Final Presentation

So the year is finished which is really freaking weird and with that comes final projects.

Here is the final film 'My Non-Binary Burden' and here is a link to the presentation we did for our assessment.

First Day Shooting

So today we started off our day in the sound studio where we began recording some of the narrator voices that will go over the top of our visuals, whilst it took longer than expected I'm pretty pleased with the results we got seeing as the four people we had recording this morning aren't actors. I think we conveyed the emotion enough for the audience to understand the severity of the situation, this paired with our visuals I hope will hopefully make our film successful.

After getting our paperwork signed off, we ran some chores around Farnham including hitting up the local grocers for some fruit for our studio shoot. Whilst buying singular items of fruit and making a big deal about their appearance got us some funny looks in the shop it proved to be really successful (after some help from Anne). When writing up our call sheets however I think we were a bit optimistic to get in and out with no problems on our first real studio shoot which is why I'm really happy we also have the studio tomorrow as well. I think now we are back into the habit of filming, which we haven't done in a while, things will go a lot quicker from here.

Famous last words, I know.

Tomorrow we are shooting our 'core' shots which basically translates to our naturalistic shots, these are the shots that we hope the audience will recognise. It's these shots that I personally, as a person who is still quite new to experimental films, value and appreciate in the mist of abstract work. I believe that to tell the most honest story we can we have to tap into 2 powers our audience have, the power of observation and the power of empathy, to tell any story these are the two most important tools you can use but even more so when exposing a story that most people turn their noses up at. We hope that using settings and situations people will recognise (observation) paired with the overlaid narration and abstract scenes will make people start to actually listen and connect with the stories we are trying to tell (empathy). We are also back in the studio finishing up some scenes from today that due to connection problems we couldn't film and we'll also have a chance to have a go at our Time Art Projects.

The call sheet for tomorrow can be found here [x] and I think that is everything!

Scripting...

Today I sat down with the responses we received in regards to our short film and read through all of the transcripts, making note of any particular topics or phrases that I think should be read out by our narrators during the film. Our film is a delicate balance between visuals and narrative, whilst there is a lot of visuals it's also very narrative driven.

A few weeks ago we all sat down and made paragraphs out of the responses we has received via spreadsheet, this helped me a great deal because every person already has their own mini story, for me it was just a job of picking out the parts we needed whilst also staying true to their own narrative voice. At the moment it still reads rather note like but I'm going to keep tweaking it over the weekend with the help of Klara and Emily through Google Docs (the thing that's keeping me sane right now).

You can read the script as it stands here [x]. You'll notice that everyone's stories whilst in small segments are also clumped together, at the moment the storyboard isn't entirely in order, we know what we want the scenes to look like but not where they should appear in the film. So I decided that it would be easier on us and our actors (as we are in the recording studio on Monday) if we keep everything together.

I guess that's all to say for now, hopefully the script sounds natural and if not the power of sound editing is on our side.

Group Meeting Storyboard Ideas

Narrative structure:

Out of focus
Multiple characters (different voices)
Style of flashback - truck scene

Vocal chanting (Twisted Soundtack)

Highlighting key words with plain background / Immersion - Derek Jarman

Tarnation 

Scene Ideas:

Washing hands scene - pronouns written on wrist

Social anxiety - groups of people, protagonist blocking view/silhouettes of people

Binding chest - angry, aggression 

Puberty on screen
Possessed / Mirror - trigger

Education / Sex ED

Computer - learning about trans communities

Birth name - roll call

Toilets - anxiety

Clothes shopping - hiding? 

Pronoun importance / washing hands scene 

Friend/family acceptance - family meal, friends instantly changing pronoun use?

From this list of ideas we'll start bringing together the treatment, so we can get an overview of the film and start editing from there. 

Question Time

So I've sent these questions to my 'mailing' list and I'm going to collect the results via Google Doc into a spreadsheet - I'm going to keep the form open for as long as I can to get as many responses as possible. But now it's just to sit back and wait.

Questions
- Where are you in regards to transition? Pre/Mid/Post etc.

- What age did you start your transition?

- Given that even today trans people are not represented in media, how did you find out that trans people, existed almost?

- Have you always known or did you have a moment of realisation?

- What was it like pondering and wondering about what was going on?

- Once you started your transition did you ever question what you were doing? If you did was that genuine confusion or mirroring what other people were telling you ‘Oh it’s just a phase’.

-Have you come out to your family, if yes how did they react? 

- Have you ever had any problems at school or work? If so was the institution supportive in having them resolved?

-Have you had any negative comments or responses? (online, or irl)

-Do people respect your pronouns?

-Was puberty difficult for you?

-Have you ever felt isolated or alone in your situation?

- The film is going to show everyday things that effect Trans people, simple things that Cis-Gendered people take for granted such as using the toilet in public places. Is there anything along those lines you would be comfortable sharing with us?

-Is there anything else you'd like to share that you feel would be useful for this project?

-Would you like to be mentioned in the credits or stay anonymous? If so, how  would you like to be credited?

Link to Google Form:

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1QIRlz-DFrRWxn7SSfofhgfTft54B3FuQw-T9vivLHEs/viewform?usp=send_form

http://goo.gl/forms/5jxR96Rb2r 

An AMAZING response.

So following on my post yesterday in which I took to Tumblr to ask for real life experiences with growing up Trans and Trans youth. A big Trans friendly blog found my post and advertised it to their followers, now I have an ask box full of people who are happy to answer any questions we may have about the whole endeavour. Some have sent in anonymous stories, giving me a brief insight to their lives others have agreed to be a contact for us if we ever have any questions during production.

Overall everyone I've spoken too seems really excited that a film of this kind if being made and I was really overwhelmed with the response I got literally within minutes of the post going live - I was actually writing my last blog post when it was happening, my phone started going a bit crazy and when I checked I had 20 messages from people wanting to be involved.

I've taken note of the contact information from everyone who wants to be involved, though I haven't been able to respond to everyone yet, and I think this film is going to be a lot of fun to make especially with the backing of the community it's trying to bring to light.

Gender Dysphoria

NHS Website

So I've been doing some research on Gender Identity and found the medical definition of being transgender: Gender Dysphoria. NHS Definition: Gender Dysphoria is a condition where a person experiences discomfort or distress because this is a mismatch between their biological sex and gender identity.

I also found an article about Gender Dysphoria and Teenagers, one of the things that struck me was the suggested articles at the side of the page. Whilst all helpful and I'm sure appreciated by people who need them, the fact that transphobic bullying exists the extent that the NHS website has to advise young people on how to deal with it says a lot about todays society.

If you Google Transgender Teens you get 1,040,000 results in 0.22 seconds. On the first page you get a mixture of parents accounts of their child coming out as transgender and suicide rates in correlation to parental acceptance.

I did come across an interesting link that simply linked me to all the articles on trans people from the Huffington Post  when I was going down the list the first three articles caught my eye, 2 were about Leelah Alcorn and the publics reaction to her death, and the other was about parental acceptance. The article titled ' 24 Powerfull Reactions to Leelah Alcorn's Death' was definitely interesting as it was split between people reacting solely from her death and others starting another hashtag #RealLifeTransAdult in which they gave hope to other young trans kids who could be going through Leelah's tag and having similar experiences to the ones she had, the ones in which she didn't have any hope to continue with her life because it wasn't going to get better.

Transphobia is an epidemic-- it's literally killing people. Get educated. Educate others. Spread awareness.
— Leo Sheng (@iLeoSheng) December 30, 2014

It's Twitter trends like these that are going to make a difference in todays society and we rely more and more on social media to tell us news and more importantly, the actual news. Not something that has been deemed important by a middle class business man sat in a huge office at the BBC, but something that the general public has deemed important, such as the death of a young girl that could have easily been prevented if people were a little more open minded.

The next article was aptly titled 'Fixing Society in the Wake of Leelah Alcorns death with take Empathy and Understanding from loved ones' followed by an article based on how parental acceptance is important to Trans Youth, and that it's not 'just a phase'. In the article they feedback on an experiment in which they asked Trans and Cis children questions. They found that Trans-Boys mirrored Cis-Boys answer and Trans-Girls mirrored Cis-Girls answers. 

I also watched a short documentary following a young girl named Josie, she transitioned when she was 6 and is searching for a US doctor who will allow her to have hormone treatment. This is a young girl who has the unwavering support of her family as they scour the country trying to find a doctor to treat her before her male puberty kicks in. A quote that sticks with me and backs up the importance of Leelahs story is:

Interviewer: A Decision is being made as to wether of not Josie will have her own biological children in the future.
Doctor: That's why the role (Hormone) blockers is so important, they get an opportunity for 2/3 years to really work with a mental health therapist on what it's going to mean to be transgender.
Interviewer: To me it seems ridiculous to have a kid at age 12/13/14 deciding wether they want to have biological children when they're 20/30/40.
Doctor: Well they make the decision to kill themselves at 12/13, that's a pretty powerful decision.



So that's all the research I have for now, however whilst I was writing this I saw interesting post on Tumblr that really hit home for me the power of social media in these situations and how if it wan't for social media and it's coverage of many big news stories, we would not have known the truth.

For instance if it wasn't for Leelahs suicide note on Tumblr, we would have believed her parents speech about their 'son' who was 16 (not 17 like Leelah actually was) and how 'he' died by taking a walk early morning and was in a accident with a truck.

The post is here for anyone who wants to read the full extent of what social media has done in the past 6 months.

Ask the Internet!

'Short Film about Transgendered Youth

I’m currently the producer on a short film based on Leelah Alcorn’s story, however we are not tying it exclusively to her so I’m now researching Transgendered youth and their stories. Things like how they came to the realisation they were born in the wrong body, how people reacted, are people/friends/family supportive? Did they have any help in discovering who they are? - that type of thing.

If anyone has any stories they are willing to share (completely anonymous) that would be a great help as we are trying to make this film as realistic and as factually right as we can, just drop me an ask.

Thank you!'

So I put out an announcement on Tumblr/Twitter asking for real life stories from Transgendered Youth online and at the moment I haven’t received any direct stories, I have however been given some links to different sources such as http://transstudent.tumblr.com/ which have proved their worth having looked through them. I do have people I’m going to ask directly if they will be okay with me using their story in the film but I do want to give them the chance to see the announcement of their own accord.

I also did some Googling and found a very detailed article from The New Yorker following young Skylar as he goes through the process of applying to University, in which he writes a personal essay about his ‘biggest challenge in life ‘as part of the application process. The reason I liked this article is because it showed the other side of  being a transgendered youth, this is a young man who came from a supportive home.

That’s all I have for now, but I’ll update after I find out some more information.

Reflection Video Proposal

Synopsis
A 5 minute long film showing how the media conditions young women into believing 'The Male Gaze' is the norm until they take a step back from mainstream media and are shown a different side to the story. By doing this through a free-for-all environment such as the internet young women are given a platform they can use to research and speak to likeminded people, empowering them more so now than ever before.

The idea
A mixture of two of my past ideas in which there are two parts to the film, one showing the 'brainwashing' of young girl into thinking that the things she sees in the media are true representations of women and how they should be treat. My idea for showing this conditioning is to have a young woman stood with a blank expression on her face, a projection over (possibly reflected in glasses?) showing the media 'in all it's glory' this could be page three, it could be most things said by Fox news, it could be movies/tv shows anything that don't represent women the way we should be represented. These would then be followed with clips of the young girl living in a society which she follows these 'rules' and how it effects her.

The next section is her leaving the projection and going online, in which she sits down in front of a computer and is taken (zoomed into her head, this is her thoughts not someone else's projected onto her) on a journey of sorts, learning through social media and online research that what she has been taught isn't actually true, women don't deserve to treated or seen the way the media has told her. There will be a flash of quotes and images, videos and social network 'debates' and when the 'in her head' experience is over she will turn around to a TV which will be showing new reports from social media activism such as #YesAllWomen.

Fitting this to the brief I have to say that the 'Memory' aspect of the situation is whilst memory's can't be changed, you can change the future. So whilst you can't change what you have been shown by the media growing up but you can be a part of a movement that is hoping to change the future - and it's as easy as picking up your phone or computer and going online.

The excerpt of narration I've wrote;

'The most powerful tool we have is each other and the power to collaborate and learn from one another. The internet is simply a gateway to other people, use it often and wisely and amazing things can happen - such as the world starts to actually listen to what you have to say.'

Why
The reason I became ok with the term Feminist was because I was online (far too much, but oh well) a lot of my teenage years, I was on websites like Tumblr and Twitter where people would go to rant about mainstream media. In particular Tumblr where you can get fully backed up claims against the media (as seen here with a post on my dashboard right now) and where they're also not afraid of what peoples reactions are going to be. Tumblr is a place where I get links to blogs reassuring people that Feminism needs to exist and more importantly pointing out blatant stereotyping and sexism (shown here by a ET interview with Taylor Swift at the Grammys'15) that I would once have overlooked.   This is how the next generation are going to grow up, surrounded by a prosumer media that doesn't have any form of gatekeeping. In the case of me and many of my friends this has opened our eyes to a different way of thinking, so we could make our own educated opinions on matter such as mainstream media representation, creating the 'young feminist movement'. What I want this film to say is that whilst mainstream media will happily ignore representation problems, in this day and age it is so easy to educate yourself on these matters - it's as simple googling it on your phone.

Inspiration



I really liked 'Clouds' and whilst I know recreating anything like this is rather out of reach for the time frame I have I do want to make it clear that young people do know the difference between online and offline. So the projection sequence and zoom sequence will be styled very differently, as will the 'real life' action at the end of the film.



Now I hate to use a past students video but I couldn't think of another video that would be a visual aid to the 'projection' sequence.

Male Gaze

I was doodling whilst watching Beauty and The Beast - this happened.

Whilst looking at Male Gaze (For my video project) I was reminded of an argument I saw on Tumblr a while back - I went and found it again and was actually quite intrigued by it.  Click here to see it!

When reading it I couldn't help but agree with the idea it was presenting, I've since looked at this projection of male fulfilment in other Disney films (simply because I find animation to be a clearer indiction of this since the animators have to create something from scratch, this is exactly how they imagined these characters) I found an interesting paper from Dundee University in which they discuss that in it's entirety, found here.

This got me thinking about how the internet has influence my way of thinking on other things, I personally didn't think much of feminism until I started reading comments on my favourite book series/tv shows/films ect and I read all those critiques online. Sites like Tumblr have been a factor in how I form my opinions of the subject in the current social climate because posts are made instantly. Now I'm not under the naive impression that everything on the internet is the truth nor should it be taken seriously, but seeing these comments have encouraged me and many others to undertake more research into what's actually going on this world. I remember seeing a post called '2014 the year Women stopped taking shit from the media' but at the moment I can't find it - I did however come across this video which gives the viewer some food for thought so to speak.

So I'm still working on my idea but I have one which is more than I had last week, I actually have a few now it's just the case of figuring out which one to pitch on Tuesday. 

Mind Maps!

I did some brainstorming on what I could possibly do for my film project and got some interesting Ideas, the one that caught my attention was the idea of 'Walk a Mile in her shoes' simply beats sue I could see a campaign emerging from it. I think it's a testament to how much time I spend online that I judge ideas on how likely they are to go viral on the Internet, I can see this one going quite well I marketed it right and had a good film to aid it. 

 I am still looking around for importation however so this is by no means my final idea. 

Aha!

I'm a bit behind of the video project in the sense that I don't really have a particular direction in which I specifically want to head in so to get a bit of inspiration I decided to look around the internet to see what types of experimental film is out there and how it came about. I found a website called nofilmschool and two articles one 'Experimental Film For Dummies' (Pretty fitting in this case) and 'A (Very Brief) History of Experimental Cinema', I have to say it was the latter than intrigued me most. In all honesty Experimental Film has never been my forte simply because I've never understood it I'm quite a systematic thinker so experimental films go against what my mind wants to do.

The first thing I looked at was actually a credit sequence ( Gasper Noe, 2009, 'Enter the Void' rather than an entire film, what I noticed straight away was that it was quite hard to follow, the eye is constantly moving trying to register what is on screen and read the text but the font and size is constantly changing making you strain a bit to understand the words. But even with all that I became more interested in the credits of film than I have done in a long time.

Thorsten Fleisch's Energie, this is a big one for me because it's watching and reading about this one that I (rather stupidly and a bit late to game) realised what experimental film is, an experiment. This is a man who was just fascinated by electricity so he created a way for more people to understand his fascination, he did this by conducting an experiment and simply filming it. It is raw and intriguing, the context in which is was created is fascinating in itself and whilst it's hard to watch at times that's countered by the soothing music.



I also looked at 'The Kuleshov Effect - Lev Kuleshov' and 'Hunger - Steve McQueen'. The first of which was really interesting to watch especially since this was made entirely in the edit, and then to understand the audiences reaction to it. Hunger on the other hand was fascinating - whilst I only watched the trailer and read a bit about it seemed like the perfect mash up of narrative cinema and experimental cinema, it was dramatic and immersive.

Finally I watched 'Emak Bakia - Man Ray (1926)' what I found interesting and yet annoying about this film is that it seems to have a narrative that I just can't figure out, even though since it is 'Pure Cinema' it shouldn't, in theory, have one. It has a lot of sporadic camera movements which keeps the eye moving keeping the audience entertained, it almost creates an optical illusion at some points making the mind go in to overdrive almost trying to make sense of what's going on. But the thing that stood out for me in this film is actually the soundtrack, it has a string orchestra play throughout something that I believe effects the mind more than a full orchestra due to it's shrill, piercing sound - it's also something most people associate with danger (think Jaws).



So that's my research, whist I still don't have a definite idea of what my proposal is going to be I do have more of an idea of experimental film consists of and I think that gives me a lot more freedom when it comes to brainstorming in the next week.

Talk About Feminism....

From an earlier post regarding my portrait project, regarding 'GamerGate'

'Now you see I call myself a Feminist, for a long time I didn't because the word was tabbo and if someone called themselves one they got verbally attacked. It wasn't till very recently that I would call myself it and now everything I do is surrounding it in some way or someone will make a comment and I will want to comment back because of how sexist it actually is. This seemed to consume my time and mind for the past few months and everything seemed fine, a few arguments here and there but other than that it's been fine, yet I read an article a few days ago that really scared me.

The basis of the article was really simple, a feminist author called Anita Sarkeesian was asked to lead a lecture at Utah State University and when someone found out he* threatened not only her but everyone who was going to attend the lecture. This person stated that they would commit 'the deadliest school shooting in American history' before commenting 'I have at my disposal a semi-automatic rifle, multiple pistols and collection of pipe bombs'. Read the full article here.

All this because a woman was finally standing up for playable female characters in Games! (Also know as #GamerGate apparently).

*I can't find the article with the exact name but I remember them being male, this isn't me making assumptions. Just clearing that up.'