CFP: The Science of Special Effects (5/1/08; 10/30-11/2/08)
Tue, 25 Mar 2008 17:26:01 -0400
Call for Papers
"The 'Science' of Special Effects: Aesthetic Approaches to Industry" Area
2008 Film & History Conference
Film & Science: Fictions, Documentaries, and Beyond
October 30-November 2, 2008
Chicago, Illinois
www.uwosh.edu/filmandhistory <http://www.uwosh.edu/filmandhistory>
Second-Round Deadline: May 1, 2008
AREA: The "Science" of Special Effects: Aesthetic Approaches to Industry
This area examines the industrial, technological, theoretical, and aesthetic questions surrounding special-effects technologies. Presenters may investigate historical changes in special and visual effects, as in the gradual switch from physical to digital applications; they may focus on the use of visual effects in film or television texts that do not fit into typically spectacle-driven genres (i.e., effects in drama, comedy, and musical narratives instead of in action-adventure, science fiction, or fantasy); they may consider the theoretical implications of special/visual effects and technology on texts; or they may concentrate on neglected historical and aesthetic values of effects development.
Possible papers or panels might include the following:
-- An investigation of the terms "Special Effect" and "Visual Effect," what they constitute, and how their definitions have been delineated and complicated by changing technologies.
-- Special/visual effects "stars" such as (Keynote Speaker) Stan Winston, Douglas Trumbull, or Richard Edlund, and their impact on the construction and application of visual effects images for mainstream/non-mainstream cinema.
-- The changing relationship between visual effects technologies and pre-production, i.e. looking at "previz," at the development of films "around" their effects sequences, or at the use of physical materials such as maquettes as templates for eventual CG elements.
-- How contemporary visual-effects practitioners negotiate and incorporate real world "physics" into their design of digital characters ("synthespians") and environments.
-- How visual effects contribute to the formation of complete "environments" on screen, how they are incorporated into narratives, and how meaning is affected when a physical environment is entirely fabricated.
--The implementation of special/visual effects by costume and motion-capture "artists" and actors, and how studies of these practices can offer insight into classic and contemporary working relationships between effects practitioners, actors and crew.
-- The Visual Effects Society and its impact on the industry and filmmaking throughout the organization's history.
-- How directors or other creative personalities use physical and digital effects in their projects (e.g., Robert Zemeckis' application of digital technologies or Guillermo Del Toro's proclaimed interest in keeping a 50/50 balance between physical and digital effects).
Please send your 200-word proposal by May 1, 2008 to the area chairs:
Michael S. Duffy, Bob Rehak, Area Chairs, "The 'Science' of Special Effects"
Email: [log in to unmask], [log in to unmask]
Panel proposals for up to four presenters are also welcome, but each presenter must submit his or her own paper proposal. Deadline for proposals: May 1, 2008.
This area, comprising multiple panels, is a part of the 2008 biennial Film & History Conference, sponsored by The Center for the Study of Film and History. Speakers will include founder John O'Connor and editor Peter C. Rollins (in a ceremony to celebrate the transfer to the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh); Wheeler Winston Dixon, author of Visions of the Apocalypse, Disaster and Memory, and Lost in the Fifties: Recovering Phantom Hollywood; Sidney Perkowitz, Charles Howard Candler Professor of Physics at Emory University and author of Hollywood Science: Movies, Science, & the End of the World; and special-effects legend Stan Winston, our Keynote Speaker. For updates and registration information about the upcoming meeting, see the Film & History website (www.uwosh.edu/filmandhistory <http://www.uwosh.edu/filmandhistory> ).
----
To sign off Screen-L, e-mail [log in to unmask] and put SIGNOFF Screen-L
in the message. Problems? Contact [log in to unmask]