Book Description
Hidden Track shows how contemporary visual culture is breaking out of the second dimension and printed form and entering into three-dimensional space, where it can be experienced. The book demonstrates how rooms are being occupied creatively and how items are being transformed. It presents the diverse exhibition possibilities that currently exist - a spectrum ranging from live painting to installations and 3D objects.
At the same time the book illustrates how urban and street art have recently moved even further out of the subculture and are now being featured more often in galleries and museums worldwide. It analyses how these public art forms are being perceived in an international art context and investigates the fundamentally different forms of presentation that this new context demands.
Through abundant images and incisive text Hidden Track also introduces the artists and exhibition spaces that are taking current visual culture out of the underground to the level of high culture.
Customer Reviews:
perfect.......2007-01-10
O livro é ótimo!
Tem referencias ótimas. Do mundo do grafite, stickers e afins!
illustrated survey of the influence and diversity of visual culture .......2005-11-10
HIDDEN TRACK - How Visual Culture Is Going Places, edited by Robert Klanten and Sven Ehmann. Die Gestalten Verlag, Berlin, Germany; [...]. 2005. 208 pp. xxpricexx 9-3/4" x 11", ISBN 3-89955-084-6. color photographs.
"Hidden Track" demonstrates that "quite often works of extraordinary artistic quality come into existence in the context of design, advertising, and entertainment" by featuring over four pages on average works of 49 contemporary artists and art businesses in these areas. Office reception areas, street corners, lobbies, showrooms and store windows, walls, signs, and in a few cases art galleries are among the many and varied places where the works are seen. Besides briefly showcasing the work of the many contemporary, mostly commercial, artists, the anthology is meant to make the point of how much such art is already a part of public spaces playing a role in generating their ambiance and working toward both social and business purposes. The implication of the title is that this "track" of art has not been given sufficient attention or appreciation. The title can also be taken ironically in that this ubiquitous art making for the visual culture of contemporary life is so taken for granted that it is "hidden," and its influence on noncommercial artists and the public's preferences in art has been only barely explored. With the wide range of imaginative art styles hardly different and in many cases indistinguishable from works exhibited in many galleries and museums, one cannot disagree with the book's central point that the line between art work in design, advertising, and entertainment and art by pure artists outside of these areas has become porous and all-but-eroded. While this is not a new point, "Hidden Track" decisively, informatively, and visually attests to it.
Book Description
From the early years of the American Republic to the present, art and architecture have consistently aroused major disputes among artists, critics, scholars, politicians, and ordinary citizens. Now one of our most respected cultural historians chronicles these clamorous debates about the public appropriateness of paintings, sculpture, memorials, and monuments.
Michael Kammen examines the nature, diversity, and persistence of major disputes generated by art and artists and shows what has changed since the 1830s and why. He looks at the role of artists and patrons, local and national governments, conservatives and liberals, and the media in creating and sustaining heated controversies. We see the notable acceleration of such episodes since the 1960s; the effect of the democratization of American museums; the quest for provocative shows to attract crowds; the increased visibility resulting from the public art movement that has stirred anger and created some of our stormiest battles; the desire of many artists and galleries to shock, provoke, and contest, engendering the perplexity, if not outright hostility, of audiences; the use of art as social criticism; the effort to include and appeal to minorities; the threat of litigation and the role of courts; and the commercialization stemming from dependence on corporate sponsorship.
Kammen’s central themes include such questions as, What kind of art is most appropriate for a democratic society? What should our relationship be to Old World criteria of excellence in the arts? How can we achieve a distinctively American art? Why have so many controversies hinged upon issues of nudity, decency, and sexuality? Why has public art (most notably sculpture) become so politicized that began in the late 1960s? He explores the “death-of-art” debate since the 1970s and issues of censorship that have arisen over time. Finally, he asks whether art controversies have invariably had a negative effect—noticing the interesting ways in which minds have been changed and museums have overcome difficult episodes. He also reminds us that when New York’s Museum of Modern Art celebrated its twenty-fifth anniversary, President Dwight Eisenhower declared “as long as artists are at liberty to feel with high personal intensity, as long as our artists are free to create with sincerity and conviction, there will be healthy controversy and progress in art.” Kammen agrees.
Customer Reviews:
Michael Kammen's Visual Shock.......2007-01-08
As a national experiment able and eager to invent itself from a relatively clean slate, and as a democracy open to multiple voices, America has been and continues to be a country where the nature and purpose of art is hotly debated. In his recently published book, Visual Shock: A History of Art Controversies in American Culture, Pulitzer-prize winning cultural historian Michael Kammen turns his insightful attention to American controversies over the visual arts to discover what these controversies reveal about the nature of America and its public discourse.
Kammen's examination includes controversies familiar to most informed readers -- Diego Rivera's murals for Rockefeller Center or the photographs of Robert Mapplethorpe, for example -- but also finds lesser known controversies -- such as John Singer's Sargent's own troubles with murals or the initial Washington monument, a half-nude neo-classical statue -- equally fruitful for his scholarly inquest.
This meticulously researched and cogently argued book is not another repeat of the history of American art. Kammen's book follows a unique trajectory because Kammen's interest in the subject is as a cultural rather than art historian. He is more interested in how the public talks about art than the art itself; so that in Visual Shock discussions of the art that changed the art world give way to the art controversies that changed the way Americans discuss art, and what those discussion say about America.
Kammen divides his investigation into nine chapters, each of which follows a chronological examination of a particular form of art controversy -- from issues of monumentalism and memorialization and nudity and decency, which were prominent in the 19th century, to the debates on public art, political art and the nature of the museums in more recent times.
Within the scope of the entire work, Kammen identifies four main themes that interest him as a cultural historian: the way art controversies are symptomatic of social change in the U.S.; the debate over art's role in a democratic society and expectation such a society has of art and architecture; the impulse for the origins of art controversies and how they have changed over time; and the outcome, negative or positive, of controversies.
Kammen's book reveals that America has a fairly short cultural memory and that what causes an initial stir and even ideological battle usually becomes, within a generation, an established part of our cultural framework. Many of us will know the controversy regarding Maya Lin's Vietnam Memorial, but fewer will remember or have learned that practically every other monument along D.C.'s Mall -- now endeared landmarks of our country's capitol -- was controversial as well.
What moves America to discourse also changes over time. In the 19th century, issues of nudity and moral decency were hotly debated, even when, as in the case of Thomas Eakins' use of nude models in a classroom, the offending practices occurred in non-public settings. In our own time, nudity per se rarely causes a stir (BYU's selective editing of a Rodin exhibit in 1997 being an exception Kammen notes) and issues of moral decency spring up only in the case of government funding, as in the furor of NEA funding during the 80s.
As a cultural historian, Kammen is particularly interested in public art, where the full force of community discussion takes place. His chapter, "The Dimension and Dilemmas of Public Sculpture," which examines controversial public sculptures such as Richard Serra's "Tilted Arc" in lower Manhattan, is particularly interesting reading. Another element of the public realm Kammen illuminates is the changing nature of the Museum, which Kammen examines in a chapter in its own right. The author demonstrates that museums recover rather quickly from any initial uproar over a controversial exhibit and usually achieve higher turnout because of the controversy. Many museums, galleries, and artists understand this and create their own uproar; and when they don't, the media, knowing controversy makes for good copy, often stokes the flames of discontent.
Whatever part of his topic Kammen examines, his arguments are always well illustrated with particular cases. Too often, however, what he illustrates in prose is not illustrated by images, an unfortunate deficiency in a book whose main focus is the visual arts.
For the most part, Kammen keeps his own feelings about the merits of the artworks discussed to himself and does his job as historian in parsing out the factors that influenced the controversies examined. At times Kammen's writing style can be overly academic and his expositions can be lengthy, causing the casual reader to wish for a condensed version. But whether skimmed over for its salient kernels or examined in detail for its double-helix intricacies, Visual Shock has a great deal to offer both specialized art audiences and general ones interested in American culture. The book will teach you as much about America as it will about art.
An outstanding survey........2007-01-04
Art and architectural aspirations have long aroused disputes among artists, scholars and the common citizen over the appropriateness of paintings, memorials and monuments: for the first time these debates are surveyed in VISUAL SHOCK: A HISTORY OF ART CONTROVERSIES IN AMERICAN CULTURE. Here are the social and political disputes which have taken place from the 1830s to modern times, with central themes and relationships including questions on the types of art appropriate for a democratic society, and how to assess and possibly regulate its appearance. Changes in policies, opinions, and conflicts between trustees of the arts and the general public are chronicled in chapters surveying the wild world of art history. An outstanding survey.
A History of the Culture Wars.......2006-11-22
Artist George Braque said, "Art is meant to disturb." This is a profoundly twentieth-century view of what art should accomplish, and clashes with the views of most Americans who enjoy going to a museum or contemplating a commemorative civic sculpture, and do not do so for any advantage of being disturbed. There has certainly been an acceleration of controversy in America regarding art; the Brooklyn Museum's notorious show "Sensation" of 1999, which Rudolph Giuliani tried repeatedly to close down, is a good example, as are countless shows picketed, boycotted, vandalized, or censored in the past couple of decades. But although art controversies in America may have increased, they did not begin only in the recent years, but have been ongoing for at least two centuries. In _Visual Shock: A History of Art Controversies in American Culture_, critic Michael Kammen has written a detailed account of the art and architecture that has bothered Americans. It is a surprise to learn how many buildings, sculptures, and paintings were notorious in the past and have become beloved icons, but it is no surprise to learn how indignation comes in various forms against the sexuality, politics, or religious feelings which the art portrays.
It is hard to imagine that anyone could ever have objected to the Lincoln Memorial but it was not just die-hard Confederates that did so when the nation prepared to honor Lincoln at the centennial of his birth. Many hated the location selected, as if America was deliberately sticking its greatest president into a marsh. A Grecian temple was not a universally accepted choice; members of Congress pointed out, for instance, that Lincoln never would have even learned the Greek alphabet, so why honor him with a modern Parthenon? There have always been people who are convinced that any depiction of nudity is scandalous, despite the persistence of artists over the centuries who found the human form worthy of representation. It is surprising, however, that the first controversy over nudity mentioned here is for a memorial to George Washington. Horace Greenough got a commission in 1833 to sculpt the Father of Our Country to stand in the Capitol, and although Washington wasn't actually nude in the huge marble statue that resulted, except above the waist; he had a toga wrapped around the rest of him, and the statue was a figure of ridicule. Age did not bring acceptance to the statue, which after placements other than the Capitol, was condemned to the Smithsonian. There are, to be sure, other controversies of nudity in art described here, especially regarding such photographs as those of Robert Mapplethorpe, and the displays of performance artists who do shows in the buff. It does not take nudity to make controversy, however; sometimes just a style will do so. Until recent years, the most controversial art show in America was the Armory Show of 1913, which was literally set up in an armory building in New York City by an ad hoc group of artists. It was the first chance for the modernism that had grown up in Europe to be seen here, and people didn't like it. Influential critics did not like the exhibit, and their writings gave justification for the public to disdain modernism for two subsequent generations. Eventually in the witch-hunting years after World War II, the generally progressive politics of modern artists was decried, with anti-communists declaring that modern art was Marxist at its core, ignoring that Stalin could abide nothing but artistic realism.
Art museums are more popular than ever, and one of the best bits of good news in Kammen's wide-ranging survey is that Americans cannot agree on what is good art, or even what is art. There has not been complete agreement on such matters in previous centuries or now. This is why reading Kammen's book is such fun; it is full of optimism. There were angry controversies about art in previous years, and those have been settled, with the controversial pieces now widely accepted and even loved. Freedom of expression is strong, and creativity is rewarded even when it is controversial. We can learn from art that is made deliberately to provoke. The controversies described here have not produced bland conformity and have resulted only in occasionally regional, not national, censorship. We can withstand the visual shocks, and we are ready for more.
Amazon.com
Opening with a photograph of a 1950s Disneyland home designed in the shape of a TV (by those fun-loving futurists at MIT), this book's text and photos consistently maintain a balance between insightful social commentary and critique and sensitive recapturing of the essence of visual broadcast's dawn.
Book Description
America in the 1950s: the world was not so much a stage as a setpiece for TV, the new national phenomenon. It was a time when how things looked--and how we looked--mattered, a decade of design that comes to vibrant life in As Seen on TV. From the painting-by-numbers fad to the public fascination with the First Lady's apparel to the television sensation of Elvis Presley to the sculptural refinement of the automobile, Marling explores what Americans saw and what they looked for with a gaze newly trained by TV. A study in style, in material culture, in art history at eye level, this book shows us as never before those artful everyday objects that stood for American life in the 1950s, as seen on TV.
Customer Reviews:
"Life In The Age Of Television Was A Feast For The Eye...".......2000-09-06
Karal Ann Martling tucks her mission in writing "As Seen On TV" in that last sentence of the next-to-last chapter of her fascinating book. She tours the 1950s' TV-raised images, from First Lady Mamie Eisenhower's dress closet to her husband's paintings to garish car in the garage, ready-made food in the kitchen, and herky-jerky TV images pointing to changed American culture and aestetic. Hers is a more entertaining, breezier read than recent books from, respectively, David Halberstam on the 1950s or historian Michael Kammen on American preference.(Marling shared time at Cornell with Kammen, thanking his students in her acknowledgements for "challenging lunchtime conversation.")
Marling merges era icons, fads, and seminal events more seamlessly into social statement than Halberstam did or Kammen attempted. Her understanding of cars evolving into social statements segues best into the image of Elvis Presley, the "King of Rock and Roll" for whom the "gorp"-covered Cadillac was chariot of choice. (she also credits Martin and Lewis with exposing the entertainment's dual sensibilities during early TV).
Marling also writes of home convenience from new appliances and quick dinners colliding with the rustic, more honorable life many felt had been replaced. This clash inspired and popularized Grandma Moses' idealized portraits of American country life, Walt Disney's scale model re-creation of small-town America at Disneyland (and on the accompanying TV program), and Betty Crocker's shorthand version of motherly mentoring through General Mills' best-selling cookbook. Marling's chapter on Walt Disney's inspirations for creating the park is among the book's most fascinating. But a chapter on "American Bandstand," should Marling have chosen to include it, may have tied even more loose ends together.
The book may also have done with some re-arrangement; the closing chapter accurately and humorously chronicles the 1959 Richard Nixon-Nikita Krushchev "kitchen debate." But its tale of form of function, argued by its most important leaders at the peak of Cold War hysteria, may have been more effective introducing Marling's tale. The book may then have received more social context by stating sooner Nixon's belief, according to Marling, in "style as a manifestation or a symbol of difference and, in difference, multiplicity - the possibility of choice - as...connecting idle consumer fetishism to ideology." This would also have more closely tied the 1950s' garish color imagery with its parallel, grainier black-and-white images (Nixon, the Cold War, and Joe McCarthy, a standout 50s figure seen on TV but not in this book.) Nonetheless, "As Seen On TV" is a fun, informative read for those wishing to understand the reasoning behind an era's unforgettable images.
Very interesting book with wonderful photographs.......1999-05-26
Very interesting reading. It is amazing to actually see how television has changed American life. I can't even fathom how life would be today, without TV. A great read for all who are interested in American pop culture in the 1950s.
Book Description
The art. The craft. The business. Animation Writing and Development takes students and animation professionals alike through the process of creating original characters, developing a television series, feature, or multimedia project, and writing professional premises, outlines and scripts. It covers the process of developing presentation bibles and pitching original projects as well as ideas for episodes of shows already on the air. Animation Writing and Development includes chapters on animation history, on child development (writing for kids), and on storyboarding. It gives advice on marketing and finding work in the industry. It provides exercises for students as well as checklists for professionals polishing their craft. This is a guide to becoming a good writer as well as a successful one.
* Filled with writing exercises that will challenge your writing limits
* Understand inspiration, idea gathering, and story development
* Tips on how to write for kids and why certain stories appeal to different ages
* The how and why of dialogue-what works, and what doesn't
Customer Reviews:
Animation writing and Development From script to development to pitch.......2007-08-23
An excellent book that covers all aspects of writing for animation, and I do mean ALL aspects. Nothing is left out. Jean Ann Wright really knows her stuff. And buying the book from Amazon was easy and painless. That's why I use them and why I will continue to use them.
Too much information.......2006-09-22
The book covers tons and tons of topics, which is good for a person with no background in animation writing. But the topics written about, from dialogue to outlining, come with no context, no examples to back up what the author is talking about. Wright writes "Keep your characters consistent. They must be true to their core traits and to what has made them who they are." An example from a current or classic cartoon is direly needed. This happens throughout the book. Under the subheading Conflict Can Reveal Information in the dialogue chapter, she writes "conflict in dialogue...is a good way to get information out and keep it interesting." How? Once again this book screams for examples.
The book trys to explain every thing and any thing about animation. A daunting task. But in the process, every thing seems trite. The chapter on writing features, aka movies, is skimmed, and after reading it, will not make your more apt at writing animation films. Scriptwriting for film is different, in many aspects, from tv animation, and in this book it's made to sound that it's the same.
Overall the book is informative, but for someone who grew up with Scooby Doo, He-Man, Thundercats and saw every Disney film and could write endless thesis on Scooby Doo's tremendous appetite, this book lacks substance.
Typical "Mainstream" book........2006-08-08
This book is abit of a bore and turnoff with all it tips and trixs to create scripts that will please the "buyer". It is colored with a tone of a moral panic that is typical for experts that clame to know what people want and don't want. I think it is safe to say that if the creators of "South Park" or "The Simpson" would have read this book and followed it, thoose series would have never been made - maybe not even Bambi with its horrid shooting of bambis mother?
It also deals with animation at its simplest blocks, it tries to show the steps to a finished product - poorly. It does contain a good hint here and there but as a hole it is a complete waist of time, and a poor candidate for a book to understand the teqnical aspects of animation. If you have some basic knowleadge of character, animation and storyboarding and want to learn how to write for animation, buy books about writing instead.
>RS
Animation Writing and Development : From Script Development .......2005-03-10
Jean Ann Wright's "Animation Writing and Development : From Script Development to Pitch", is a comprehensive and well written book, on the subject.
I would highly recommend it to anyone who is interested in writing for animation.
Wow!.......2005-03-07
Every industry has its own special requirements. This book "Animation Writing and Development" by Jean Ann Wright should be titled "A Manual for the Working World of Animation". There are not many books that give all the working aspects of a creative vocation. Wow! What to do, how to do it, and still nurture creative desires! Being a college art instructor, all my classes will know about the existence of this fine work. B. McInerney
Book Description
Feminism is one of the most important perspectives from which visual culture has been theorized and historicized over the past thirty years. The Feminism and Visual Culture Reader brings together a wide array of writings addressing art, film, architecture, popular culture, new media, and other visual fields from a feminist perspective, combining classic texts by leading feminist thinkers with polemical new pieces. Challenging the notion of feminism as a unified discourse, the reader explores how issues of race, class, nationality, and sexuality enter into debates about feminism in the field of the visual and includes work by feminist critics, artists, and activists. The reader ncludes six previously unpublished texts written specifically for this volume.
Amelia Jones' introduction to the reader races historical and theoretical developments in feminism and visual culture. Articles are grouped into thematic sections, addressing Representation; Difference; Disciplines/Strategies; Mass Culture/Media Interventions; Body; and Technology. Each section opens with an introduction by the editor.
The Feminism and Visual Culture Reader provides a framework within which to understand the shifts in feminist thinking in visual studies as well as an overview of major feminist theories of the visual.
Book Description
Computer-generated effects are often blamed for bad Hollywood movies. Yet when a critic complains that "technology swamps storytelling" (in a review of Van Helsing, calling it "an example of everything that is wrong with Hollywood computer-generated effects movies"), it says more about the weakness of the story than the strength of the technology. In Digital Storytelling, Shilo McClean shows how digital visual effects can be a tool of storytelling in film, adding narrative power as do sound, color, and "experimental" camera angles--other innovative film technologies that were once criticized for being distractions from the story. It is time, she says, to rethink the function of digital visual effects.
Effects artists say--contrary to the critics--that effects always derive from story. Digital effects are a part of production, not post-production; they are becoming part of the story development process. Digital Storytelling is grounded in filmmaking, the scriptwriting process in particular. McClean considers crucial questions about digital visual effects-- whether they undermine classical storytelling structure, if they always call attention to themselves, whether their use is limited to certain genres--and looks at contemporary films (including a chapter-long analysis of Steven Spielberg's use of computer-generated effects) and contemporary film theory to find the answers. McClean argues that to consider digital visual effects as simply contributing the "wow" factor underestimates them. They are, she writes, the legitimate inheritors of film storycraft.
Customer Reviews:
GREAT CRITIQUE OF CRAFT FOR VIZ F/X ARTISTS AND PRODUCERS .......2007-04-03
The faults of this book? Point size is under 9 points which strains the eyes given that this is 99% text. There are a few photographs, but the focus of this book is use of Digital Visual Effects in contemporary movies, and how the author and critics are responding to them.
As I'm a sucker for anything related to Visual Effects, I enjoyed this book. He defines concepts that are perhaps intuitive to a visual effects artist. Yet, making you aware of these things is quite cool. Someone has noticed, and taken the time to process what it all might mean.
I appreciate that the author connects the story and visual effects, though some quotes are heavy handed. An ILM staffer complains that "Borne Identity" lost him during a exaggerated shot. It's a movie, not a documentary. The most perceptive part goes into the misidentification of f/x by critics, specifically "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind," which used extensive digital effects that were attributed to incamera or old-style f/x. I wish he would've discussed Roman Coppola's CQ, which went whole hog chemical f/x. Still, there's plenty to consider. F/X are not the enemy. Mediocre filmmaking is.
Book Description
If it's Purple, Someone's Gonna Die is a must-read book for all film students, film professionals, and others interested in filmmaking. This enlightening book guides filmmakers toward making the right color selections for their films, and helps movie buffs understand why they feel the way they do while watching movies that incorporate certain colors.
Guided by her twenty-five years of research on the effects of color on behavior, Bellantoni has grouped more than 60 films under the spheres of influence of six major colors, each of which triggers very specific emotional states. For example, the author explains that films with a dominant red influence have themes and characters that are powerful, lusty, defiant, anxious, angry, or romantic and discusses specific films as examples. She explores each film, describing how, why, and where a color influences emotions, both in the characters on screen and in the audience. Each color section begins with an illustrated Home Page that includes examples, anecdotes, and tips for using or avoiding that particular color.
Conversations with the author's colleagues-- including award-winning production designers Henry Bumstead (Unforgiven) and Wynn Thomas (Malcolm X) and renowned cinematographers Roger Deakins (The Shawshank Redemption) and Edward Lachman (Far From Heaven)--reveal how color is often used to communicate what is not said.
Bellantoni uses her research and experience to demonstrate how powerful color can be and to increase readers awareness of the colors around us and how they make us feel, act, and react.
*Learn how your choice of color can influence an audience's moods, attitudes, reactions, and interpretations of your movie's plot
*See your favorite films in a new light as the author points out important uses of color, both instinctive and intentional
*Learn how to make good color choices, in your film and in your world.
*Learn how your choice of color can influence an audience's moods, attitudes, reactions, and interpretations of your movie's plot
*See your favorite films in a new light as the author points out important uses of color, both instinctive and intentional
*Learn how to make good color choices, in your film and in your world
Download Description
Relevant and enlightening for film buffs and filmmakers alike, this unique book is already generating buzz among top Hollywood filmmakers. Color can be an incredibly powerful tool for filmmakers, yet many don't know how to maximize the effect it has on audiences: it can influence how audiences feel, act, and react and be used to further plot, character, and scene development. If it's Purple is based on Patti Bellantoni's groundbreaking color seminar at the American Film Institute, in which she teaches how to stop analyzing and thinking about color and start feeling it instead. Full-color film stills and gorgeous illustrations make this book as appealing to look at as it is to read. Conversations with the author's colleagues--including award-winning filmmakers Henry Bumstead (Unforgiven), Wynn Thomas (Malcolm X), Roger Deakins (The Shawshank Redemption), and Edward Lachman (Far From Heaven)--reveal how color can be used to communicate what is
Customer Reviews:
A great introduction to color's role in storytelling.......2007-09-19
This book is definitely on the beginners side of the spectrum. (no pun intended) You're not going to learn to be a production designer just from reading it, but it's a great start to becoming more aware of the use of color in film (or comics, video games or any other visual media) to influence underlying mood of the story. And once you're aware of color's presence, you can start making educated choices on how to use color in your own work.
Although a few more pictures would've been nice, the author does a good job of taking each of the six primary & secondary colors and defining its role in general and then giving numerous specific examples of the different visual and emotional tones each color can take.
If nothing else, this book added about 8 movies to my Netflix queue.
The Importance of Color.......2007-08-06
Unlike most books on the psychology of color, this one focuses on film and relies heavily on the author's personal experience teaching the subject. Useful for film students--and others.
Interesting but I don't buy all of the conclusions.......2007-06-08
This book is very thought provoking. Some of the theory is similar to other books on color and its importance and psychological, physiological impact, but keeping it completely grounded in the "sexy" world of feature films makes the book very readable and interesting.
My biggest issue is that many of the author's personal opinions are delivered as facts. Color is just not that black and white if you'll pardon the joke. If you can read it and be prepared - and well-schooled in color theory - to ignore or disagree with some of the author's conclusions, then you will like this book a lot.
Her research seems to have been pretty self-guided and ignores a pretty wide body of work. I also would have liked to have seen more interviews with the actual people who made the movies about which she makes certain assertions. In some cases, I'd think the film makers would disagree with her "facts" regarding their movies. In other cases, her insight into the color schemes are very interesting and thought provoking and some of them ARE based on the actual artists involved in the making of the films.
Basically, it IS an interesting book. There is really nothing else like it, but you need to take it with a grain of salt. Many of the other reviewers here are actually referenced IN the book, so you need to take THAT with a grain of salt as well.
At the same time, I bought "The Visual Story: Seeing the Structure of FIlm, TV and Media." It has a chapter or two devoted to color that seem much more grounded in "fact." But for a whole book on color in film, this is the one. ... and it's got a great title.
Steve Hullfish
Co-author, "Color Correction for Digital Video" and author of the upcoming "The Art and Technique of Color Correction"
reasonably interesting ramblings on colour in film.......2005-10-06
Bellantoni's book is interesting, a nice light read on colour in film. It is nothing in comparsion to Bruce Block's 'The Visual Story' which explains colour, whereas this book is just a series of examples. It's both the author's interpretation and she's interviewed a number of DOP's etc of note. I'm not trying to say this book is of no value (it has good interviews, great colour stills and covers a lot of films), but I feel a more accurate review is required on this book given the other reviews are clearly written by Bellantoni's New York and LA friends. The back of the book says please review this book online, which indicates the publishers know the value of these reviews, and therefore seek to send out a few themselves.
color me satisfied........2005-10-03
Every now and then you come across a book that is both a revelation and a pleasure from cover to cover. "If It's Purple..." is just such a read. I'm a film editor and color plays such an important role in how I try to juxtapose imagery. Ms. Bellantoni illumuinates the use of color in some of my favorite films and has given me the joy of seeing some of them in a fresh and altogether revealing way. The book is an insightful exploration of familiar and lesser known works and how they use color as a remarkable tool to achieve their emotional and psychological wallop. It's a fascinating journey.
Average customer rating:
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The Troubled Republic: Visual Culture and Social Debate in France, 1889-1900
Richard Thomson
Manufacturer: Yale University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
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ASIN: 0300104650 |
Book Description
Fin-de-siècle France was a period of unrest, with strikes, demonstrations, and anarchist terrorism reflecting deep social and political differences. Yet at the same time, this decade produced a vibrant visual culture—monumental sculpture, mural decoration, avant-garde painting, posters, illustrations, and photography—much of which was used to articulate France’s ideological arguments. This fascinating book shows how four key issues in social debate were treated by contemporary artists.
Richard Thomson begins by exploring disquieting attitudes toward the body and sexuality that resulted from France’s concerns about national decadence after its defeat in the Franco-Prussian War. He then considers how artists depicted crowds and represented public discomfort about mass unrest. Next he discusses religious imagery during a decade when the Catholic Church was attempting to come to terms with Republicanism. And finally he addresses the question of revenge against Germany for the annexation of Alsace-Lorraine, showing that it was kept alive in contemporary art.
Book Description
From the Gibson Girl to the flapper, from the vamp to the New Woman, Carolyn Kitch traces mass media images of women to their historical roots on magazine covers, unveiling the origins of gender stereotypes in early-twentieth-century American culture.
Kitch examines the years from 1895 to 1930 as a time when the first wave of feminism intersected with the rise of new technologies and media for the reproduction and dissemination of visual images. Access to suffrage, higher education, the professions, and contraception broadened women's opportunities, but the images found on magazine covers emphasized the role of women as consumers: suffrage was reduced to spending, sexuality to sexiness, and a collective women's movement to individual choices of personal style. In the 1920s, Kitch argues, the political prominence of the New Woman dissipated, but her visual image pervaded print media.
With seventy-five photographs of cover art by the era's most popular illustrators, The Girl on the Magazine Cover shows how these images created a visual vocabulary for understanding femininity and masculinity, as well as class status. Through this iconic process, magazines helped set cultural norms for women, for men, and for what it meant to be an American, Kitch contends.
Customer Reviews:
Women in the Media: A Brief Account.......2005-04-08
America is more than familiar with the stereotypical blonde bombshells that grace the covers of magazines, television programs, movies, and advertisements. In Carolyn Kitch's book she is able to outline the origins of how stereotypical images came about. Her extensive background in the media along with the use of actual magazine illustrations allows her to present her arguments in a way that anyone with an interest in women's history in the media can understand.
Kitch's book maintains the reader's interest by citing specific examples, providing information about the time period, and providing illustrations. Keeping a loosely chronological form allows the book to flow, but the ideas of the time period are more important to Kitch than keeping a pattern. She breaks at appropriate points to discuss alternate visions that challenged and reinforced stereotypes in the media.
While Kitch's book is effective, it is not extensive. Its sheer size just doesn't allow Kitch to get as in depth as she could. She promises so much in the introduction, but isn't able to deliver all that she promises.
The books briefness keeps it from being extensive, but it is still able to provide me with a more organized knowledge of how stereotypes of women in the media such as the ever-popular blonde bombshell came about.
Great reading and great images.......2005-03-25
I found this book to contain great ideas and images about the changes in masculinity and femininity as portrayed in the American media. My students enjoyed the ideas in class discussions as well.
Tracing women's lives & representations: a fascinating read!.......2002-04-13
As the saying goes, "Beauty is not skin deep." Of course, that doesn't matter to the American media; it would seem that in their opinion, there's no place in our society for anyone whose beauty is not evident on the surface. Moreover, the standards of beauty on television and in the print media set the bar quite high. A pretty face won't do; to be a superstar, you need to bare lots of skin, like Britney.
Thinking back to Victorian-era prudishness, when a girl's *ankles* couldn't be exposed and when a woman's place was in the home, it's hard to imagine how our culture got to this point. How did we women get to where we are today? And what relationships, if any, are there between the way we live life and the media images surrounding us?
To learn the answers to these questions and more, read "The Girl on the Magazine Cover." Kitch, a journalist and historian, presents a compelling case for women's journey from "matronly" to "dangerous but beautiful" to "cute, skinny, and sexually free." Her focus is on 1895 through 1930, a period of some of the most rapid changes in our history, when technology, early feminism, and higher education intersected. Kitch argues that one result of their intersection was the "new woman," whose liberation was quickly co-opted by the forces of capitalism and consumerism into little more than a marketing tool. (Progress, indeed!)
Note that Kitch's focus is broader than the title would imply: She devotes one chapter to depictions of African-American women, another to the crisis of masculinity faced by men in this era of change, and still another to families. Her epilogue is quite strong, drawing connections between the depictions of women in early magazines to the depictions of women on television today.
In sum, "The Girl on the Magazine Cover" is an evocative, compelling contribution to the fields of mass communication and women's studies. Kitch's arguments are sound, backed with extensive research and illustrated by well-chosen reproductions of period magazine artwork. If the media, women's rights, and/or stereotyping are of interest, then this is the book for you!
Womens images on magazine covers - more than surface meaning.......2002-02-20
After obtaining some old women's magazines from the 1900's, I wanted to learn more about drawings of women which graced these magazine covers. I also wanted to understand why illustrations were used far more often than photos, even after photos were used for the ads within the magazines themselves.
This book was just what I needed to understand not only what the illustrators were trying to say about women's roles at the time but about how so many of these images and stereotypes of the "ideal" woman still permeate our magazines (and culture) today. If you've ever doubted that "what goes around comes around again" when it comes to women's stereotypes and ideals, reading this book may change your mind.
For those familiar with such icons of The Golden Age of Illustration as C. Coles Phillips's Fadeaway Girls or the rather sophisticated women of J. C. Leyendecker or any other artists of the time, this book will be a delight, revealing new insights about the artists visions. For those interested in social history, the book is equally engaging, showing how artist who drew cover girls for popular magazines such as Life, Saturday Evening Post and Good Housekeeping also worked for major businesses and even the government, helping to perpetuate the popular images of women throughout the culture.
Books:
- History: Fiction or Science? (Chronology, No. 1)
- History: Fiction or Science? (Chronology, No. 1)
- History: Fiction or Science? (Chronology, No. 1)
- History: Fiction or Science? (Chronology, No. 1)
- History: Fiction or Science? (Chronology, No. 1)
- History: Fiction or Science? (Chronology, No. 1)
- History: Fiction or Science? (Chronology, No. 1)
- History: Fiction or Science? (Chronology, No. 1)
- History: Fiction or Science? (Chronology, No. 1)
- History: Fiction or Science? (Chronology, No. 1)
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