Ms Ashby Coursework Advice
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Linked Production Proposal – Silent Movie
Based on the recent London riots. I would like to combine my like for historical silent movies incorporating Charlie Chaplin and Spike Lee’s work focusing on Social turmoil. I’m targeting young adults! I haven’t made up my mind yet but it’s either it’s going to be a some sort of documentry style, interviewing people who were affected by the london riots or maybe even interviewing the family of Mark Dougan which was what sparked the riot in the first place.
My other idea was to just have young people from all backgrounds with different social statuses holding up posters of some sort of messages for instance:
“I’M NOT PERFECT! ARE YOU?”
‘IT’S EASY TO STAND WITH THE CROWD. IT TAKES COURAGE TO STAND ALONE’
‘EVERY SCAR TELLS A STORY’
Feminism and Post-feminism
LACAN (theorist) – MIRROR THEORY
=> media films act as a mirror, reflecting back at us, comparing back to our lives creating emotions or identification with characters or the life style.
=> In a way it creates a narcissism in us
Feminists argue that females are almost dictated what they should be like.
FETISHISM
=> gives an individual a unique status instead of being conditioned by the media to love certain things and to hate certain things
=> Things that have been labelled a taboo can be turned into a fetish because it’s not part of the norm.
Diet Coke Advert:
⇨ It’s the same principles that apply to the male gaze. He still takes off his top and to show off his chest. With women, they would be showing off their legs and belly. He is down below and the women are up above being voyers at the male body.
Bell Hooks: Interconnectivity of race, class and gender
“Ain’t I a woman? Black, woman and femininity” written in 1981 focused on the perpetuation of systems of oppression and domination in the media paying particular attention to the devaluation of black womanhood. The idea of ‘lack’ or ‘otherness’ refers to the way that women and ethnic minorities are usually repressed as ‘other’. Their primary purpose is simply to be other than the norm (usually a white male hero). They are therefore known more by the context of lack than by a realised or complex identity. This theory can be linked to ideas of the monstrous feminine found in feminist analysis of literature and art.
Research Materials
Archbishop’s plea for childhood: youngsters are growing up too fast, warns Williams in sermon
By Colin Fernandez
Last updated at 11:24 PM on 25th December 2009
Children are being forced to grow up too soon, the Archbishop of Canterbury warned in his Christmas message yesterday. Dr Rowan Williams also spoke out against the exploitation of young people ‘abducted, brutalised, turned into killers, used as sex slaves’. He said that in our rush to make children become independent, we are robbing them of the ability to learn and grow.
Warning: Dr Rowan Williams spoke about against the exploitation of children. Preaching at Canterbury Cathedral, he said: ‘There is a basic impatience about learning – we want to get to the point where we can say, OK that’s enough, I know what I need to know – and about receiving – we don’t want to be indebted to others, we want to stand on our own two feet.’
Part of the problem was that society was confused about the meaning of ‘ dependency’, he added. ‘We speak of “dependent” characters with pity and concern. We think of “dependency” on drugs and alcohol; we worry about the “dependent” mindset that can be created by handouts to the destitute. In other words, we think of dependency as something passive and less than free.’ But by trying to avoid dependency, he said, ‘we get trapped in the fantasy that we don’t need to receive and learn’. Dr Williams, 59, also said he was worried that children were being ‘bombarded with highly sexualised’ advertising.
‘In the case of children, we shall do our level best to turn you into active little consumers and performers as soon as we can,’ he said. ‘We shall do all we can to make childhood a brief and rather regrettable stage on the way to the real thing – which is “independence”, turning you into a useful cog in the social machine that won’t need too much maintenance.’ He added that children were being ‘ over tested’ in schools, before going on to urge adults to ‘guarantee that there is nourishment and stability’ for the people in most need. He highlighted the plight of hundreds of thousands of children exploited in ‘the meaningless and savage civil wars in places like Congo and Sri Lanka – children who are abducted, brutalised, turned into killers, used as sex slaves’. He said: ‘To hear of these experiences is almost unbearable, yet the scandal continues. ‘Their suffering is an insult to the purpose of God and a contemptuous refusal of the gift of God by those who keep them in their different kinds of slavery.’
The Archbishop added that Christians must learn to become ‘dependent on God’. ‘That word tends to have a chilly feel for us, especially us who are proudly independent moderns,’ he said. Dr Williams has two children himself with wife Jane, a theology lecturer he married in 1981. Son Pip is aged 13 and daughter Rhiannon, 21, attended the pound; 11,000-a-year Latymer school. Yesterday the head of the Roman Catholic Church in England and Wales also spoke about how young people are increasingly being drawn into gang membership to bolster their weakened sense of identity. In a sermon at Westminster Cathedral, the Archbishop of Westminster Vincent Nichols said that a recent visit to Feltham Young Offenders Institution in West London reminded him of the plight of ‘so many’ children.
He also warned that happiness was not to be found in wealth, status or celebrity. He said: ‘We know that our happiness lies much closer to home – in our steady relationships of friendship and love – in family and community.’
Production Proposal
Brief Two (Documentary)
Diary of a BIG kid!
Krystle & Annabel
Is about an 8 year old girl’s willingness to grow up, the topic being; innocence. How she views the world differently in comparison to. Some of the things which we see as normal and everyday life completely mean something else to her. You could almost say it’s over-exaggerated. For example, a stabbing happening would be just another tragedy whereas it would be such a horrifying scary world to her. We are mainly targeting youths and families.
Filming Set…
>Oxford Street representing her adulthood
>Park representing her childhood
>They both contrast each other worlds she lives in. We were also going to film in her bedroom, sort of like a night diary of her telling us how her day was and what her plans are for the coming day. We were thinking to film part of her in school, showing her innocent side but her also trying hard to act much older than her friends. Between all this, there will be some video input of her dancing and playing with her dolls and imaginary friends. To show that, she is still a child, we were going to make her witness some sort of a brawl between teenagers as she’s coming home from an outing with her older siblings. As the park represents the safety zone, she will feel terrified as now she thinks no-where is safe!!!
Storyline brief
=> We start off with her playing in the park with other children
=> Then we move to her bedroom, with her sitting down playing with her sister’s make-up
=> The main event being the brawl happening outside the park and spilling onto the road frightening her.
=> Then some cut backs to her when she was little and cotton wrapped by her mum. Voice over of her mum being interviewed on how she tries to protect her from the dangers outside etc…
Audio
Emilia- big big world playing in the background throughout the whole trailer
Pussycat dolls- when i grow up
Lily allen- the fear
Magazine or newspaper
SUGAR targeting the youth market
METRO targeting the older audiences and because it’s free
Mise-en-sene
Daytime- she’s dressed more like an adult
Night-time- she’s dressed more like a child in her PJ’s
The Only Way Is Essex Analysis
The first episode introduces us to an extreme re-presentation of Essex lifestyle. We get a brief audio description of what to expect adding to the effect that it is a reality show. There is an establishing shot of Essex with the flashy cars and grand buildings. In the background is a non-diegetic music ‘I think you are really thick’ emphasizes how beauty is more important than knowledge. The first shot the audience get is of a ‘lad’ priming himself in the mirror. Then we get another shot of him getting inside of his flashy car symbolising the rich and famous. It is a medium long shot making sure that the audience are able to view the big house in the background. The lighting is very bright, giving off a feeling of a fabulous life with the shiny filter. The camera is level with the characters reinforcing the audience that they are still normal people. The shiny filter effect adds to the glamorous appearance and heightens the rich and famous lifestyle. The camera click entwine with the cuts of the frame also emphasizing the glamorous lifestyle. The music in the background is continuous into the next frames so it is easy for audience to follow. The ladies are in a colourful setting with a sort of pink filter to go with them being glamour models and the guys are is more of a neutral setting to highlight their cars and expensive clothing.
The programme has a documentary feel to it as the camera had a shaky effect with captions of the locations. ITV2 is known to be an entertaining channel that produces programs like Katie and Peter and JedWard reality show. It is commercially funded by adverts intentionally targeting entertainment audiences. It is broadcasted at 10pm which means it is appealing to young adults. It is made by a small production company through the camera shots and angle. There not very experimental with camera effects mostly using close-ups and establishing shots. This emphasizes the life they are living and how fake they are.
The audience that is targeted is more middleclass to lower-class. There is a token gay guy appealing to a mass audience. The audience get gratification because that is what the audience would have stereotyped Essex life to be like. There is some audience segmentation as it will not appeal to older adults. The token gay guy also targets more of a female’s audience than male audiences. Gratification is also given at the beginning of the show alerting the audience that it is a re-presentation of Essex life which has been overly enhanced.
The girls are stereotypically blonde and ditsy adding to the gratification. The mere fact that all the men are primed down to the eyebrows highlights the importance of appearance to them. It does not preset men in the conventional way as they would in comparison to a war film. There presented more feminine attracting more female audiences. The background music by the Streets ‘I think you are really thick’ is emphasising of their lifestyle and how partying and relationships are more important. The way they talk, act and present themselves have all been over exaggerated making it more fun for audiences to watch instead of what they expect from reality. Women are re-presented as people who are only concerned about their looks and nothing else. Not really concerned about the things going on around them, it could be said that they are oblivious to the world outside of the one in which they are living. They are also presented sexually going what audiences are expecting. In comparison, men are shown to be the more dominant, them driving the cars however they are also shown to have some feminine traits, caring about how they look on the same level as women do. The men are shown to be unfaithful and women the pushovers as they still chase the men even when they know that they are being cheated on. Overall, it’s all about the money and that is what both genders have in common.
