering new projection technology, it will be hard for other filmmakers—both within and outside of Hollywood—to match them in terms of spectacle.
  • Bordwell is right when he points out the 48 fps debate overlooks the entire issue of story. It’s not that the two are mutually exclusive. It’s just that they are almost working with an entirely different medium than other filmmakers.

We have seen in various other nations numerous attempts to foster a strong national cinema. International co-productions and complex financing arrangements were such methods, but while they might have matched (or approached) the scale of a Hollywood film, they rarely accomplished any sustained success. What had worked was making films with a strong personal vision, complex characters, and drawing on rich sources such as history, politics, or philosophy. These films might not have yielded immediate financial successes, but films like these kinds fostered a strong sense of national identity and also became the hallmarks of international cinema. I tried to screen films of these type throughout the semester.

As filmmakers chase the apex of digital realism, we should not let the digital revolution foreclose what made the cinema, not just entertaining and spectacular, but an international art form.

Siva Vaidhyanathan to Speak at LaGuardia Community College’s “Knowledge in the Digital Age”

From my friends in the Queens College Educational Technology Community:

Knowledge in the Digital Age: Teaching, Learning, and the Googlization of Everything with Dr. Siva Vaidhyanathan

All are invited: LaGuardia’s Library Media Resources Center is once again pleased to offer its annual Knowledge in the Digital Age speaker’s event. This year, Dr. Siva Vaidhyanathan has accepted an invitation to speak on the issues revolving around technology in the lives of faculty and students.

When: Tuesday, May 8, 2012 at 2 p.m.
Where: LaGuardia Community College, E Building, Poolside Cafe
Cost: Free
Refreshments: Definitely

LIMITED SEATING AVAILABLE, register ASAP. To do this and to get more information on the event go to:
http://knowledgeinthedigitalage.eventbrite.com/

The Library Media Resources Center and the organizing committee would like to thank LaGuardia’s College Association and the CUNY’s LILAC council for co-sponsoring this event.

Should you need ADA accommodation, please contact Charles Keyes by phone at 718-482-6018 or by email: ckeyes@lagcc.cuny.edu

(Via CUNY Academic Commons.)

Bowery Boys on the Origins of Radio in New York City

LAGUARDIA ON THE RADIO

When I was first thrust into teaching media classes covering subjects that I did not study in college or in graduate school, I had to quickly learn about industries, such as newspapers, magazines, and advertising. I suspect that every teacher has gone through this experience at one time or another. After all, nothing makes you a better student than to become a teacher. Although the finer points of these “new” media industries were fascinating, none rivaled radio as an exciting subject. It really seemed like magic and was reminiscent of what the Internet seemed to me when I first used it.

The Bowery Boys, who produce one of my favorite podcasts, released an episode on the origins of radio in New York City. They cover all of the major milestones in the development of radio, albeit from the perspective of New York City history. They cover Nicola Tesla’s early experiments in the late nineteenth century, the establishment of American Marconi, Lee deForest’s audion, the Titanic disaster, David Sarnoff, RCA, Edwin Armstrong, the early radio stations in New York, and the beginnings of the radio networks with flagship stations here in New York.

Focusing only on radio history in New York doesn’t leave out too much from the standard accounts on the development of radio. For better or worse, the history of radio is very New York City-centered. Only the major accomplishments of Heinrich Hertz, who first transmitted a radio signal in Germany, Reginald Fessenden, who first transmitted the human voice in Canada, and Frank Conrad, who started the first bonafide radio station in Pittsburgh, receive mention in the mainstream histories of radio. Curiously, New York also looms large in the history of newspapers (as the birthplace of the American penny press and yellow journalism), American advertising (Madison Avenue), and motion pictures (as the base of Thomas Edison and his Trust).

Download or subscribe to the podcast from their website.

One more thing: if the Bowery Boys, Greg and Tom, ever find this post, I’m pretty sure it’s pronounced “Goo-yell-moh.”

Will Premium VOD be a New Window for Movie Studios?

In today’s New York Times, Brooke Barnes writes about the possibility of movie studios adding a new “window,” or a new run, to the existing tiers of home video sales. The new window, called Premium VOD, would begin as little as 45 days after the theatrical run would start and would be facilitated by video service providers (i.e., your cable or satellite company). The move is done to combat slumping DVD/Blu-Ray sales and Internet piracy.

The main opponents to Premium VOD include the movie theaters, which depend on the content, and the retailers of DVDs. Both fear that customers would opt to watch movies at home for a price that is lower than either theatrical exhibition or video disc sales.

Students should consider this in the context of the old run-zone-clearance system that emerged nearly 100 years ago and was pioneered by studios such as Paramount. Also, consider the digital revolution in media and how this marks another transformation in the film industry.