{"title":"Toward a Theory of Disability Documentary: Alison O’Daniel’s The Tuba Thieves (2013–Present)","authors":"Emma Ben Ayoun","doi":"10.7560/vlt8802","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.7560/vlt8802","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":335072,"journal":{"name":"The Velvet Light Trap","volume":"13 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"133783521","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Structural Film, Mondo New Hollywood, and the Violent Image: A Discussion with Sheldon Renan","authors":"M. Rosen","doi":"10.7560/vlt8808","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.7560/vlt8808","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":335072,"journal":{"name":"The Velvet Light Trap","volume":"30 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"127620234","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Indian Food Television: Tracing the Transformation of Hindi and English Food Shows (2010–2018)","authors":"Dattatreya Ghosh","doi":"10.7560/vlt8805","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.7560/vlt8805","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT:This article traces the journey of Indian food media, particularly Hindi- and Englishlanguage television shows, from 2010 to 2018. The tendency of food television to uphold an upper- and upper-middle-class lifestyle points to a politics of appropriation of class. The transformation after 2010 is marked by changes in the space, the products endorsed, and the brands sponsoring the shows, while the aesthetics of the audiovisual medium indicate an inclination to enable a politics of consumerism and to posit a linear narrative on Indian cuisine that minimizes difference.","PeriodicalId":335072,"journal":{"name":"The Velvet Light Trap","volume":"58 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"115905791","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Color Correction and the Look of Festival Documentary","authors":"Chris Cagle","doi":"10.7560/vlt8804","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.7560/vlt8804","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT:The digital turn and the increased role of postproduction have transformed the look of documentary films, especially those geared toward the film festival circuit. Festival films such as Fire at Sea (Gianfranco Rosi, 2016), Armadillo (Janus Metz, 2010), On Rubiks' Road (Laila Pakalniņa, 2010), and A Memory in Khaki (Alfoz Tanjour, 2016) have developed an approach to color correction distinct from that of more industrially dominant theatrical documentary. Reconciling realism and pictorialism, these films' color correction acts as a \"house style\" of festival documentary that adds meaning to the individual documentary.","PeriodicalId":335072,"journal":{"name":"The Velvet Light Trap","volume":"88 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"131388124","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Netflix Originals: The Evolution of True Crime Television","authors":"E. Walters","doi":"10.7560/vlt8803","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.7560/vlt8803","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT:Netflix has emerged at the forefront of a modern craze: the serialized true crime docuseries, a phenomenon emblematized by the platform's hit series Making a Murderer (2015–2018). This article contextualizes the true crime docuseries trend within the tradition of true crime television, a long-popular genre frequently dismissed as sensationalism. The article traces the genre's ideology and format to situate the true crime docuseries not as an elevation but as a reconfiguration that operates with a similar purpose, as evidenced by Netflix's docuseries reboot of the classic true crime vehicle Unsolved Mysteries.","PeriodicalId":335072,"journal":{"name":"The Velvet Light Trap","volume":"28 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"122113549","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"From the Tribune to the Tube: The Development of Sports Punditry on Cable Television","authors":"Taylor M. Henry","doi":"10.7560/VLT8705","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.7560/VLT8705","url":null,"abstract":"abstract:This article argues that the genre of televised sports punditry primarily developed from newspaper columnists and sports talk radio hosts, with the outrage discourse that dominated both sports and political talk radio transitioning seamlessly to television. This article engages in a critical production study of shows such as ESPN's The Sports Reporters, the network's flagship newscast SportsCenter, and ESPN2's SportsNight, which became centers for \"infotainment,\" merging more traditional news reporting with popular culture references and distinctive personalities in order to expand the network's audiences and profitability. The article argues that while televised sports punditry demonstrated a greater commitment to on-air racial and gender diversity than political punditry, it simultaneously centered and privileged the white masculinity dominating both sports columns in newspapers and sports talk radio shows. This article also links early sports pundit programs to a brief history of contemporary political punditry on cable television news and a larger industrial shift from broadcast to the \"narrowcasting\" era of cable.","PeriodicalId":335072,"journal":{"name":"The Velvet Light Trap","volume":"31 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-03-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"129081564","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Running the Wrong Pattern: TVTV Goes to the Super Bowl","authors":"Brett Kashmere","doi":"10.7560/VLT8704","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.7560/VLT8704","url":null,"abstract":"abstract:This article examines how the 1976 teledocumentary TVTV Goes to the Super Bowl subverts the accepted mythology of American football. Produced by the Bay Area collective TVTV, this intimate, behind-the-scenes look at Super Bowl X merges the perspectives of players, spouses, fans, and the press. My analysis proposes that TVTV's intervention destabilizes the dominant image of masculinity as embodied and expressed in popular football docufiction and broadcast-media coverage of the sport. I argue that TVTV's counterhegemonic vision is made possible by its status as an ethnographic art project that exists outside of the production model of sports entertainment culture. Thus, the video operates against the logics of bureaucracy, professionalism, and mastery. Shifting focus away from the story of the game to the images and subjectivities of those who play, TVTV Goes to the Super Bowl expands the horizon of masculine representation in body culture, offers an alternative means of identification, and reimagines football as a non-zero-sum game.","PeriodicalId":335072,"journal":{"name":"The Velvet Light Trap","volume":"16 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-03-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"117189236","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Beyond Basketball: NBA Entertainment and the Sports League as Global Media Empire, 1982–1990","authors":"Steven Secular","doi":"10.7560/VLT8703","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.7560/VLT8703","url":null,"abstract":"abstract:Through the case of the National Basketball Association (NBA), this article charts the early transformation of sports leagues into global media conglomerates from 1982 to 1990, as reflected in the creation and growth of NBA Entertainment. As an internal production, distribution, and archival outfit, the division enabled the NBA to produce and distribute its own television and promotional content, leveraging new opportunities in cable television and global satellite distribution. Following a renegotiation with broadcast partner CBS in late 1985, the NBA reacquired its own international media rights, which allowed the league to further use NBA Entertainment to self-produce international game edits for overseas distribution. During this period, the NBA reached new heights as an integrated media producer-distributor, culminating in late 1989, when NBA Entertainment left CBS for NBC, which promised greater control over network production and promotion. Ultimately, as sports were increasingly conceived and produced as television content, sports leagues such as the NBA evolved from primarily administrative bodies into vertically integrated media conglomerates. This article establishes a historical basis for the further integration of the sports and media industries on a global scale, as sports programming continues to grow into a fundamental component of the multiplatform media landscape.","PeriodicalId":335072,"journal":{"name":"The Velvet Light Trap","volume":"244 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-03-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"123024894","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Experiments in the Cine-Olympic Cycle: Camera Technology and Operation in The Grand Olympics (1961) and White Rock (1977)","authors":"Adam J. Hebert","doi":"10.7560/VLT8702","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.7560/VLT8702","url":null,"abstract":"abstract:This article examines two lesser-known official films from the cycle of the Olympic Games: The Grand Olympics (Romolo Marcellini, 1961) and White Rock (Tony Maylam, 1977). The filmmakers' experiments with wide-screen composition, extreme telephoto lensing, and novel means of tracking athletics in action challenge us to recalibrate our critical lexicon with respect to the process of screening sport. Combining insights into changes in film stock and optics with a close reading of the films, the article makes a case for placing technological shifts and below-the-line craft of production personnel in dialogue with accounts of Olympic cinema that privilege auteurist and ideological readings. In this vein, the article builds off John Caldwell's work on industrial reflexivity and Katie Bird's scholarship on embodied camerawork, body-mount rigs, and winter sport production. Augmenting these approaches with careful attention to \"minor\" technological shifts and their experimental use vis-à-vis Olympic sport allows for holistic analyses of film that can bridge technical specifics, formal analysis, and production studies. In so doing, the article suggests that while sports media is a particularly rich site for such a study, this approach is likewise useful for media objects far afield from those produced in Olympic stadia.","PeriodicalId":335072,"journal":{"name":"The Velvet Light Trap","volume":"84 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-03-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"124134255","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Nelson Sullivan's Video Memories: YouTube Nostalgia and the Queer Archive Effect","authors":"Joseph DeLeon","doi":"10.7560/vlt8603","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.7560/vlt8603","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT:This article argues that Nelson Sullivan's video archive on YouTube reveals a \"queer archive effect\" on streaming platforms today. Through the nostalgic pull of witnessing everyday life in the 1980s, a period often historicized as one of loss amid the AIDS crisis, Sullivan's audience has found a space where they can unite as a queer community and gather the threads of a shared history. Long confined to the background of histories of other queer stars, such as RuPaul, Nelson Sullivan's video archive of the mundane offers a way to understand the nostalgic contours of queer spectator-ship and fandom online.","PeriodicalId":335072,"journal":{"name":"The Velvet Light Trap","volume":"179 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"123308763","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}