Shampoo

I enjoyed watching the film Shampoo. After watching the documentary about the 70's in class it made me really want to go out their and watch some of the films from the decade. Although Shampoo was set in the 60's it was actually made in 1975. When this occurs i think that films are typically made with a certain sense of retrospect. Often films looking back can appear idealised, but i do not think that this was typically the case with Shampoo.

I feel that the film managed to portray a real sense of what it was like in the 60's. Sexual liberation featured prominently within the movie and I can see how it may have appeared slightly shocking to a 70's audience. This film is defiantly aimed at the youth of America. This was the case with many films around this time. Old Hollywood was dying out, a new, fresh approach was taken, this involved fresh talent both on and of screen, resulting in a more youthful and modern audience.

I liked the fact that the film was given some social and political context by setting it during the political election in 68. I felt that it made the audience aware of the mood of America at the time, without focusing heavily on the politics and keeping the story focused on the characters and their intertwined relationships with one another.

Overall I did enjoy watching Shampoo, although it did come across as being slightly dated I feel that it defiantly faired better in time that some of the other movies from the 70's, such as Easy Rider for example which I watched last week. I think that the ending of Shampoo was interesting as it was not your typical Hollywood ending that an audience expects to see. It left me wanting more and it felt strange that none of the characters were left feeling happy at the end of the film.

Summary

Over the past few weeks we have been really busy. Thursday marked the deadline for the submission of our first year film scripts. I really enjoyed the process of writing a script and found that discussing my work with the rest of the class within Richards lessons proved to be really helpful. I think out of all our lessons I defiantly enjoy writing the most. I have started writing alot more outside of class, mostly short stories, but i am always thinking about ideas for short films. I am hoping that getting practice writing outside of class will have a positive effect on the quality of my work.

Another lesson that I am really enjoying is Adams content origination. At the moment we are working on two separate projects. The first is an individual project and the other is a task i am working on with Amelie. We were asked to come up with an idea for a mobile or web based program. I feel that we are working well as a team and our idea is progressing nicely. I think that the idea we have created would appeal to alot of people and I myself would want to watch the program if it was created.

After working on Candid Cabaret a couple of weeks ago I am looking forward to working on more projects. It was a really good experience filming the musical theatre performance and I am even though I haven't had the chance to work on any of the grad films I am looking forward to working on our end of year film in a couple of weeks time.

We have recently had our first couple of production lessons with Abigail. Before the classes I didn't think that I would really be interested in production. However I found out that the producer does many different roles, not just organising the finance. Taking this into account I think that there are some aspects of production that I might be interested in. When me, Chris and Kelsey were put in a group together I felt that we worked well as a team and got all of the tasks completed fairly quickly. I think these classes were exactly what we needed considering that we will be producing our own film in a couple of weeks. I also feel that the structure of these classes was very effective, I liked the fact that all our production lessons were grouped together in a period of three days. I think that it made the learning more intense and we were able to discover a lot about production in a short space of time.

Cathy Come Home

I found watching Cathy Come Home to be an extremely positive experience. I had heard a lot of good things about the television drama and had also watched small exerts before watching the program in class. I found the drama to be very powerful, it’s documentary feel made me even more invested in the characters and concerned about their situation.

I found the small scenes at the start of the program to be very useful as it helped to show the characters relationships with one another and it established their lives before having children. I do think however that it might have been beneficial if more time was spent on each of these scenes, possibly resulting in these scenes flowing together rather than being slightly fragmented and difficult to watch.

I felt that the acting within Cathy Come Home was excellent, the lead actors produced both an honest and realistic performance. Whist watching the program I felt as though I really wanted to help Cathy and her family as I really empathized with them. The scenes where Cathy and her children were torn apart were really heartbreaking. I think that the strong emotions within the program and the fact that people were able to relate to/ have their eyes open to the situation that Cathy and her family are facing are some of the key factors of the success of the program.

I find it amazing that television has the power to change or educate peoples view on a subject. Cathy Come Home in particular had a ground-breaking effect on society, it lead to the formation of the charity Shelter and even had the power to change the law. Given the power that television has I think it is important that people use this to their full advantage, much like Cathy Come Home does.

The election.

Well this years election has certainly been an interesting one. For most of us it has been the first opportunity that we have had to vote and that is a very exciting prospect. I have always been reasonably informed about politics and my mum and dad instilled in me from a very young age that it is so important that we take the opportunity given to us to vote.

When I heard that the political debates were going to be broadcast on television for the first time I thought that this was very interesting. I feel that Gordon Brown should be applauded for agreeing to do this. He is the first PM ever to agree and I think that it was a brave move. Despite not being the most charismatic or eloquent speaker I think he was confident in his policies and not afraid to shy away from discussing them.

I think that the debate its self was conducted in an okay fashion, I would have liked each candidate to be able to talk for longer than 60 seconds without being stopped but I suppose this is the case with any debate. In some respects it was a good idea to broadcast the debate because it really got people talking about the election. By placing it on three of the main channels it makes politics more accessible to people who don't normally read the news papers and may not have followed politics in the past. I think putting it on television also helps to appeal to the younger voters in the country.

However it worries me slightly that people watching the debate didn't actually pay very much attention to the content of what the party leaders were talking about, and instead seemed to be more impressed by the appearance of the politicians and the delivery of their speeches. It seems that putting the debate onto television may make the politicians seem more like celebrities, and so some members of the public may be more likely to vote for a candidate in the election based on their appearance.

For me watching the debate really highlighted how fickle politicians can be. Nick Clegg seemed to try and win votes based on the fact that he is not labor or tory, he is not an old party, and he is different than Brown and Cameron so people should vote for him. He seemed to be playing off the other candidates against each other, although his delivery of his speeches were very effective. Despite the fact that Clegg did not beat Tory or Labor I think the political debate served him well. It really gave him a chance to get his face and reputation out their and for three nights at least placed him on a level playing field with the two other parties.

I know some people feel that smaller parties should have been allowed to participate in the debate, however I feel that it may have over complicated the process and not given all the candidates a chance to really get across their policies. And talking realistically Lib Dem, Labor and Conservative were the only three parties who had a chance of getting into power. Maybe another debate should have been conducted featuring smaller parties and simply allowing them to get their policies across.

Overall I have found the election really interesting, I think in the future we may go in the direction of the USA. Getting more celebrities involved in the campaign and using the internet, youtube and music videos as a source for getting publiciy and getting even more young people involved and making it 'cool' to vote, just as america has done.

I have to say that i am disappointed by the results of the election. Although it was unlikely I had hoped that Labor would have won the election. Instead we are finding ourselves having to deal with the issues of a hung parliament. It will be interesting to see where we go from here and what the shape of the country will be like in a couple of years from now. Although I dont feel that Brown has done anything to justify having to resign I wonder if this would be best for the image of the party. Labor might become more successful if they had a new leader with a strong image, and someone who doesn't carry with the blame of the issues facing the UK over the past year or so.

Stagecoach

In general i am not particularly fond of westerns as a genre. I see them to be slightly outdated and aimed at a male audience rather than a female one. The iconography associated with westerns such as guns, cowboy hats and bows and arrows ect are practically all found within stagecoach. These objects associated with the genre are all made into replicas for children to play with. I frequently remember my brother playing with toy guns as a child, whilst I on the other hand had no interest in playing with that sort of toy. Guns and weapons are often seen as typically masculine objects and that might be why I felt that as a child, films involving cowboys and indians had no real place for me because they were 'boys films'. However I think that Stagecoach would be appealing to both a male and female audience, especially because of some of the subplots.

Like many members of the class I was not particularly excited about watching Stagecoach but I have to say that I was pleasantly surprised by the film. I think that my view of westerns was slightly distorted by ones that I watched as a child. I have no idea what the films names were but I have to say that they were never of a very high quality. They never captivated me and I found the formula to be very similar from one film to the next. In fact I only watched these films with my family when it was a Sunday afternoon and nothing else was on television. However I feel that Stagecoach stands out from the genre. It is made to a very high quality, the tension at some points within the film really keeps you hooked and the musical score not only fits in with the genre of the piece but enhances the audiences emotion and enjoyment when watching the film.

To me the movie feels as though it was made after 1939, and I am sure that the two oscar wins and multitude of nominations reflect both the audience and the critics appreciation for the film. The fact that this film has also been both remade and re-released reflects the high standard of the movie. Although I still have to say that westerns are not, and probably never will be my favourite genre of film, I did enjoy Stagecoach and will make an effort to be more open minded about different genres of film in the future.

One lesson that I have really enjoyed since starting back at the academy was our class with Andy. We were discussing the representation of women within film and television, both in the past and in modern day. It was interesting to learn about some of the strong female women from the 30's 40's and beyond. Most of the women that Andy talked about were fairly unknown to me and I think it was a benefit that I am now aware of some of the major female stars in history.

We then moved on to talk about female stars in 2010. I got the impression that Andy did not like the way women in 2010 represented themselves in comparison with 50 years ago. We looked at the actress Cameron Diaz in particular. Some may say that she relies on her beauty within her films rather than being a serious actress or role model. However I would say that she is a positive role model. Although she may not be the most intelligent person to act as a role model to young girls she must surely have her wits about her. She has successfully created a strong and reasonably long lasting career and although she may be seen to rely on her beauty I would say that she simply uses her good looks to her advantage. Hollywood is a fickle place and there is no reason why a woman who is good looking should not use this to her full potential. People say that she may not be a wonderful actress, but she defiantly performs well in what she does. The audience are not always looking to watch a film full of serious dramatic actors, sometimes they just want some light comedy relief.

I understand that these perfect images of women that are showered across the media on a daily basis may make women feel inadequate. However I am sure that most people understand that this is not what these women really look like, they have hair stylists, make-up artist and their photographs are re-touched to the extreme. When you see a celebrity on the front cover of a magazine you know that this is not who they really are, it is simply a re-presentation of them created by the producers of the magazine. Infact no source created by the media, be it film, television, magazine articles or even documentaries, can ever provide a totally accurate or realistic representation because every source has been mediated, and every source has been edited. When you see something in a film or on television you can never say it is a totally realistic representation because this representation has been controlled by the creator, they show you what they want the audience to see not what the person or social group is actually like. Even something non fiction such as a documentary does has been controlled and edited to get across the appropriate message. I feel that for the most part that the audience understand this. What they are watching is not reality, it is simply one persons representation of that reality.

During this lesson we also discussed negative and positive traits in female characters within films. The girls in the class were asked to discuss some of the worst traits that could be found within a female character in a film. Some of the traits that arose were:

.Overly emotional.

. Weak

. Needy

. Dependant on men.

. Bitchy.

. Fickle

. Slutty.

. Obsessed with appearances.

The boys then had to come up with positive traits that they would like to see within women in films. It seemed that it was much easier to name characters in movies that had the negative characteristics that we listed as apposed to the positive traits that the boys brought up such as :

. Good looking.

. Successful in their own right.

. Confident ect.

It was quite disappointing that there were so few characters that embodied the positive values that we desire in female characters within films. However I think that we may be more likely to find these positive traits among women on television. I am unsure if the more positive female roles appear on television because it is a smaller viewing platform with a lower budget so there is less risk involved. Or if it is because television programmes such as soap operas have higher viewing figures amongst women, because they are the target audience the producers may be more likely to feature more strong female roles to cater to the demands of the audience.

Overall I really enjoyed this lesson, I liked the fact that it featured a bigger element of discussion and it really got me thinking about the representation of women within the media. After watching films such as 'The best years of our lives' it makes me question why a film made in 1946 can produce female characters that represent women in a more positive light than a film made in 2010. The role of women in society has changed so dramatically than in the 1940's yet this is not reflected on the screen. 'The best years of our lives' seems so advanced for the time period. I particularly liked the character of Peggy, who appeared as smart, funny and a strong character, who despite her love for Fred, didn't beg or plead with him to love her. I found this film really captivating and refreshing and would be something I would like to watch again.