Abstract: This article sketches a genealogy and typology of the split screen in mainstream film, identifying three distinct phases in the integration of this device since the 1950s, each relating to broader cultural shifts ushered in by media advances and transitions: telephone in the 1950s, television in the 1960s and 1970s, and the computer since the 1990s. I argue that the emphasis upon fragmented and multiplied display relates largely to the cinema’s demonstrated capacity for negotiating the meaning and significance of media change to a wider audience. Through its variegated split screens, the cinema functions as a guide to and user manual of the dangers and possibilities of technological transformation. Continue Reading »

Abstract: In 1915 the Fleischer brothers, Max and Dave, developed a device known as the “rotoscope” which allowed the artist to trace over the original film footage frame by frame to make a more life-like rendition for animation. Rotoscoping’s digital descendent, known as “Rotoshop” was used to style Richard Linklater’s animations Waking Life and A Scanner Darkly, but whilst rotoscoping may originally have been developed to help animators achieve a greater sense of realism, it has never just been about verisimilitude. Drawing on the theories of such diverse commentators as Bertolt Brecht, Roland Barthes and Robert Bresson, the paper will consider two central questions: What have been the consequences of this digital animation technique for screen performance, and what spectatorial pleasures does this means of storytelling afford its audience? Continue Reading »