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Television and Media: The Challenge of Digital Cinema

ENGL 295.401
also offered as: CINE 296
instructor(s):
TR 10:30-12

The ongoing shift from film-based to electronic platforms for the distribution and exhibition of theatrical motion pictures challenges traditional practices and power relations within the film and television industries. While some observers see digital cinema as an instrument of greater studio control, others envision an industry less dominated by the major studios, open to new exhibition venues and alternative programming in existing cinemas.  Digital cinema has already encouraged the growth of in-cinema advertising and threatened the long-established practice of staggered release dates across the theatrical and domestic exhibition markets, and some in the motion picture industry fear that electronic cinema will collapse the distinct aesthetic forms and audience practices of domestic television and public cinema-going.  This course will examine the surprisingly long history of electronic cinema and access its current prospects in the United States and elsewhere.

fulfills requirements
Elective Seminar of the Standard Major