Velvet Light Trap articles from September 2005

Velvet Light Trap archives from September 2005

Introduction.(focus on DVD format)
September 22, 2005... Less than a decade after its entry into the market the DVD has already affected media production strategies, legal and economic policy, marketing and distribution, and audience reception habits. Decisions on style and content made during the...

Notice of errata.(Correction Notice)
September 22, 2005... The editors of the Velvet Light Trap regret the omission of Leslie DeLassus's name from the journal's list of editors for issue no. 55 (Spring 2005) and of the following names from its list of faculty advisors: Ben Brewster, Michael Curtin,...

Making-of documentaries on DVD: The Lord of the Rings trilogy and special editions.
September 22, 2005... "Making-of" documentaries, those films (and television programs) that purport to document the production of another text, have a long history dating from the beginnings of cinema itself (Arthur 39). They are an increasingly standard feature of...

Unwrapping archives: DVD restoration demonstrations and the marketing of authenticity.(Critical essay)
September 22, 2005... We are in the film Metropolis; we are in an engine room. It's a symbolic room for this film, a famous decoration. It's also a symbol for what we're doing now. We are taking a look into the restoration of a film; we are looking in an engine room...

The Criterion Collection in the new home video market: an interview with Susan Arosteguy.(Interview)
September 22, 2005... The Criterion Collection was founded in 1983 in order to release selected canonical films on laserdisc, a format that allowed for pedgogical bonus features such as still frames, making-of documentaries, and audio commentaries by filmmakers,...

Star Wars fans, DVD, and cultural ownership: an interview with Will Brooker.(Interview)
September 22, 2005... Although DVD titles have been distributed in the United States since 1997, three of the most popular and high-grossing films of all time--Star Wars (1977), The Empire Strikes Back (1980), and Return of the Jedi (1983)--have only recently been...

Anime fans, DVDs, and the authentic text.
September 22, 2005... An enduring question in media studies is how much economic and social power audiences have over the commodities they consume. A commodity like a DVD consists not only of the object, the disk itself, but also of the film or television program...

Aspect ratios and Joe Six-Packs: home theater enthusiasts' battle to legitimize the DVD experience.(Critical essay)
September 22, 2005... After its official U.S. debut on 24 March 1997 the DVD format did the one thing most people least expected: it took off. The first successful home-video format launched in almost two decades, the DVD has proven to be the most rapidly adopted...

The Cinematic ImagiNation: Indian Popular Films as Social History.(Book Review)
September 22, 2005... The Cinematic Imagination: Indian Popular Films as Social History by Jyotika Virdi The place of "popular" media in the imagnation of the Indian nation has only recently received scholarly attention. Over the last decade an increasing...

Experiencing Music Video: Aesthetics and Cultural Context.(Book Review)
September 22, 2005... Experiencing Music Video: Aesthetics and Cultural Context by Carol Vernallis Carol Vernallis's book seeks to outline a better way to analyze music video and to understand interactions between music, lyrics, and image in multimedia forms....