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   Here I will introduce the BBC tv series (turned dvd movie) of Pride and Prejudice. I will write briefly about when and where it was filmed, but I'll get into the production details on a separate page. I think I'll use a lot of stuff from our last blog entry. And of course, I'll introduce Manovich to the best of my ability and highlight how his research and concepts apply to my topic. I think I will use material from Manovich's own introduction to do this. In his Theory of the Present, he talks about how history repeats and how people struggle to recognize the significance of change while it's happening (7). I'd like to analyze this through BBC's P and P by considering the period in which the novel originally emerged, and reflecting it onto its adaptation in 1995-- a little compare/contrast that ties together the relevance of New Media and some of the key concepts Manovich talks about.

History of the Novel
   I want to analyze further the period in which P and P was written, and what cultural influences effected Jane Austen as she wrote it. Some history of Austen, audience reception at the time and over time, and its place in popular culture today. I'll include Manovich's parallels between cinema history and the history of new media, as well as "the relations between the language of multimedia and nineteenth century pro-cinematic cultural forms" (9).

Adaptations
   Here I want to focus mostly on BBC's adaptation. I'd like to write in more detail about this particular production- when it was filmed, when the idea came into being, the characters who played the main roles, and any interesting background knowledge. I'll also include the many many other adaptations that have been made, offering a special appearance to the Kiera Knightly version (keep your enemies close). Just so you know- I have nothing against Kiera Knightly- I like her a lot as an actress (Love Actually, anyone?). I just see that particular adaptation as the McDonalds version of what P and P is all about. Give the deluded masses exactly what they want, people, right?! Make it cheap, tweak it here and there so the simple-minded, soap-opera loving McDonalds eaters will inhale it and feel artificially satisfied... okay, this page might be a little bit of an opinion piece. Relevant Manovich stuff: "...individual layers can retain their separate identities rather than being merged into a single space; different worlds can clash semantically rather than form a single universe" (xix).

Fans and New Media
   There isn't a super ton of memes or fan videos- but they do exist. This page will showcase the most interesting and hilarious images and videos I can find. I've got stuff from previous posts that will do for some of this content. Such as, how new media has played a major role in P and P's many adaptations being possible. These unique perspectives and representations offer further conceptualizations/interpretations. "The printed word that initially dominated the language of cultural interfaces is becoming less important, while the part played by cinematic elements is becoming progressively stronger. This is consistent with a general trend in modern society toward presenting more and more information in the form of time-based audiovisual moving image sequences, rather than as text" (78). <--- That's a big one to me. When P and P was originally published, that's all an audience had was the text, their ability to read, and their imagination. Now, things are so much easier (or are they?). I'd also like to include Manovich's ideas on The Icons of Memesis (starting on 195). I admit I had to look that word up- Plato and Aristotle defined it as the representation and imitation of nature and human behavior. Manovich talks about a text's or media's realism- and how in certain forms, they may or may not seem more "real". Consider the black and white text of the original novel compared to the 5 hour BBC version which follows the book extremely closely, but nevertheless is more "real" in the fact that we are shown what the characters and settings look like, and we can hear the voices and sound effects instead of having to imagine them.

I realize I only have 4 pages- but I feel like I've got a lot to work with. I'm going to think about it and perhaps divide one of them into two. Maybe this last page can be divided into Fan/Meme stuff and Manovich Applications and personal analysis. Sound boring? You bet.... but what do you think?