Production Process - Flow Chart

Flow Chart

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The Male Gaze

Marjorie Ferguson

Chocolate Box: Half or full-smile, lips together or slightly parted, teeth barely visible, full or three-quarter face to camera. Projected mood: blandly pleasing, warm bath warmth, where uniformity of features in their smooth perfection is devoid of uniqueness or of individuality.

Invitational: Emphasis on the eyes, mouth shut or with only a hint of a smile, head to one side or looking back to camera. Projected mood: suggestive of mischief or mystery, the hint of contact potential rather than sexual promise, the cover equivalent of advertising’s soft sell.

Super Smiler: full face, wide open toothy smile, head thrust forward or chin thrown back, hair often wind-blown. Projected mood: aggressive, ‘look-at-me’ demanding, the hard sell, ‘big come-on’ approach.

Romantic/Sexual: A fourth and more general classification devised to include male and female ‘two-somes’; or the dreamy, heavy-lidded, unsmiling big-heads, or the overtly sensual or sexual. Projected moods: possible ‘available’ and definitely ‘available’.

Trevor Millum

Seductive: To the cool/level look in many respects - the eyes are less wide, perhaps shaded, the expression is less reserved but still self-sufficient and confident; milder versions may include a slight smile.

Carefree: Nymphlike, active, healthy, gay, vibrant, outdoor girl; long unrestrained outward-flowing hair, more outward-going than the above, often smiling or grinning.

Practical: Concentrating, engaged on the business in hand, mouth closed, eyes object-directed, sometimes a slight frown; hair often short or tied back.

Comic: Deliberately ridiculous, exaggerated, acting the fool, pulling faces for the benefit of a real or imaginary audience, sometimes close to a sort of archness.

Catalogue: A neutral look as of a dummy, artificial, waxlike; features may be in any position, but most likely to be with eyes open wide and a smile, but the look remains vacant and empty; personality has been removed. (Millum 1975, 97-8)

Freddie Ljungberg & Eva Mendes Calvin Klein advert

Media Adverts

Male Gaze

Representations

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The Gaze
     - The Gaze is a technical term in film, which comes from the 1970's, and it refers to the ways in which viewers look at images of people in any visual medium.
     - The 'Male Gaze' can be described as feminist reference to the voyeuristic way in which men look at women.

Forms of Gaze:
- Spectators (us)
- Intra-diegetic (extra-diegetic) (Within)
- Direct Address (looking out)
- Look of the camera (in place of the man)
- Bystander
- Audience within a text

The Fourth Wall:
- This is the direction in which the actor looks when trying to engaging with the audience. When the actor looks out to the audience, it breaks the fourth wall.

Direction of Gaze:
- Aimed towards others
- Aimed towards objects
- Aimed towards the reader or camera
- Aimed to the 'middle distance'

The Male Gaze - Laura Mulvey (Professor of Film & Media Studies)
- A quote from Laura Mulvey's book in 1975, "Visual pleasure & narrative cinema"
- Active male / passive female
- 'Woman as image' / Man as 'bearer of the look'
- Voyeuristic (takes pleasure from seeing someone (body))
- Fetishistic

Criticisms Laura's theory:
- Failure to account for a female spectator
- Looks at teh spectator as being a heterosexual male
- Since 1980's - increasing sexualisation of the male body

Shameless (Episode 1) - Regional Identity & Sexuality

The opening title scenes of Shameless (episode one) shows us a wide variety of characters which show us the typical behaviour of residents of a council estate, and it especially represents stereotypical behaviour of Northerners. The opening title sequence also produces some intertexuality (cross references between two separate TV shows) Debbie holding a knife & rolling pin which is a scene from Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels by Guy Ritchie in 1998. The narrative voice during the opening scene is  the front man of the show, Frank Gallagher (David Threlfall) who is a typical unemployed alcoholic (associated with the North). Ending the opening sequence is a scene where all of the characters (residents of the council estate) are all gathered around a burning car, in which they are discarding their beer cans onto. The gathering is interrupted when the police turn up. This opening sequence, which features many youngsters, and people focusing on partying, sums up typical Northern way of life, which is confirmed when Frank Gallagher says, “There are three vital things for a community, space – where everyone can go metal, fantastic neighbours, but all of them, to a man knows the vital necessity to this life is, that they know how to throw a party!”

Following the title sequence, we encounter Lip going round to his friends house, Karen (who Lip is trying to impress) to help here with her homework. During his time round her house, he experiences a awkward sexual encounter, which is comical for the audience. He then returns home, where we see his bedroom which he shares with his brother Ian. The mise-en-scene of the room is small, box, neutral colours on the wall which is plastered with various posters, one of which will become apparent later on. Upon his return Lip finds a stash of homosexual pornography in which he suspects is his brother’s Ian, this is confirmed by the poster of Kylie Monogue above Ian’s bed (very stereotypical thing for Gay’s to like Kylie Monogue’s music, which adds humour for the audience). Later on Lip talks to his brother boasting about his sexual encounter, after which he confronts Ian about the homosexual pornography, Ian loses it and begins to sob uncontrollably, which is very stereotypical thing for a homosexual to do – feminine.

The next scene shows Steve and Fiona, who meet at a club (stereotypical Northern thing to do, partying and getting drunk). In which Fiona’s handbag is stolen and Steve acts the hero and goes to fight the man who stole it. Outside the club, Steve is embraced by Fiona, and when they try to regain entry into the club, the bouncer refuses them to do so, so Steve lamps the bouncer, and they run off back to Fiona’s flat. Upon their return to Fiona’s flat they are met by other members and friends of her family. So Steve and Fiona tell them of the events which occurred at the club, and are amazed to hear about the punching of the bouncer (as they all knew him, and was surprised Steve had the urge to punch him). When everyone has left, Steve and Fiona come together, and the sound of romantic music plays (birds tweeting with a Spanish guitar to boot, which seems very Disney like) They experience their own ‘spur of the moment’ sexual encounter, the graphic shots are amplified with the loud groans of Fiona shouting “ni, ni” which is another example of intertextuality , this time from a sketch from Monty Python, “Knights who say Ni”. This encounter is soon interrupted when Frank Gallagher returns home escorted by the Police (who know Fiona’s name) for being excessively drunk.

How do Institutions Thrive As A Film Business?

Media Essay

Budget Cuts

A few lessons ago we created a plot to our film called 'The Showdown'. We were then put into a scenario  where one of our financial backers had pulled out - the production would still be able to go ahead, because we had more than one financial backer. We were told that due to this scenario , that our budget would be cut by a third, resulting in our budget being cut to £49 million (from £70 million). Our main cut from our production would be some of our big named actors, Hulk Hogan, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Morgan Freeman, this resulted in us saving £15 million, this meant that we still had to cut another £6 million, so we decided that we would pay some of our larger costs e.g. the director on a commission basis - the more the film made, the more he made.

Warp Films - Fact Sheet

Warp Films Fact Sheet

Filming & Editing - Opening The Door

Is Max a Stereotypical Teenager?

(Click on picture for montage scene)

Max Fischer - Rushmore

"Banksy does The Simpsons"

A leading UK graffiti artist known as 'Banksy' has produced a controversial title video for hit children’s TV carton "The Simpsons", which will be rolled out across our UK screens from the 21st October in the episode 'MoneyBART', this was after the animation department threatened to ‘walk out’ over broadcast standards.

The extended title sequence contains current issues such as the exploitation of child labour in foreign countries, The BBC claims "The extended sequence was apparently inspired by reports the show outsources the bulk of their animation to a company in South Korea."

TV Drama-Generic Conventions

You will find that TV dramas all have the following ingredients:

Characters – even particular kinds of characters: eg, at its most simple, ‘good’ and ‘bad’ characters.

Stories – they all tell stories, whether those stories involve adventure, crime or romance and they often, but not always, end happily.

The stories are told against familiar backdrops: – eg, homes, police stations and offices (for crime dramas), hospitals (for medical dramas) – most of which are created in studios. However, most dramas also use outside locations to create particular effects.

Camerawork – particular kinds of shots are used: eg, sequences involving establishing shots followed by mid-shots of characters, shot/reverse shots to show character interaction and, in particular,close-ups to show the characters’ emotions.

Stories use dialogue to tell the stories. Occasionally, monologues are built in (as voiceovers, a character telling a story).

Music is used to punctuate the action, create effects (suspense, tension) and underline emotional moments.

Particular subgenres tend to have items which make them immediately identifiable – police cars, blue lights, operating theatres and scalpels, triage/reception areas in hospitals. Icons of the genre, they symbolise the (sub)genre.

Film Financing

How do film companies get their Funding?

• The producer must secure funding before filming
• It is hard to predict how much (if any) profit a film will make

Key Terms:

• Above the line costs: What they plan on spending the majority of the budget on. For example, Directors, Location, Aquiring the rights (to a novel), Cinematographer, Cast etc.
• Below the line costs: These are the 'lesser' costs to the budget. For example, Accomodation, the remainder of the production team, extras, props etc.

Government Grants:

• These are given to encourage new talent
• A film production company can benefit a country by;
• Increasing employment
• Develpoment of National Cultuer
• Advertising a certain location around the world

UK Film Council:

• Offers subsidies to film makers in the UK meeting a ceratin criteria

Tax Schemes:

• The producers tax credit offers a direct cash injection

Tax Shelters:

• Those who invest in a film production pay less tax

Pre - Sales:

• This is the most common method of film financing
• This method involves selling the right to distribute a film before it has even been made

Production Processes of a Film

What are the production processes for a film?

(Notes taken from a production documentary)

Producer

The producer is more important than the director. The producer sees the film from the very beginning right through to the end.

The Producer; Finds the idea, finds the director, finds the right script, and secures the funding.

The producer’s job is to protect the director, and let them do what they want, input their ideas into the film.

One person said the producer has four different jobs; The develop it, Raise the money, make it, and then take it to market.

Script

When the right script is written, the producer then takes the script to the director. The script is seen as a blueprint for the director to apply their ideas to.

The script gets re-written maybe 12-15 times to be polished; they then take it to a experienced script developer who then also re-writes it.

The producer & director then need to decide on the cast (which is a key process, as it may contain their selling point to investors), editing/production team

Investors

The producer then has to attract investors, maybe from the BBC, Channel 4, Film Fund, Regional Film Fund all of which will usually invest from £3 million-£10 million.

They may also find deals from other countries, these are called co-production deals.

The key thing is to get more investors, because the more investors you have, the less control each one has – leaving the producer & director with more control. Another factor is that if one investor pulls out, the film doesn’t collapse.

British films tend to focus more on getting the funding rather than how they are to get the profits, whereas the Americans do this the other way around.

Budget

Finance plan of how you are going to pay for everything, for example, cameras, cast, set etc.

Some film productions breakdown the script into sections (analysis) to show the different costs.

What are the above the line/below the line costs?

Planning

The producer & director now need to draw up a plan.

What has to be filmed – where/when/visual effects, night scenes, hardest scenes, and then put these into a schedule in which they must stick to.

Cinematographer

This is “your right hand” on set, as these are the people who are going to get the right angles with the shots, it is vital these have a input into the process.

Audience

Target audience – Who?

Where is it going to be shown?

Audience relations – are there any topics for them to relate to?

Is the target audience enough to breakeven?

Is it a Marquee audience, Old Young, Male Female.

Marketing

This is the largest part of the production – this can normally cost up to double the budget. This is to advertise the film – posters & adverts etc.

Is the genre marketable?

Does it contain actors & stars which will help the film ‘sell’?

DVD’s / Sky movies etc.

When is it to be released, what time of year? Around Christmas, Halloween etc.

Binary Opposites

Binary opposites

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Creating A Film

In class we were given the task of targeting our audience (we choice middle aged men) and then imagine we were creating our own film, and the better the film was, the more funding we would be given. In the end our pitch went as follows:

Samuel L Jackson's daughter gets kidnapped, he enlists the help of brothers Morgan Freeman and Denzel Washington - to track down the gang that kidnapped her with the help of local gypsy man Jacky Chan, they go on a country wide search of the girl, and the showdown begins.

Our film is called "The Showdown" and contains the likes of, Denzel Washington, Samel L Jackson, Morgan Freeman, Jacky Chan, B.A. Barracas, Bruce Willis, Jet Li, Vin Deisel and Hulk Hogan. We were given a budget of £70 million - mainly due to our A list actors. We then had to come up with our, our production team and put these into our below the line & above the line costs.

Director: John Woo - Mission Impossible
Cinematographer: Jeffery L Kimbell - Star Trek
Editor: Ken Blackwell - Expendables
Script Writer: Robert Towne - Mission Impossible

Above The Line Costs:

• Cast
• Production team - director, editors, Cinematographer & Script Writer
• Accomodation
• Set/Location
• All the large costs to the budget

Below The Line Costs:

• This covers all the lower costs to the budget
• Props
• Amateur Actors
• Make up etc.