School of Communication & Multimedia Studies

This thesis explores the production process of developing a virtual reality experience with an emphasis on digital humanities and the methods of adapting real-world events, narratives, and media coverage into an interactive, location based VR experience. The thesis contextualizes the production of an accompanying media project, which is informed by the history of U.S migration and the media’s impact on the opinion of Americans.
Through the observation of production methods, this paper summarizes the process of creating a VR experience that expands the established production pipeline to more fluidly produce immersive interactive content. Using Homebound: The Interactive Immigrant Experience, a collaborative VR project as a prototype for these methods, we were able to integrate and develop a media production pipeline that uses off the shelf hardware in unison with Unreal Engine 4 to produce a prototype VR experience that follows the narrative on a Latin American Immigrant.

This thesis explores the history of virtual reality and how the medium can help make psychological horror adventure games become a more immersive experience. Project Labyrinth takes inspiration from psychological horror adventure games, Greek mythology, and experimental music to immerse the player in a VR dream/nightmare.
Appealing to the senses of sight and sound, the moody visual effects and haunting music, along with the use of procedural generation, create an eerie atmosphere in which the player must explore and problem-solve in order to find their way through the labyrinthine game. The environment changes and evolves as the game is replayed, creating a dream or nightmare-like setting, stirring the sensation of déjà vu. The game was developed in VR using the Oculus Quest, a device that allows the player to freely move about without being tethered to a computer. The Quest’s ability to use hand, body, and room tracking significantly improves an already immersive experience.

Realism, defined by its most influential theorist André Bazin has been, and continues to be, a dominant and defining cinematic discourse. However, the lack of regard for animation is in need of retrospection. No genre of film adheres more to the original principles of cinema’s intention than animation, yet it is discredited because of its derivative form. The purpose of this paper is to propose a redefinition of the
impression of reality in cinema to create inclusion and space for animation and new, emerging technologies. This reality, redefined, is divided into two categories: the carbon and the constructed. Analyzed through three key identifiers of film—photography, motion, and physical mechanisms—animation is a modern example of early filmmakers’ intent, demonstrated by my short film, Libby.

This study investigates the use of film and video as political tools for women to promote collectivity, raise consciousness, and incite both social and political change. Through textual analysis of seven experimental films and videos, from the years 1965-1975, it is apparent that women used techniques of reclamation of three major aspects of identity formation—namely, body, pleasure, and physical space—to individually take steps toward liberation, while adding to the social phenomenon of second-wave feminism. Through this analysis the following question is addressed: how, and why, did the female media makers of the women’s liberation movement and sexual revolution implement both film and video to challenge social constructions and ideas regarding femininity, domesticity, and sexuality? The textual analysis performed in relation to this research question is rooted in cultural materialism and takes historical, economic, and cultural factors into account.

With the short film, Jugular Region, I intended to cross over to the narrative world of filmmaking by developing an idea in sync with experimental filmmaking, special effect makeup and the body-horror genre. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to expose how, by using an original body-horror genre screenplay as a platform to gather imagery, I was able to fully develop the verisimilitude of the film through SFX makeup and a surrealist editing style. This paper is also dedicated to the step-by-step thought process and my artistic practice that led to the creation of this unique filmic universe.

The blood brain barrier (BBB) is the brain’s defense mechanism in its maintenance of homeostasis. This network comprises an intricate, functional shield for the human brain, equipped with highly specialized cells like pericytes, astrocytic end-feet, endothelial and neuronal cells. This highly organized barrier maintains the brain’s structural integrity by revealing a discriminatory absorbency of molecules based on their molecular weight and ample fat solubility. In view of this impediment to the delivery of many prospective therapeutic agents from crossing the inviolate BBB, a myriad of innovative surgical and pharmacological interventions have been developed to bypass it, one of which is the BBBD protocol.