Creative Cuppa 8th Coffee Meetup

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Creative Cuppa 8th Coffee Meetup
(Event completed & newsletter coming out soon...)

Theme: Creative Technologies & Contemporary Cinema
Time: 12:00pm - 13:00pm (Tuesday, 23rd June 2009)
Venue: KE 526 (Ken Edwards Building), City Campus, University of Leicester
Guest Speaker: by Dr. Anna Claydon
Event Coordinator: Jin Shang
Event description: Dr. Anna Claydon

Technology has shaped cinema: it is an invention of the 19th century created by science played out at the fairground and in the flea-pit and twenty-first century cinema is no different... only now the scientists are 'imagineers' and the forum is the IMAX cinema or the online download.

When Edison and WKL Dickson first developed the Kinematograph in the early 1890s, their aim, explicitly, was to create an audio-visual experience, conjoining the phonograph with moving images. This was not possible then but inventors worked on this until the 1920s, when Vitaphone finally won the competition. Similarly, colour and ever increasing realism and expression was sought from the very beginnings of cinema and so frames were handpainted, then tinted and by the 1930s, coloured with Technicolor's 3 colour system. When sound was introduced, some thought it would be the death-knell of creativity in cinema; when colour illuminated the screen, audiences were reputedly shocked by the invasion of their space with the too red and too green hues with which they were faced: and in the 1950 and 60s, as cinema audiences globally began to die, it was to technology and science that the industries turned once more. Cinerama, 3D, vibrating seats, electric shocks and 'smellovision' were the tools of a desperate industry trying to seduce audiences: the 'cinema of attractions' was all the more a cinema of effects.

In recent years, despite many excellent movies being made, the cinema industry has been facing another challenge and production has fallen. The audience is changing and how they consume has altered. What they expect of action has been transformed by computer games and what was once a believable effect is now automatically hyper-real: the impossible appears made possible. Thus, in the face of criticism about a paucity of original film narratives (as evidenced by the large numbers of remakes) and the love of the new, filmmakers push the boundaries of film with every movie they produce and try to re-acquaint the spectator with what made film special: the fact it could not be experienced anywhere else in quite the same way. In this session, we shall examine how creative technologies contribute to contemporary cinema narrative and style and debate the impact of these technologies themselves upon creativity and quality in the cinema.

Come along and share your creative ideas with others. Everyone is welcome. Beverage & snacks are served for free. You can pop in and drop out anytime. Most importantly we hope you feel fun, relax, and really enjoy being with everyone of us!


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Creative Cuppa Seminar Series
June 14, 2009


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