Journals @ KPU (Kwantlen Polytechnic University)
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That's Punny! A Study of the Impact of Processing Fluency on Humour
Get PDFProcessing fluency is how easy or difficulty it is to do a mental task. In general, the more fluently processed information is the more positively an individual rates the information. The traditional fluency literature predicts that increasing the processing fluency of a joke should enhance its humour level. However, if information processing is too easy the positive experience that fluency brings can be unenjoyable. This research tested how manipulating fluency affected the humour level of puns. We used a 2 (fluency presentation: high or low) x 2 (pun group: Group A or B) mixed factorial design, in which fluency was manipulated within-subjects and pun group was manipulated between-subjects. Half of the puns participants received were in a high fluency (HF) format with an image and clear wording and half were presented in a low fluency (LF) format with no image and less clear font. Result: Puns in the LF format were rated as funnier than those presented in the HF format. Ultimately, to find something humorous people enjoy a moderate level of complexity. The HF condition reduced the mental challenge of the puns to a level in which participants did not find them as funny
A Beautiful Festival: review and report on the 2024 Sundar Prize Film Festival
No full textA review and report on the Sundar Prize Film Festival, a social justice festival that selected beautiful films which aligned with the festival mission statement: celebrate human resiliance. The review is from the perspective of Ian Frayne: a member of the Sundar Prize Planning commitee, practice-led researcher, and filmmaker. The Sundar Prize featured nine filmes that are breifly reviewed, putting the main focus on the process of how the festival was planned to support filmmakers, film spectators, and social activists. Examining the festival with looks behind the scenes and viewing the festival, the review seeks to contribute to the research around film festivals, particularity to present how this festival handled the “responsibilities of programmers to their creative profession, the filmmakers whose work they showcase" (Colta 128). The review features answers questions about film festival studies and how it applies to the Sundar Prize festival, Ian's experience working on the Inagural festival, how the day to day of the festival ran, what was the history behind of the festival's conception, and reflections on how the festival could be applied in other locations
Panpsychism and the Cosmic Non-Self
Get PDFArguments against panpsychism are assessed and critiqued, and potential directions for panpsychism are explored.  
The Best Things Happen in the Dark: Lighting in Hitchcock’s Rear Window (1954)
No full textThis essay examines the use of lighting in Alfred Hitchcock’s Rear Window (1954) to illustrate how the creation of suspense is done through carefully created shadows. The use of light and dark call attention to different aspects of Rear Window’s character psychology particularly with regard to their outlook on romantic relationships. This essay contends that Rear Window (1954) warrants classification as a horror film rather than its typical thriller label due to its depiction of material psychology that is filtered through Hitchcockian suspense. Through mise-en-scene analysis of a specific scene in the first half of the film, careful attention to the use of lighting and deliberately placed shadows reveals the horror concealed under the façade of domesticity and the mundane
Horror as Social Critique: Violence Against Women in Alien and Screams from the Void
Get PDFRidley Scott’s 1979 science fiction horror film Alien has become such a touchstone in popular culture that its influence is apparent in Anne Tibbets’s 2021 novel, Screams from the Void. Both set in the future, 2122 and 2231 respectively, and both taking place on commercial spacecraft that represent the modern workplace, each crew must battle a deadly alien. In addition to the primal terror of being slaughtered by a “foreign biologic,” the works also explore women’s fear of being sexually assaulted. These anxieties remain with women everywhere: in public, in their homes, and even in the workplace. There is no location in which women are completely safe. Using scenes that demonstrate film scholar Matt Glasby’s definition of “The Unexpected,” Alien and Screams from the Void shed light on violence against women in the workplace to decry the endless reign of the patriarchy and to expose the horror that these social issues are far from over
Symmetry and Centrality as Power: The Use of Mise-en-scène to Create Power in Sir Kenneth Branagh’s Murder on the Orient Express and Death on the Nile
Get PDFA sense of power and control are often primary motivations for the actions of characters in film. This sense of power and desire for control can be documented in a variety of ways. In his directorial films Murder on the Orient Express and Death on the Nile, Sir Kenneth Branagh employs elements of mise-en-scène to convey the sense of power or powerlessness of his characters and their control or lack thereof in a given situation. This article explores the various means by which he achieves this through the use of such elements as blocking, set design, symmetry of images, camera angles, and costuming. In both of these films, the character of Hercule Poirot is the main seat of power. As such, he is often placed at the centre of a shot and all roads seem to lead to Poirot. When he is not in authority, he is placed off-centre in a shot, indicating that he has lost control of the situation, and other characters move to the centre. The set designs consist of repeated parallel lines in the architectural features, from door frames to wall paneling to paintings and windows, designed to serve as pillars of strength and stability. This is further enhanced by the symmetry of many of the images, used not to create a feeling of calm and serenity but to showcase strength and power. Camera angles also play a significant role in defining the power structure. The power of color is explored in costuming where, for instance, the vibrant burst of red among of sea of pale whites and creams draws attention to the character and indicates that she has come to dominate and conquer. Thus, the question of power and who wields it is an important element in these films and Branagh uses mise-en-scène to convey this to his audiences
‘Quoting Cowboys’: False Idols of the Mythical West in The Power of the Dog
Get PDFAlthough the events of Jane Campion’s The Power of the Dog (2021) miss the golden age of frontier stories in the American West, its sullen protagonist clings obsessively to the myth of the cowboy—the ultimate figure of American masculinity, by then belonging to a distant past—as a means of disguising his taboo homosexual desires. Attempting to mimic the cowboys of old and stake his claim over the mythical landscape of the classical Western, Phil Burbank (Benedict Cumberbatch) hides his shame behind layers of grime and aggression that the film gradually reveals as a mask—a mask which, as its cracks begin to show, reflect the fictitious nature of the idealized masculinity he is desperate to embody
