Author Archive for ‘Jason Mittell’
I continue to find it mind-boggling that people seem to think that a good use of AI tools like ChatGPT is to gather accurate information. Any cursory reading on the topic should explain that ChatGPT is designed to predict language in response to a prompt, not actually present information based on “knowledge” or “intelligence.” I […]
Filed under: Academia, digital humanities, Film, Teaching, Technology, Television | 2 Comments
Tags: AI, bullshit, ChatGPT
Like many academics, I’ve been seeing a lot of concerns around how AI tools like ChatGPT might impact the work academics do as teachers and scholars. I don’t want to dive too much into those muddy waters, but I saw one post on Mastodon that piqued my interest and led me to do some experimenting. […]
Filed under: Academia, digital humanities, Film, Teaching, Technology | 1 Comment
Tags: AI, ChatGPT, race
I’ve produced and posted the final video (save the introduction) for my videographic book, The Chemistry of Character in Breaking Bad. As discussed below, this chapter has one of the most extensive written commentaries, which I’ve reproduced to present and contextualize the video. (All the videos are now available in tentative sequence on my Vimeo […]
Filed under: Publishing, Television, TV Shows, Videographic Criticism | Leave a Comment
Tags: breaking bad, character, videographicBB
Some Videographic Updates
I just returned from a truly exceptional conference: The Theory and Practice of the Video Essay at University of Massachusetts – Amherst. Not only was there the simple joy of attending my first in-person conference in three years, but it was best type of conference: a single-stream of presentations that help to connect and build […]
Filed under: Academia, Conferences, Publishing, Television, Videographic Criticism | Leave a Comment
Tags: breaking bad, conferences, videographicBB
Today I had the pleasure of presenting a keynote address at the Television Aesthetics conference at University of Kent in the UK, entitled “Television Aesthetics, Videographic Criticism, and the Case of Breaking Bad.” Well, not exactly “at” the conference – my Tuesday flight out of Vermont was so delayed that it prohibited me from getting […]
Filed under: Academia, Conferences, Television, Videographic Criticism | Leave a Comment
Tags: breaking bad, character, videographic criticism, videographicBB
Media Mirrors: A New Website
I am excited to launch a new project called Media Mirrors: Critical Analysis of Film & TV and Film & TV! This website collects undergraduate student writing that has emerged from my course Key Concepts in Film & Media Criticism. The site emerged from a decision many years ago to encourage my students to write […]
Filed under: Academia, Film, Media Studies, Middlebury, New Media, Teaching, Television | Leave a Comment
Tags: 30 rock, adaptation, all that jazz, boogie nights, digital humanities, digital publishing, one cut of the dead, pedagogy
The Sounds of Silent Mike
I’m excited to share the next video in my Breaking Bad project, “The Sounds of Silent Mike,” focused on fan-favorite character Mike Ehrmantraut. This was a nice palate cleanser for me, after spending around a month laboring on my last video, “Breaking Genre“—this video only took two days of editing to produce, as its scope, […]
Filed under: Publishing, Television, TV Shows, Videographic Criticism | Leave a Comment
Tags: breaking bad, character, sound, videographic criticism, videographicBB
Earlier today, I debuted my newest video essay at the Society for Cinema & Media Studies conference – alas held online rather than in Chicago as planned. It was part of a great panel on “Genre in the Age of Transmedia,” where the presentations included both typical papers and videographic pieces. I screened this new […]
Filed under: Conferences, Genre, Television, TV Shows, Videographic Criticism | 1 Comment
Tags: breaking bad, scms, videographicBB
Skyler’s Nightmare
Last week I shared the epic five-part miniseries “Skyler’s Story,” retelling Breaking Bad from Skyler White’s perspective via a hybrid of women’s melodrama and experimental dual projection film. It took me weeks of work to assemble the 160-minutes from hours of footage, and thus I certainly felt a sense of accomplishment in completing the series, […]
Filed under: Fandom, Television, Videographic Criticism | 1 Comment
Tags: breaking bad, character, remix video, videographicBB
From the earliest conception of my audiovisual book, “The Chemistry of Character in Breaking Bad,” I imagined that I would do a video on Skyler White, with the goal of situating her story at the narrative center of the series. In the first project proposal back in 2018, I wrote this chapter summary: “Skyler’s Story: […]
Filed under: Complex TV, TV Shows, Videographic Criticism | 2 Comments
Tags: breaking bad, character, videographic criticism, videographicBB
More Adventures in Ungrading
As my blog has become more intermittent over the past few years, one topic seems to still get lots of traffic: rethinking grading. I first started experimenting with grading (and writing about it) around five years ago, and I’m proud to say that I have not “graded” an assignment since! But the ways that I’ve […]
Filed under: Academia, Middlebury, Teaching | 4 Comments
Tags: specifications grading, ungrading
In the spirit of the season, I am pleased to announce a gift to anyone who wants it: a new open access, multimedia site, The Videographic Essay: Practice and Pedagogy, available at videographicessay.org. This site collects both previously-published and new versions of writings by Christian Keathley, Catherine Grant, and me, as well as numerous examples […]
Filed under: Academia, digital humanities, Media Studies, Open Access, Publishing, Teaching, Videographic Criticism | 1 Comment
I took advantage of one of the (many) perks of my job and took over our high-quality screening room this morning to watch El Camino, the Breaking Bad movie that dropped today – this was probably the closest that Vermont will get to a theatrical release! I have some non-spoilery thoughts, followed by a few […]
Filed under: Television | Leave a Comment
Tags: breaking bad
This weekend, a teaser dropped for what had been only rumored-about for the past year: the Breaking Bad movie! Named El Camino, presumably for the car that Jesse drives off to escape his Nazi prison in the series finale, the film presumably focuses on Jesse’s life after Breaking Bad. While we’ll have to wait until […]
Filed under: digital humanities, Fandom, Television, Videographic Criticism | 3 Comments
Tags: breaking bad, character, vidding, videographicBB
Just TV 