Tag: Priscilla Ovalle

Mickey Mouse and the Creation of an Animated Star

Presenter: Brandon Rains

Mentor: Priscilla Ovalle, English

Poster: 54

Majors: Digital Arts and Cinema Studies 

Mickey Mouse is one of the most well-known and influential animated cartoon characters in modern society. All of his mannerisms, voice, personality and characteristics have been created by a team at the Walt Disney Animation Studio in order to achieve success and major stardom. Mickey’s large eyes, rounded shape, inviting smile, energetic and exaggerated actions, versatility and simplicity are all important factors decided by his creators. Other possible influences on his success include technological innovations: synchronized sound, storyboard techniques, and multi-plane cameras. He is a completely fabricated character. I am interested in establishing my own animation and character design techniques based off of the work done with Mickey Mouse. Much of my research will be gathered from extensive analysis of the design, personality and actions of Mickey Mouse in short films from the 1930s. I plan to take all the research I have gathered on Mickey Mouse and alter different processes and techniques in order to fulfill my own goals as an animator. I will also become fully engaged in the creative process and deconstruct drawings and clips by physically drawing Mickey Mouse. My goal is to successfully create an animation that is capable of reaching and influencing a mass audience. As I begin to create my own animated works and star characters it will be crucial for me to understand the sacrifices I am willing to make in order to succeed.

Ice Cube’s Star Text: Rejecting the Hip-Hop “Gangsta”

Presenter: Kenneth Mullins

Mentors: Priscilla Ovalle, Cinema Studies; Peter Alilunas, Journalism

Oral Presentation

Majors: Cinema Studies and Journalism

For many rappers, hip-hop gives them an outlet to express their masculinity, using a combination of braggadocio, misogyny, and violence to demonstrate their “hardness.” For others, hip-hop is an outlet for teaching, a way for them to speak out against the culture of violence that they have chosen to reject. The goal of this project is to explore how black masculinity is defined and depicted by hip-hop music, particularly in the creation and rejection of the “gangsta” stereotype; in a time when racial politics are at the forefront of the national discussion, understanding how these stereotypes are created and how they operate is more important than ever. By analyzing the film and music career of rapper Ice Cube, we can see how he has simultaneously contributed to and criticized this stereotypical depiction of black masculinity. As both a film and music star, Ice Cube provides a rich body of work to analyze this form of black racial identity. Through a close reading of his film appearances in Boyz n the Hood (1991) and Friday (1995), as well as his 1993 solo album The Predator, we can see how Ice Cube negotiated the “gangsta” stereotype, subverting it in a way that made his transition from hardcore gangster rapper to children’s film star seem natural.

“It Was A Miracle:” How Salt of the Earth’s Production Model Threatened The Hollywood Blacklist, Existing Power Dynamics in Film Production & Labor Relations

Presenter(s): Arantxa Calles—Cinema Studies

Faculty Mentor(s): Priscilla Ovalle

Session: Prerecorded Poster Presentation

The Hollywood Blacklist was an effort by major film studios to ban filmmakers with leftist politics who were negatively implicated in relation to the trials conducted by the House of Un-American Activities Committee during the 1950s . The “Independent Productions Corporation” was formed around the basis of organizing that blacklisted talent to tell stories of other oppressed peoples through filmmaking . Although there were plans for many such projects, due to the brutal, often violent, repression of their inaugural project, Salt of the Earth (1954), only the one was able to be made . Even after its unlikely completion, the film was prohibited from being shown in cinemas, instead finding a life in underground circuits . Some academic study has been done on the Hollywood Blacklist but much more needs to be dedicated to the ways filmmakers organized against this censorship in order to fill that gap in the fields of filmmaking and labor history . The use of first hand accounts of the production and other published writing that aimed to detail this process were the main sources used . This research revealed how this production model served as a strong challenge to the censorship of diverse political ideas of the time and as an alternative for individuals who wanted to make independent films far before the popular Independent film movement of the US was even established . Only by shining a light on the censure, repression, and scapegoating of the past can we avoid similar conditions in the American media production of the future .