The use of digital and blended digital learning modes is becoming more popular in teaching practice at various levels of instruction. This article reports a case study with a strong experimental approach in which a digital learning object (DLO) was developed to assist in the pedagogical practice in higher education (in the audiovisual area). The…

Canadian Film will be a new course in the Communications Studies department at the University of Missouri at Kansas City particularly designed for non-Canadian Midwestern US students. It will not only introduce students to the richness and significance of Canadian film as both art and entertainment (which is virtually unrecognized around here),…

This paper reports on the "diversity curriculum infusion" course design process as applied within a Film/Video Directing class at the University of Missouri in Kansas City during the Spring 2006 semester. By custom, film directing has been grounded in aesthetic principles originating in Western European craft and art traditions. While…

Although Australia had a vigorous film industry in the silent film era, it was stifled in the 1930s when United States and British interests bought up the Australian distribution channels and closed down the indigenous industry. However, the industry and film study have undergone a renaissance since the advent of the Labor government in 1972,…

The emphasis of archives is on the maintenance and preservation of materials for scholarly research and professional reference. Archives may be established as separate entities or as part of a library or museum. Film archives may include camera originals (positive and negative), sound recordings, outtakes, scripts, contracts, advertising…

The real impact of cinema consists in its ability to translate symbols, the mind's form of language, into dynamic moving images. Man's visual orientation produces both his positive reaction to motion--a key element in cinema--and his perceptions of coded, visual information--symbols. The complex relationship between symbols and rhythmic motion…

This paper traces the conceptualization and design of anthropological film in Colombia since the 1960's. The intent has been to establish this type of film as a culturally appropriate communication technique related to the solution of social problems and involving the expression of culturally specific values. The paper describes the historical…

Sharing some organizational frameworks, this paper presents two groups of diagrams that have been employed in various communication classes to illustrate how theoretical understandings can be used as paradigms to help organize information in a more clarified manner. The first part of the paper discusses diagrams which are directly relevant to…

A study is proposed to address five questions about the interrelationship of instructional intent and film form and style: (1) What are the stylistic elements within the teaching film, and how are these elements used to present epistemological content? (2) Does the instructional component of the teaching film take on a formal or stylistic function…

For at least two kinds of literature instructors, classroom use of a film derived from a Shakespeare play is potentially promising: a Shakespeare course instructor can present one attempt to visualize the implications of the printed word, and a teacher of a course which compares film and literature has at least one respectable film adaptation of a…

The literature of film and literature of television are, to a large extent, two separate entities. The major film theorists have not had much to say about television, and television has inspired few theorists of its own--few, that is, whose major concern, like the film theorists', is aesthetics. One of the earliest forms of commentary on…

A survey of Ray Fielding's lists of nearly 3,000 theses and dissertations on film and video produced both in the United States and abroad since 1916 revealed that only 21 of these works included any discussion of the history and theory of corporate or sponsored films. Any viable historical or theoretical methodology for film research should be…

In opposition to popular disparaging of television as an artistic medium, television can be considered as having its own aesthetics and can be placed in the category of fine arts (as opposed to folk arts). Television art can and should be distinguished from video art and film art in the ways in which it imitates reality; program content and…

This paper describes how director Spike Lee changed Hollywood's representations of African Americans in a dramatic way. He returned to traditions of early African American filmakers like Oscar Michaux by casting all-black movies. In his first film, "She's Gotta Have It", he broke with the Hollywood tradition of using a classic beauty…

Although usually considered the "master of suspense," Alfred Hitchcock relished working humor into his films, frequently juxtaposing it against scenes of utter gruesomeness. This placement of comic elements--comic relief--in an otherwise serious murder mystery or suspense thriller became a Hitchcock trademark early in his career.…