Abstract

Whatever happened to Blackwater RD.? is a feature length documentary thesis film created and cultivated by Michael E. Stephenson to fulfill the requirements of the Master of Fine Arts degree in Entrepreneurial Digital Cinema while attending the University of Central Florida. Whatever happened to Blackwater RD.? has met these criteria of the School of Visual Arts and Design, in the College of Arts and Humanities, by being a feature length digital film with a budget no larger than $50,000. This film is the efforts of the filmmaker to trace the failure of his original narrative thesis film Blackwater RD., attempting to discover where everything went wrong while trying to recover from such a crushing defeat. Assembled from behind the scene videos and interviews, this film represents a collected effort to discover a way to make digital cinema from multiple sources, ranging from digital cameras to smartphones, while still crafting a singular vision. Digital cinema allows for films to be made in a collage-like effort to explore how narrative can be manipulated and how a director may steer it, even in the documentary field. Through the exploration of his own failings the filmmaker has discovered perhaps the most important lesson of both academia and film: failure is always an option. To fail is a life worthy experience that one should learn from and utilize in accomplishing future tasks.

Notes

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Graduation Date

2018

Semester

Spring

Advisor

Stoeckl, Ula

Degree

Master of Fine Arts (M.F.A.)

College

College of Arts and Humanities

Department

Visual Arts and Design

Degree Program

Emerging Media, Entrepreneurial Digital Cinema Track

Format

application/pdf

Identifier

CFE0007104

URL

http://purl.fcla.edu/fcla/etd/CFE0007104

Language

English

Release Date

May 2018

Length of Campus-only Access

None

Access Status

Masters Thesis (Open Access)

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