Current Research

Kinolab is currently partnering with Mediate (University of Rochester) to curate, analyze, and interpret an at-scale collection of moving image examples of the close-up in narrative film and television. The project, “A Digital History of the Close-Up in Narrative Film and Television” is using digitally assisted methodologies to uncover the hidden history of one of film and television language’s most powerful forms of expression through exploratory data analysis. Our research team has so far developed an expanded, public-facing dataset of roughly 700 film and television clips to supplement Kinolab’s existing collection of close-up examples, with a focus on works by and featuring American BIPOC and LGBTQ+ directors, showrunners, and performers. We are also enriching existing and newly collected clips with metadata developed to make these aspects of identity and its representation on screen discoverable to researchers here on Kinolab.org. As we explore the use of visualization tools to analyze the close-up and its strategies of representation in relation to categories like genre and historical period, as well as across film and television media, the project is also helping us gain an increased understanding of how DH methodologies can enhance our knowledge of film language.

If you are a scholar or a student interested in collaborating with Kinolab to research a question related to film language, please email project director Allison Cooper (acooper@bowdoin.edu).

Creating a Digital History of the Close-Up in American Film and Television from Allison Cooper on Vimeo.