Author: akeen (Page 1 of 2)

Final Project – Aidan Keen

May 6, 2025 / akeen / 0 Comments

Big budget Hollywood films could be shot anywhere in the world including the gateway to the west: St Louis, Missouri. Since the start of large scale film productions, St Louis has had involvement in multiple feature length films. The relevance of St Louis as a filming location has declined steeply over the decades. Through this project I want to detail the rise and fall of film productions in St Louis, Missouri and the potential of a return by Hollywood to the Show Me State.

St. Louis has been the setting for several notable films. The 1944 musical Meet Me in St. Louis, while filmed on backlots in Los Angeles, California, brought national attention to the city with its portrayal of the 1904 World’s Fair in St Louis. In 1981, Escape from New York used East St. Louis as a stand in for New York City in a dystopian future. More recently, Up in the Air (2009), starring George Clooney, was primarily filmed in St. Louis, featuring scenes at Lambert-St. Louis International Airport, Affton High School, and other local landmarks.

Despite its earlier popularity, St. Louis saw a decline in film productions due to several factors. The main contributor was the expiration of Missouri’s film tax credit program in 2013, which had previously incentivized productions to film in the state. This lapse made Missouri less competitive compared to other states like California, Illinois, or Atlanta, which offered more attractive tax incentives. This resulted in the local film infrastructure, including crew availability and equipment rental service to decline as the years went on. These factor’s all impacted the appeal of the city to big studio filmmakers.

In 2023 the Missouri government decided to put the Show MO Act in place, which reintroduced film tax incentives to attract productions to return to the State. The act offers a base 20% tax credit on qualifying expenses, with additional incentives for filming in rural or blighted areas, hiring Missouri residents, and positive depiction of the state. . The Show MO Act is in place through 2028 and aims to bring the local film industry back to its former glory by encouraging productions to utilize Missouri’s diverse locations and talent. The act’s implementation has already shown promise just a few years separated from its initial signing, with increased interest from filmmakers and potential economic benefits for communities like St. Louis.

St. Louis’s rich cinematic history, from classic films like Meet Me in St. Louis to newer pieces like Up in the Air, showcases its potential as a filming location for big budget Hollywood productions. While the city experienced a decline in film productions due to the expiration of tax incentives, the introduction of the Show MO Act presents an opportunity to rejuvenate the local film industry. By using its unique settings and the benefits offered by the new incentives, St. Louis may once again become a sought-after destination for filmmakers from around the world.

SOURCES:

“Filming Locations for Escape from New York (1981), in Missouri, Los Angeles and New York.” The Worldwide Guide to Movie Locations, movie-locations.com/movies/e/Escape-From-New-York.php. Accessed 6 May 2025.

Hawkins, Ty. St. Louis Rises as Major Filming Location with Motion Media …, 22 Apr. 2025, fox2now.com/news/missouri/st-louis-rises-as-major-filming-location-with-motion-media-tax-credit.

“Meet Me in St. Louis.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 3 May 2025, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meet_Me_in_St._Louis.

Narula, Vidhi. “Up in the Air: Where Was the 2009 Movie Filmed?” The Cinemaholic, 2 Nov. 2022, thecinemaholic.com/where-was-up-in-the-air-filmed/.

SB94 – Establishes Tax Credits for the Production of Certain Entertainment, senate.mo.gov/23info/BTS_Web/Bill.aspx?BillID=44658&SessionType=r&utm_s. Accessed 6 May 2025.

“Tax Credit Program Putting Missouri Back in the Spotlight for Filmmakers.” Missouri Chamber, mochamber.com/news-archive/tax-credit-program-putting-missouri-back-in-the-spotlight-for-filmmakers/. Accessed 6 May 2025.

“Up in the Air (2009 Film).” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 2 May 2025, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Up_in_the_Air_%282009_film%29?utm.

Define Digital Humanities – Aidan Keen

May 1, 2025 / akeen / 0 Comments

Digital Humanities is a study of the intersection between technology and humanity. Specifically, how they both evolve and can be used when interacting with one another. It focuses on finding new and innovate ways to present our culture and history using technology focusing on interactivity. By focusing on interactivity with technology to share these things, it becomes more engaging and easier to understand in some cases. Overall, digital humanities focuses on improvement in learning through the connection between humanity and technology.

Final Project Draft – Aidan Keen

April 16, 2025 / akeen / 0 Comments

Story Map:

Sources:

https://www.riverfronttimes.com/stlouis/30-movies-that-were-filmed-in-st-louis/Slideshow/41732313/41734341

https://www.firstalert4.com/2025/04/14/lights-camera-taxes-bill-aims-attract-bigger-film-productions-show-me-state

How the St. Louis Film Office plans to bring the entertainment industry to the region

https://slate.com/culture/2006/02/why-are-so-many-movies-shot-in-canada.html

https://www.everlyhomestaging.com/blogsandpress/why-atlanta-has-become-hollywoods-favorite-filming-destination

https://www.wrapbook.com/blog/film-tax-breaks#:~:text=1.%20California&text=That%20takes%20us%20down%20to,other%20than%20Hollywood’s%20home%3A%20California.&text=A%20wide%20variety%20of%20productions,projects%20not%20considered%20independent%20movies.

Outline:

OBSERVATION: I am a Mass Communications major focusing in video production, this means I care a lot about how the film industry works and understanding the way it operates. I already had some history of films from the 40s-60s being filmed in St Louis. I was also remembered that Missouri recently passed an incentive involving tax breaks for productions to come here, to help promote more exposure and revenue for the state.

PROBLEM: I want to gain more context as to what caused the decline in productions in St Louis and the rest of Missouri, even when certain stories being told in film take place in the state. I also want to clarify through my research what is being done to promote productions to return to St Louis.

FRAME: I want to conduct research involving the specific timeline of when productions shifted from St Louis and Missouri to other locations. I will take myself through the history of film specifically taking place in the St Louis area and surrounding locations.

How Did They Make That – Aidan Keen

April 15, 2025 / akeen / 0 Comments

StitchCast Studio

I chose for this assignment to cover the St Louis Story Stitchers Podcast. The website claims the Story Stitchers collective was founded by eight artists in Old North St Louis. The goal of the podcast is to gain a greater understanding of the needs and desires of the youth as well as giving them an amplified voice to to create and inspire change, as well as reduce crime in youth in the St Louis area.

The project relies entirely on the use of technology to both record and share the podcast. The website states they use state-of-the-art equipment to help record the podcast. The images on the website show them using, laptops, microphones, xlr cables, and live mixers to help bring their production together. They show on the website that their show is available to be streamed from nearly anywhere, but specifically showing episodes on YouTube, Vimeo, and Podbean. The website doesn’t clarify when the podcast was founded and first started, but they continue to upload currently and plan on doing so for a long time to continue discussions and give the youth they talk to a voice to share their stories.

The subject matter discussed and the foundation of this podcast are its clear strength, these are stories that need to be told and have a serious purpose. Everyone thinks they can have a podcast, but end up having nothing to talk about or important to say regardless of if they have a true platform or not. However with the Story Stitchers Podcast they are using the platform to better the area and community, specifically focusing on giving the black youth from the St Louis area a way to amplify their voices and be heard. They also have a wide variety of platforms they have released the episodes on, keeping the show easy to find. I feel there isn’t a major weakness for the project, other than some people just don’t listen to podcasts, so you may not have as wide spread of an audience as you may want. However, that may be contradicted by the use of YouTube in addition to just audio-based podcast apps like PodBean.

This project as a whole has a goal of giving the listeners a new experience to hear about. Giving you an entirely different perspective on the St Louis area that you may not have thought about before. The support for communicating with youth as well as giving them a voice is extremely important.

Story Map – Aidan Keen

April 3, 2025 / akeen / 0 Comments

Voyant – Aidan Keen

March 27, 2025 / akeen / 0 Comments

For this assignment I decided to cover the difference between the encyclopedia of St Louis in 1862 and 1879. The 1879 document is significantly shorter than the 1862, so I would assume the majority of key words will come from the longer 1862 document. I was surprised that the 1879 document which I looked over, seemed to cover mostly the numbers and economy of St Louis rather than any other aspects of the area. I would assume the longer document may dive deeper.

After inserting the longer document into Voyant, it shows that my hypothesis about what the contents may include was correct. While the shorter 1879 document focused a lot on the numbers of agriculture specifically. The longer 1862 document focuses on the entire infrastructure of St Louis, several areas such as schools ,libraries, and hospitals as shown in this visual. This was surprising to me as I figured that these infrastructures would have been more developed and further explored in the newest document, rather than early.

Problem Statement – Aidan Keen

March 26, 2025 / akeen / 0 Comments

For my final project I will be the covering the near 100 year history of Hollywood coming to St Louis to shoot films and television shows and the decline and hopeful rise of these productions coming to Missouri.

PROPOSED TECHNOLOGY: I have two specific pieces of technology in mind. I will be creating a visual timeline to better show the amount of time passed and each specific moment that I feel plays a part in answering my question. I will also use a guide map of North America specifically to show the vast locations that are popular for film productions, specifically in what they cost for a production to shoot there, as that plays a major part in why St Louis has not been involved heavily in any piece of Hollywood.

Meta Data Digitalization – Aidan Keen

March 24, 2025 / akeen / 0 Comments

CANON R8 MIRRORLESS CAMERA

For my Meta Data lab I wanted to use my CanonR8 Mirrorless Camera, I have used a stock photo of the item so you would be able to see it in its most basic form. The camera was created and mass produced by Canon, a large Japanese based company that focuses on producing photo/video based devices along with other technological advancements. I bought this camera in December of 2024, however I bought it used and the camera was originally created a purchased in 2023. It is a digital still photography and video based camera. This camera shows the evolution of digital photography which has become even more digital. A mirrorless camera is the next step from a DSLR, literally removing the mirror from your camera, instead using a sensor to detect what is in front of the camera. Allowing it to be lighter and easier to carry around for long periods of time, it also allows for better video capabilities.

I major in Mass Communications with a focus in video production, and I plan on finding a career in the entertainment industry as a cinematographer working on film or television. I have recently started using this camera on a 30-minute short film I am shooting with a group of other Mass Comm students as a sort of passion project. I love film specifically, and being able to start learning more about the industry and get more used to the environment of it through working this camera has been a satisfying and exciting experience for me personally.

I’ve also included some footage I have recently shot with this camera (unedited), as part of the short film I discussed earlier, this is just a small snippet that we filmed recently.

GPT-4 Forecasting Challenge – Aidan Keen

March 24, 2025 / akeen / 0 Comments

Here is the visualization of my results from the forecasting challenge:

The top chart is based on my average Log-Loss, which according to the website is about a B average. The bottom shows how calibrated I am, specifically that I was a little overconfident in my answers.

I found this challenge very interesting, I am not a big user of Chat GPT, specifically when it comes to school work or asking it academic based questions, I will usually use it for cooking recipes most often.

I didn’t have much strategy other than staying kinda close to middle of the road either way, I was either around 35% or 75% on every question, other than some obvious ones like asking what the capital of France is. I was much more confident in the system to be able to do a lot of what the challenge asked it to do. However, I guess that is because I have never really had issues with it just based on getting recipes from it. Asking for ChatGPT to create large complex html files is much more complicated of course.

Data Set Review – Aidan Keen

March 24, 2025 / akeen / 0 Comments

Data Set Profile:

For my Data Set Review I decided to cover the average weekly hours of all employees in the STL, Metro area. Trading Economics is the only group credited with providing the data set. The primary source for this data is the United States Federal Reserve, it has been updated as recently as March of 2025. On Trading Economic’s about us page they mention wanting to provide consistent accurate economic data to people all around the world, this specific data set is just one of thousands they have created. It has been used for statistical analysis but specifically to find patterns or correlations to hours work per week based on timeline. Finally, the data is formatted in two different forms, for an individual year the average hours per week is shown as a bar graph, with a different data amount for each month. Then for a year the data is presented in a line graph.

Data Set Evaluation:

The Data set has been structured with a simple time frame to hours worked ratio. This allows for simple analyzation of the data presented, you can gather patterns easier and see a visual understanding of the increase/decrease of hours based on a per month time frame or per year. The creators do not specify their choices in gathering or cleaning up the data, rather presenting examples of why they may have created it, by showing the drastic difference between any time frame. Trading Economics advertises themselves as a website to find accurate data about all areas of the economy in any area in the world. They mention their constant fact checking of material, and use of only first hand sources, nothing third party. They also mention the site has been viewed and trusted by over 2 Billion people across the world. This makes me feel safe in trusting their sources and data that they present. I think it would be interesting to use this data to visualize the differences between work hours based on time of year or differences year to year. There is an interesting dip in hours in October of 2022 specifically in this data that interests me as to why that could be. There is also a clear dip in the entirety of the 2nd-4th quarters of 2020 for obvious reasons. But seeing it presented in this visual sense makes it much easier to see the sheer difference.