Liveness: Performance in a Mediatized Culture Review

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(More customer reviews)Liveness, that's the word. Recommended for students of performance and media studies, as well as any one who has ever been to, or been intrigued by, live performances on stage or screen.

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Liveness: Performance in a Mediatized Culture addresses what may be the single most important question facing all kinds of performance today. What is the status of live performance in a culture dominated by mass media?Since its first appearance, Philip Auslander's ground-breaking book has helped to reconfigure a new area of study. Looking at specific instances of live performance such as theatre, rock music, sport, and courtroom testimony, Liveness offers penetrating insights into media culture, suggesting that media technology has encroached on live events to the point where many are hardly live at all. In this new edition, the author thoroughly updates his provocative argument to take into account new digital and media technologies, and cultural, social and legal developments.In tackling some of the last great shibboleths surrounding the high cultural status of the live event, this book will continue to shape discussion and to provoke lively debate on a crucial artistic dilemma: what is live performance and what can it mean to us now?

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Sight, Sound, Motion: Applied Media Aesthetics (Wadsworth Series in Broadcast and Production) Review

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(More customer reviews)This is probably the most important textbook a film production student can have on his/her shelf. NOT for how to work with actors or how to light a scene, but for understanding the underlying reasons of why things work due to our learned aesthetics and Western sensibilities.
Professor Herbert Zettl has written the most concise manual on why we has film viewers percieve things the way we do. He explains in detail (and layman's terms) how our aesthetics have been formed to interpret the dynamic medium of film and television.
How editing of action from shot to shot creates the illusion of continuous motion. How stagelines work so not to give the effect that your actor is jumping around from one side of the scene to the other. How to crop your shot BETWEEN the bodies natural cut-off points (i.e. neck, elbow, waist) to prevent the actor from looking like a disembodied head or torso.
This book is cover-to-cover insights into what we as viewers take for granted when we watch a good filmmaker's work, but may not consider when faced with the daunting task of mounting a film production and the on-set "reality" problems that dominate the filmmaker's mind when shooting a film.
I first read this book when I was in film school twenty years ago. Since then I have directed many professional film productions and I still review it before starting a new one to refresh myself.
Just as Syd Field's book "Screenplay" is the bible for screenwriting, "Sight Sound Motion" is the bible on understanding what works in film/video and why.

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Media aesthetics have gained prominence with the dramatic advances in the digital technology of video and electronic cinema, making Herb Zettl's SIGHT SOUND MOTION: APPLIED MEDIA AESTHETICS more applicable than ever. The Sixth Edition of SIGHT SOUND MOTION continues to be the most comprehensive book on the market, not only describing the major aesthetic image elements--light and color, space, time-motion, and sound--but also presenting in-depth coverage on how they are creatively used in television and film. Zettl's thorough coverage of aesthetic theory and the application of that theory place this contemporary and highly relevant text in a class by itself. Richly illustrated, this edition features strong visuals that often draw on traditional art forms, such as painting, sculpture, and dance.

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