Originally trained in cinematography and sound, Kia Afra started in post-production at the turn of the millennium during the transition to digital media, HDTV, and 5.1 surround sound. He learned the craft of sound editing and worked in the Vancouver film and TV industry for several years before pursuing a career as a film scholar at the UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television and at Brown University, where he was awarded a Ph.D. with Phi Beta Kappa honors.
Throughout his career, he has gained an appreciation for film studies and film production as converging disciplines. Likewise, his approach to research and teaching places emphasis on the role of filmmakers and producers and asks questions such as how and why films are made, what institutional and industrial forces are acting on the film industry, and what is the precise production history behind the development of film style throughout the course of cinema? In this way, he attempts to understand traditional concepts in film studies and film theory through the perspectives of film production and reception.
“Moving to ‘Filmland’: Key Phases in the Western Migration of the American Film Industry (1908–1935).” In U.S. West Between the World Wars. Ed. Renee M. Laegreid. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2027. [Forthcoming]
“PG-13, Ratings Creep, and the Legacy of Screen Violence: The MPAA Responds to the FTC Reports on ‘Marketing Violent Entertainment to Children’ (2000–2009)," Cinema Journal 55:3 (2016): 40–64.
“‘Vertical Montage’ and Synaesthesia: Movement, Inner Synchronicity, and Music-Image Correlation in Alexander Nevsky (1938)," Music, Sound, and the Moving Image 9:1 (2015): 33–61.
“Becky Sharp, Technicolor, and the Historiography of Film Style,” Quarterly Review of Film and Video 32:2 (2014): 99–123.
“‘Seventeen Happy Days’ in Hollywood: Selig Polyscope’s Promotional Campaign for the Movie Special of July 1915,” Film History 22:2 (2010): 199–218.