166 research outputs found
The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug - A New Era of Realism?
No full textPeter Jackson’s Hobbit trilogy is a familiar blockbuster franchise, adapting a well-known piece of literature and designed to appeal to global audiences. This trilogy, however, is also experimental, as the premium release of each film utilised higher frame rate (HFR) technologies together with computer generated imaging (CGI) and 3D in ways that were intended to extent the apparatus of cinema itself. These technological processes are part of a long line of developments aimed at creating a more compelling cinematic experience (Michelle, Davis, Hight, and Hardy, 2015). 3D film is thought to be the culmination of technological advances in film as the format’s ‘implicit mission was to conquer the entire sensorial complex, to represent reality in its totality’ (Asselin and Gosselin, 2013, p.132). Thus, this thesis focuses on the reception of global audiences to the technological aspects of the second film of The Hobbit franchise, The Desolation of Smaug (2013), focusing on whether 3D HFR quantifiably alters viewers’ viewing experience in terms of improving perceptions of realism and immersion. The research draws from a mixture of qualitative and quantitative methods, including an online survey of 650 respondents across multiple countries and 39 Skype and email follow-up interviews. The responses to and interpretations of a self-selected audience formed the basis of understanding whether these technological advancements have created a more perceptually realistic and immersive cinematic experience.
The findings from this research indicate that these new technologies were a challenge to many of the expectations of Hobbit viewers. Despite general approval of the nature of these technologies and their possibilities for enhancing the aesthetic experience of cinema, key segments of the audience were clearly disenchanted with these innovations, especially in comparison with their experience of Jackson’s earlier Lord of the Rings trilogy (2001-2003) and other CGI-based and 3D cinema. Respondents outlined problems in the interplay between the different imaging techniques, which generated jarring visual artefacts. They critiqued scenes where the filmmakers failed to seamlessly meld the technologies effectively, and many reported being frustrated at interruptions to their efforts to immerse themselves in the film’s narrative. Furthermore, my findings suggest that ultimately, the 3D HFR technologies and the aesthetic presented were subsidiary issues to the narrative surrounding the Middle-earth world that emotionally resonates with the majority of respondents. This does not mean that these interviewees found 3D HFR technology to have clashed with the narrative, but that the film ultimately stood as a return to their Middle-earth world. These 3 responses are consistent with those noted by Michelle et al. (2015), who found that existing fan communities of Tolkien and the Lord of the Rings trilogy had complex reactions to the use of 3D HFR technologies and their impact on The Hobbit films. These findings suggest a mixed future for similar efforts to advance cinematic aesthetics through new technologies
Response to Martin Barker's 'Rise of the Qualiguants'
No full textIn what follows, we respond to Martin Barker’s (2018a) review essay entitled ‘Rise of the Qualiquants,’ published in the previous issue of this journal (15:1). In his review, Barker offers an admittedly not disinterested assessment of our recent book Fans, Blockbusterisation, and the Transformation of Cinematic Desire: Global Receptions of The Hobbit Film Trilogy (Michelle, Davis, Hardy and Hight, 2017), and raises a number of questions relating to our ontological commitments and methodological approach, along with a critique of Q methodology more generally. We wish to express our sincere thanks to Martin for such a detailed and thoughtful review – evidently the first in what is to become a new section in Participations dedicated to much-needed debates on methodological, epistemological, and ontological issues in audience research. His essay generously draws attention to the contribution and significance of our project, and introduces our theoretical and methodological approach to a wider audience. The issues and questions he raises are certainly worthy of further clarification, discussion, and debate, and we are fortunate to have access to a highly suitable forum for this in Participations. We also fully share his commitment to the advancement of audience and reception research
A necessary fiction: The ritualisation of stakeholder practices in New Zealand cinema
No full textThis thesis argues that stability of the concept ‘national cinema’ is located in the discursive positioning of individual films in such a way that they are connected to a national ‘common ground’, one which is ritually accessed via engagement with media such as cinema. This positioning, however, is not quantifiable and may not be identified as arising from any particular production practice, dimension of popularity, theme, style, characteristic of production personnel, and so on. By synthesising the work of several theorists and applying this synthesis to a selection of films, a framework of ideas (around the ritualised ‘flagging’ of the national via the expression of stakeholder interests) is applied to cinema in New Zealand. In particular, an ideoscape is ultimately mapped as a result of applying this framework of ideas. The normative assumptions of national cinema are examined in this way and found to be lacking despite the weight that the term ‘national cinema’ continues to have
(Re)contextualising audience receptions of reality TV
No full textThis paper seeks to recontextualise key findings from recent studies of reality TV audiences in light of insights drawn from across the wider field. It suggests that modes of engagement and response adopted by different reality TV audiences appear broadly consistent with those identified in relation to a wide variety of genres viewed in diverse national contexts, as charted in the Composite Multi-dimensional Model of audience reception (Michelle 2007). To further illustrate these parallels, this paper analyses online audience responses to a specific event that occurred during the 2006 reality game show, Rock Star: Supernova, applying the Composite Multi-dimensional Model as its conceptual schema. In so doing, this paper seeks to demonstrate how we might move beyond the traditional focus on specificities of genre and format to recognise and begin to theorise broader continuities in the nature of audience engagement that may persist beyond the transition to new, hybrid, and increasingly interactive media formats
An analysis of requests for financial assistance fending the receipt of delayed benefits known to the American Red Cross, Cincinnati and Hamilton County, Cincinnati, Ohio, 1951
No full textLoblolly
No full textBiannual magazine edited by students at Gary High School in Gary, Texas, containing interviews, articles, and creative works that represent the history of the area
A study of the pattern of advertising in four selected negro newspapers from 1948 through 1952, 1955
No full textDreadfull Murder at Eriswell: Confession of One of the Prisoners
No full textTwo poachers kill a young man named Hight and are imprisonedhttps://egrove.olemiss.edu/kgbsides_uk/2154/thumbnail.jp
Reservoir hill and audiences for online interactive drama
No full textThis paper analyses the interactive experiences constructed for users of the New Zealand online interactive drama Reservoir Hill (2009, 2010), focusing both on the nature and levels of engagement which the series provided to users and the difficulties of audience research into this kind of media content. The series itself provided tightly prescribed forms of interactivity across multiple platforms, allowing forms of engagement that were greatly appreciated by its audience overall but actively explored only by a small proportion of users. The responses from members of the Reservoir Hill audience suggests that online users themselves are still learning the nature of, and constraints on, their engagements with various forms of online interactive media. This paper also engages with issue of how interactivity itself is defined, the difficulties of both connecting with audience members and securing timely access to online data, and the challenges of undertaking collaborative research with media producers in order to gain access to user data
Framing audience prefigurations of The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey: The roles of fandom, politics and idealised intertexts
No full textAudiences for blockbuster event-film sequels and adaptations often formulate highly developed expectations, motivations, understandings and opinions well before the films are released. A range of intertextual and paratextual influences inform these audience prefigurations, and are believed to frame subsequent audience engagement and response. In our study of prefigurative engagements with Peter Jackson’s 2012 film, The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, we used Q methodology to identify five distinct subjective orientations within the film’s global audience. As this paper illustrates, each group privileges a different set of extratextual referents – notably J.R.R. Tolkien’s original novels, Peter Jackson’s The Lord of The Rings film trilogy, highly localised political debates relating to the film’s production, and the previous associations of the film’s various stars. These interpretive frames, we suggest, competed for ascendancy within public and private discourse in the lead up to The Hobbit’s international debut, effectively fragmenting and indeed polarising the film’s prospective global audience
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