Sunday 31 January 2016

CONSTRUCTION: LAURA MULVEY - VISUAL PLEASURE AND NARRATIVE CINEMA

For looking into further research of how the sociopath displays his women and what he makes them do, to further my knowledge of the objectification of women in film, I read an article by Daniel Chandler, where he discusses about Laura Mulvey's theory 'The Male Gaze' which derives from her article titled Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema. In the article she declares that 'Men look and Women are looked at', which refrence that women are seen as objects for male pleasure and attention. She further states how ‘pleasure in looking has been split between active/male and passive/female’.

In the article, she mainly argues about how in various feature films, women are posed sexually and made to act provocatively. For example, in films like Die Another Day and Bad Teacher, both Halle Berry and Cameron Diaz are shown wearing revealing clothing that portrays women as passive objects of desire for men in both the story and in the audience. This example can be related to a quote by Schroeder, where he says that 'Film has been called an instrument of the male gaze, producing representations of women, the good life, and sexual fantasy from a male point of view'

However, in recent years both Steve Neale and Richard Dyer have argued this point and said that there has been a growing display of male bodies in mainstream film, which could be considered as being sexually objectified, such as going shirtless. For example, the film Magic Mike depicts the life of a male stripper.

In the past 5 years, both male and female bodies are usually objectified is some ways on either film or television. Nowadays, films which depict male bodies in a sexual way are considered fine by mainstream media. This isn't the same case, when it comes to women, since if women are depicted in sexual ways, there is usually a controversey on how the women are perceived in a revealing way.

For example, films like Magic Mike and Magic Mike XXL, depict men in a sexual way by them stripping down and posing for women, which makes the male body seem quite like an object for the women's fantasy. In 2011, the NBC network was under criticism for their new show, The Playboy Club, which revolves around the lives of Playboy bunnies in the 1960s, which can easily be mirrored to the Magic Mike franchise on how both of the forms of media are about a group of a gender strips in sexually ways for the other. However, The Playboy Club was a subject of vast controversy and feminists such as Gloria Steinem boycotted the show saying that it "normalized the concepts of male dominance and prostitution", which clearly wasn't the case for Magic Mike. This shows how nowadays there's a hypocrisy when it comes to the sexual depiction of gender.

Wednesday 20 January 2016

PLANNING: CALL SHEET #8

8) THE DISCOVERY AND THE CONFRONTATION

Shoot Date: 3rd February 2016

Location: Capability Brown Room, Claremont Fan Court School


Crew:
Bea Chavdarova: 7896 ******
Chloe McDowell: 7472 ******
Alex Davies: 7710 ******
James Eager: 7531 ******

Equiptment:
Canon 750D Camera
Tripod

Props:
Photos of Jasmine in a folder
iPhone

Wardrobe:
Sociopath's Attire: 
White shirt
Grey blazer
Grey trousers
Black shoes
Black tie

Jasmine's Attire: 
Cool Top
Jeans
Sneakers




Sunday 17 January 2016

PLANNING: CALL SHEET #7

7) THE ESHER WALK

Shoot Date: 21st January 2016

Location: In front of Waitrose Esher, Esher High Street (A307)



Crew: 
Bea Chavdarova: 7896 ******
Chloe McDowell: 7472 ******
Alex Davies: 7710 ******

Equipment: 
Canon 750D Camera
Tripod

Props: 
N/A

Wardrobe: 
Jasmine's Attire:
Burgundy Turtleneck
Black Pencil Skirt
Black Shoes
Olive Green Jacket

Ana's Attire:
Grey Pullover
Black Trenchcoat
Black Pencil Skirt
Black Shoes

Friday 15 January 2016

CONSTRUCTION: FILM POSTER

When constructing the film poster, Beatrice and I did various sketches of what we thought the film poster should consist of. I already had a clear idea that it would have some influence from the Single White Female poster, since I felt that the poster was intriguing and was similar to our target audience. In addition to this, we already had a checklist of information that was needed on the poster, like the title and billing block which are essential to all posters.

After various rough sketches we finished with two final sketches which we thought were respectablely complex, yet not too crowded.  My sketch is the one to the left, which solely consists of Sam with the title, tagline and billing block. Bea's sketch is the one to the right, which consists of an extreme close up of Sam's face, including square-shaped images, which would have been photos of Jasmine and Ana. The title and tagline were in the top left-hand corner. We decided to choose my sketch idea over hers. Despite, previously saying that we would consider putting as well the victim's face along with the sociopath's face. Beatrice and I decided that we wanted the poster to be focused on Sam only.

After we made the final decision on the sketch we would base the poster on, we had to do a quick photoshoot of James Eager, who portrays the role of Sam in the film. We did this in the art studio with a white backdrop. The reason, we did this so was that when it came to editing the poster and manipulating the image it would be easy to remove the white background. I asked James if he could wear a black jumper so it blends in with the background which on the final poster will be black. Chloe was the person who took the pictures of James with the Canon 750D. When it came to the photoshoot, James and Chloe were efficient with their time by taking various shots and various angles, so that we could see what would look best on the poster.

Bea and I were the editors of the poster and we did all of our work of the poster using photoshop, since we felt that this was a convenient and practical tool, since we could do a variety of effects on Photoshop, such as blurring James' spots from his face, changing the background from white to black and adding texts onto the image.

Bea and I debated on which tagline we should use for the poster. We had a total of 4 options which were:
- A photographer's desire to keep everything in focus
- A desire to keep everything in focus
- A photographer's obsession, A girl's fear all begins when he's in focus
- Keep still to be in focus

Bea thought that the tagline shouldn't be that long and decided that we should use the second tagline listed above. However, I preferred the first tagline, since it incorporates the story into the tagline about how he is a photographer and keeps everything in focus, referring to a camera being in focus.

We ended up finishing the poster in the lesson with adding all the necessities of a poster that I listed in the research which was: title, tagline, close up of a face, billing block, cast members names and institutional information. This was definitely a team effort, by Bea and I being the editors, Chloe being the photographer and James being the subject of the image, we worked together efficiently.

This is our final product for the film poster:


CONSTRUCTION: TITLE SHOT

Chloe and Bea were the editors for the title shot and constructed through photoshop. Since we wanted  incorporate our story into the title shot we decided for it not to be blank, like the title shot of Black Swan, where the only thing visible is the title among a black background.

Bea thought of the idea that in the middle of the 'o' in Focus, there could be a camera lens, which refers to how the sociopath in the film is a photographer. Another aspect, which Bea thought up of which would link the title shot to the story was that around the camera, there could be a REC sign, which indicates a recording camera, which again refers to the photographer aspect of the film.

We feel that this title shot looks professional and will be an essential part of engaging the audience in our film. I feel that we subtly incorporated the story of the film into the title shot successfully . To improve on the title shot, we would mist likely have got rid of the black background and used a video behind it so that the title shot looks more like a video than a image made on photoshop.


This is our final product for the title shot:

Monday 11 January 2016

PLANNING: CALL SHEET #6

6) WASHING THE BLOOD OFF HIS HANDS 

Shoot Date: 13th January 2016

Location: Art Studio, Claremont Fan Court School
















Crew:
Bea Chavdarova: 7896 ******
Chloe McDowell: 7472 ******
Alex Davies: 7710 ******
James Eager: 7531 ******

Equipment:
Canon 750D Camera

Props:
Fake Blood (Bea craftily made this by mixing red paint and murky water)

Wardrobe:
N/A