Dr Alaina Schempp

Department of Film and Creative Writing
Lecturer in Film

Contact details

Telephone: +44 (0)121 415 8102

Address: University of Birmingham
Edgbaston
Birmingham
B15 2TT
UK

My academic film research focuses on cognition, emotions, and timing in moving images. I specialise in the micro-analysis of comic and suspense timing in contemporary cinema, especially genres such as comedy, action, horror, and the suspense-thriller. My other research interests include analytic-cognitive media studies (e.g. video games, comics, and online video) as well as analytic-cognitive approaches to representation.

I am also a screenwriter. My screenplays have won several awards including the Avery Hopwood Award Winner for Best Screenplay, the Leonard and Eileen Newman Prize in Dramatic Writing, and the Peter and Barbara Benedek Award for Best Screenplay.

Academia.edu: https://bham.academia.edu/AlainaSchempp

Qualifications

PhD in Film, University of Kent, Canterbury (UK)
MA in Media Studies, University of Amsterdam (NL)
BA in Film & Video Studies and English Language & Literature, University of Michigan (USA)

Biography

I received my BA in 2006 from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, where I double-majored in English Language & Literature and Film & Video Studies with a minor in Screenwriting. I practiced screenwriting and worked as a freelance video editor in Los Angeles before completing a research MA in Media Studies at the University of Amsterdam in 2012. I received a PhD in Film Studies from the University of Kent, Canterbury in 2019 with a dissertation entitled A Poetics of Time and Timing in the Moving Image, which I am currently turning into a book.

Teaching

Introduction to Film Studies: Styles and Forms
Creative Practice: Film
Discovering Creative Practice
Film Culture & Media Skills
Filmmaking
Studying Film A
Studying Film B
Film Theory and Criticism
Screenwriting: Film
Film Production Project
Professional Skills
Guided Project in Editing and Production (MA)
AV Dissertation (MA)

Postgraduate supervision

If I have the capacity to take on new PhD candidates, I will consider PhD proposals, particularly those that take an analytic-cognitive approach to a variety of audiovisual media including films, television, comics, screenplays, video games, and online and short form video.

Find out more - our PhD Film Studies page has information about doctoral research at the University of Birmingham.

Research

My current research interests include the perception of temporality and timing in the moving image with special attention to comic and suspense timing in contemporary genre films. I have presented my research at international conferences including the Society for Cognitive Studies of the Moving Image Conference, the International Conference for Philosophy and Film, the Conference for Cognitive Futures in the Humanities, and the British Psychological Society Conference on Temporal Experience.