Ideas and Concepts BAFI103 (Evaluation) - 25th November

Wednesday 25th November 2015

Course Module - BAFI103                          Ideas and Concepts                     Lecture - Dan P

My written evaluation for "SUPER 8 CITY" PROJECT. 

Prior to last week lessons, I started to edit together a rough cut for my Super 8 City project, this was made possible because once our film strips had be telecined, we were all sent a link to download our films and import to our chosen platform/piece of software to edit on. I got together our research, from my blog posts, I started to have a closer look at our shot list and storyboard, thinking about how to re-create some of the shots that we hadn't captured. I took a look back at the ONA film that I discussed within the first week of our ideas and concepts lesson. I think that the whole short film was eye catching, had a great music track, collage of people shopping around New York City, used a variety of different camera angles, pans, close ups to show the movement of the public and transport within the area. After watching this film over I was determined to create an awesome Super 8 Film, with a weird soundtrack, use colours consistently and have a few pieces of footage that would be blown out, stick in the viewers head as they watched the Film. 














Initial Ideas  - What we wanted to achieve (planning)

I started off today’s lesson by listening to all the audio clips that I had recorded in the space of last month, these included sounds of the park, birds calling, waterfront, and a lot of wind from around the City Centre. I had recorded all of this audio using the H4N zoom recorder with the idea of getting ambience from around the town as our initial idea was to film in Plymouth, with a particular area of focus on the Civic centre. Whilst listening to the audio files, I discovered that the quality wasn’t as clear as I was expecting. The next step that I took in the lesson, involved replaying the edited footage over and over as I thought that from seeing the visuals, perhaps I could start to re-create sounds in my head to fit the footage, add a mood to the project, which again would be enhanced through colours and saturation from the clips. After watching it through, I took a walk around the college to record different sounds using a directional microphone i.e. the shotgun mic, I recorded sounds like the vending machine, elevator, people talking, and even a kettle boiling etc. 

Placing and tweaking the audio tracks, recreating new tracks (editing)

I had a clear understanding of what sounds would fit; from today I can now understand that I have completely re-created the audio, to sound mysterious and bring the visuals to life. I thought that the sounds of the extractor fan and the elevator would work well with the shots of the buildings, as the first shot in the film is a panning shot, a high angle pan, rising up the face of an old structure, when watching this clip back, it gave me the impression that I was in an elevator, rising skywards. I started to gather a few more audio clips of machines, especially the elevator as I wanted to re-create the noises and sounds of the mechanics, perhaps I could change the levels of the sound. I thought it could accentuate the amount of power of the elevator as it traveled from the first to the third floor. Listening back to the sounds of the elevator, it sounded tinny and pretty echoey but I used this to my advantage, throughout the sections of the buildings I played around with the audio levels, speed/duration of the clips, making both the clips and sounds faster as the camera panned up and slower as it panned down, giving my overall project a different perspective.

Direct sound and video footage amendments (editing)

In changing the audio to sound like another sound I thought it became pressurized, gave the film an industrialization feel, with everything moving and cranking, using simplistic audio to enhance the movement of places and machinery. My favourite piece of audio recording was from the sound of a kettle boiling, going back to the edit I can remember that I had taken one of the water shots and reversed the footage so that it looked as if the bubbles, surface of the water was being sucked up across the screen. With this in mind I then played around with the speed and duration for the kettle sound, reversed it and changed the audio level by placing key points and dragging them down to create a curve. I thought this worked extremely well as it gave the impression that the water was slowly building up as the kettle boiled (fading in and out).

Another clip that I thought worked well was when there was a pan shot across a granite wall, I decided to take the noise of the elevator doors closing and again reversed it.  I then increased the sound by dragging the audio bar up a little, reversed the sound and started cutting segments together from when the doors opened, once finished and played back it sounded like the cranks, machinery on board a warship. I thought it made it sound unbelievably abstract and again links into the idea of industrialization, thinking about the brief that we were set, to make an abstract type film and be creative with the sound to reflect the visuals.

Colours

I played around with the colours for one of the window shots, it came out over exposed but I thought that this looked really cool as all of the windows were blown out, after I had studied it a few times, I thought it looked like railings. I played around with the white balance and the PARADE RGB colours that we were instructed on how to use in Stu’s lesson, Practical Screen-craft. Once I glanced at the shot several times,  I thought that the film grain was really detailed, it gave the impression that the clip was fading away. 

I also played around with a few of the water clips, changing the saturation and brightness to help bring out the reflections in the water, linking back to our initial idea. I can remember our lecturers stating its amazing how much of a difference little tweaks can have on things like the audio and footage of a film, I now understand what was meant by this. 

I wanted to leave some of the colours the same as they came out really nice and it looked realistic and I was afraid to add colour correction onto individual images as some might stand out and other shots could just look out of place. However, now that I have played around with the colours,  it has given the film a dirty/grubby look, linking back to my idea of industrialization. I thought that the sound enhanced the colours for the footage too, especially with the noise of the kettle, the colours of the water were changed slightly to make them seem dark and add more detail onto the ripples and bubbles as Jay pressed his foot into the water. 

Additional sound/speed changes and titles

Once I had edited and placed the majority of sound clips and video footage on the timeline, I asked Jay to have a listen with me to gage his views and opinions on what I had created. Shortly afterwards we tweaked the starts and ending of certain clips, replaced a few shots, experimented with more colour correction, which all helped to improve the outcome we were looking for, We then finally added our titles on, including the title for the film “City 8” and then our names and the PCA (Plymouth College of Art) end slide. 

Conclusion

What went well?

Overall, I was really impressed with the final product that myself and Jay had created, I felt like I had achieved a different perspective on how the city looks and feels, how everything moves. Thinking about what specific things sound like and in re-creating interesting audio I was able to create a satisfying abstract film. After letting a few of the students view our film, I discovered that everyone had a different perception of the whole video which got me thinking that this sort of film could have been used as a segment in a Stanley Kubrick or a newer Alfred Hitchcock film. Looking back at the end result I still can’t believe that through all the problems that arose, we still managed to create a really good Super 8 Film for our Super 8 City module, I really enjoyed the whole experience, especially working on a different medium.

What I felt could be changed or improved for future projects?

For future projects I would like to approach the edit in a slightly different way, by cutting down the raw footage to a minute, then starting to view the content and arrange the clips into sections, water, buildings, designs, colours etc. I would then get a clear idea as to the sorts of sounds that could be used to give my films a different perspective. 

Depending on the sound that I want to collect for any particular project, I will now think about using a directional microphone for recording near-by sounds but I will still use the H4N zoom recorder to capture ambience. 

We were unlucky with our project because the weather was too sunny on the day of our filming, we wanted a lot of cloud coverage. The sunny weather meant that we had to change the locations pretty sharpish and we weren’t able to utilize our initial idea of reflections in the water but we still managed to get a few of our proposed shots i.e. panning shots of buildings, the pole reflection, water bubbling and various shots of the money centre’s windows and architecture. Throughout the shoot, we kept thinking about light conditions and how shots could be pieced together but it was just too sunny and we wanted it to be a lot darker, besides it rained for the rest of that week. 

I would like to explore the camera setting a lot further for future projects, playing around with the light metres, focus, iris, frame rate etc. 

References

All of the images above have been taken by myself, screen grabs using preview on my Mac laptop - November 2015 - Images from our film City 8

ONA. (2014). Super 8 Short Film . [Online Video]. 2014. Available from: https://vimeo.com/92069466. [Accessed: 25th November 2015].

Contexts of Practise BCOP100 - 25th November

Wednesday 25th November 2015 

Course Module - BCOP100                     Contexts of Practice                    Lecture - Lucy Leake   

Getting into virtual reality

Technology is always moving on, better cameras, equipment, software is being released. Got me thinking into whether these technologies make films, video games real or not?

Throughout the early 20th Century film has shaped most things to become digital, had a huge impact on video games as we have the option to play a campaign, helping to understand the story and impact behind the plot line for the game and explore the history of a specific place, person or character. It could be said that computers have started to become the support for any cultural media platforms.

I find it amazing how much in the 20th century that technology is moving, it seems like just a few years ago that we had consoles such as the PS1 and PS2 but now Microsoft and Sony are bringing out cross platform games, as well as new generation consoles such as the Xbox 1 and PS4. Places like the cinema have already started integrating 3D glasses which helps to give the audience a real world experience, I have been into 3D screens of films before and once I had positioned the glasses on my head, I felt like I was in the room with the actors, I was on the edge of my seat.

After watching a few, I thought that the examples of 360 videos was amazing for the fact that by dragging around the screen, it made me think that I was in the same room as the actors, however it was quite trippy at the fact that we could track people as they walked of the screen, especially for shots of cars, I can remember myself watching a short 360 surfing video, I loved the fact that I could track the surf board and the waves as they started to build up around the subject, metaphor of white horses.

After today's lesson I think that within certain films we could use video game techniques, by changing camera angles, having a particular narrative or storyline, we discussed that we thought this sort of idea would help to keep the audience interested and on track. There will be many ways that we can change virtual reality, this doesn't mean that any techniques not used could be erased or never used again, if there are complications further down the line we could then revert back to the old techniques.

Film is based upon time, take it all in at once, shows your narrative, where as when your looking at a painting, you create a narrative in your head, gets you thinking about why is this here, what does it represent, shows the artists expressing themselves. Film will always be a movie but you can choose to pick bits apart and analyse it but most movies nowadays have a clear narrative.

All of the lesson, it got me thinking about the products that I choose to make, how I make them, the technology that I choose to use and what software I choose to edit on. Also around the Video game idea, we need to be aware that not every theorist will support the idea, they might feel like the film could be used for subtle interaction between the audience and the content etc.

Reference

Backwater
Una experiencia cinematográfica en realidad virtual. (2015). Backwater . [Online Video]. 29 September. Available from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NEpgbcM_Wj0. [Accessed: 25 November 2015].

Practical Screen-craft - 24th November

Tuesday 24th November 2015

Course Module - BAFI101                         Practical Screen-craft                     Lecture - Stu Bailey

Researching different CODEC's, Bitrates, Chroma-sampling and what they do? 

What does CODEC stand for?

A device or program which is capable of performing transformations on a data stream or a signal.

Compression and Decompression

What is a CODEC used for?

Codec is a software that is used to compress or decompress a form of a digital media file, a few examples of this would include a song or a video file. Programs such as windows media player and other programs actually use these codecs to play and create digital media files. A codec can consist of two components, known as an encoder or decoder.

An encoder which can be a device, circuit, transducer, software programme that converts information from one format or code to another for the purposes of standardization, speed, secrecy, security or compressions.

A decoder is a circuit that changes a code into a set of signals, it does the reverse of encoder, they are simpler to design.

At which point of the production workflow is a codec used?

A codec is the word given to describe the order used to layout data of an audio or video file, it may be used for playback, editing or changing to other codecs (known as transcoding). Codecs are used to organise media data but that data is held within something known as a container. There are many different types of audio and video codecs and they have their own advantages. Premiere will need a codec to analyse the files but then you would need to choose a codec to place the files, so it would be used at the beginning and end of post production.

What is the difference between a Codec and a container? What they contain?

Codec is a method used for encoding and decoding data, more specifically for compressing data.

Container is what holds the grouping of compressed video, a container can be referred to as a format, the container will take care of the packing, transport and presentation. An example of this i.e. MPEG 4 file is represented by a .mp4 file type.

What is chroma-subsampling and how does it affect an image

Chroma sampling is the name given to a practice of encoding images by giving the images less resolution, in doing so it can reduce the file size, but the whole process can be sensitive to any variations within the brightness, changing colour. Has an effect on adding harsh lines, no visual difference which can be perceived by the person viewing the photograph but it can saturate the colours to form significant artifacts.

What is meant by Bitrate?

How much information is being analysed at any given point.

What CODEC(s) do you think you should be using and why?

H.264 .MP4 - Very good for it's compression, you can create a lot of information with a lot of space to compress files, making the file size smaller but this would be used for if you wanted to put your video online, website or Vimeo for people to watch, this CODEC wouldn't apply to broadcast quality as it makes the quality look flack and degrades.

References 

Matt Laufer (2014) The Difference Between Codec's and Containers , Available at:http://www.encoding.com/blog/2014/01/13/whats-difference-codecs-containers/(Accessed: 24th November 2015).

Margaret Rouse (2005) Bit Rate Definition , Available at:http://searchnetworking.techtarget.com/definition/bit-rate (Accessed: 24th November 2015).

Matthews (Not Posted a year) Chroma-Sampling in JPEG Compression , Available at:http://users.wfu.edu/matthews/misc/jpg_vs_gif/JpgCompTest/JpgChromaSub.html(Accessed: 24 November 2015).

Contexts of Practise BCOP100 - 22nd November

Sunday 22nd November 2015

Course Module - BCOP100                     Contexts of Practice                    Lecture - Lucy Leake

Poster Research Unit 

I started to think about the Superego, ID, and Ego within films, prior to last weeks lesson, I have always had a keen interest in Westerns, the way that they are shot to bring the audience back to the times of the old west, fantastic characters, scenery. I have managed to work out who the Superego, ID and Ego are within films. I have previously watched the film FightClub which was a awesome film in my opinion and it tied into this specific theory really well because us as the audience would consider Brad Pitt to be the ID, Ed Norton (lack of ID) as being the superego, they work together to create the FightClub, however, we could argue that the ego would be Tyler Durden as we are torn between the two characters which towards the end incidentally becomes as one.

I decided to have a glance through my film collection at home so as to jog my memory and come up with a few ideas to talk about, since I have watched many films I felt that I would be able to connotate and talk about the content a lot easier, being able to understand always been interested in Johnny Cash, especially how the lyrics for his song link back to the issues that he has had throughout his life, this lead me onto wanting to watch the film "Walk the Line - 2005 Film"

Walk the Line - 2005 Film - Summary

Starring Joaquin Phoenix and Reese Witherspoon - Film by James Mangold

Start is set in 1944 - Farmhouse - Children - Children are called Jack and JR - Jack who was using the log machine dies as JR abandon's Jack to go fishing

Germany 1950's - Johnny worked for U.S. Airforce and he writes his songs throughout his time of being out there. - He begins to sell things door to door when he arrives back home, whilst out in the town he spots a record shop, decided to make a band and practise playing songs and creating there own music so as to audition. 

Him and his band auditioned wearing black - He sung the songs that he had written himself and he made a real record, changed the mood for the film as he was happy with the achievement. His first single Cry Cry Cry came out, they got recognition, played their first concerts, began touring places, despite his touring life, he begins to struggle with his time as he is always on tour, finds it hard to make time to see his wife and family. Starts flirting with other girls on tour, begins to drink and take drugs, messes his life up, mind is all over the place (psychoanalysis).

Johnny and June start singing together, but before long they are arguing again, they always come back together. 

Towards the end of the film he falls out with everyone around him, he loses his wife, children and he begins to fall apart which is portrayed through anger, crying and having no-one to talk too, some of his band members follow his path and start to drink and take drugs. Slowly with the help of the love of the life, he begins to pull his life back together and starts writing and playing a lot more frequently, including playing at the Folsom Prison, he makes a family with June and he starts to interact with everyone around him, positive outlook on life, even him and his dad make a conversation. 

June disposes of cash's drugs throughout the film which leads to her writing  "Ring of fire" which the two of them perform live on stage shortly afterwards. 

Cash discovers that most of his fan mail is from Prisoners, they are impressed by his outlaw image, the fact that some of his songs talk about crime, drugs and drinking, he then goes with June to play at the Folsom Prison. 

Walk the Line - 2005 film posters - Analysis

The whole poster reminds me of a circus act, the text, the font's, the layout of the whole page, in particular the dominant image along with the rest of the page makes me think Johnny is the performer on stage, he has come here to entertain us which he successfully does through his music. The ring of fire in the background makes me think about he's the lion. the flames are the same colours and shapes as a lions mane, a fierce animal. 

The text for the poster is clever as well "Walk the Line", it not only enhances the film title for the poster but it also linked me back to the fact that Johnny has everything that he could possibly have but he chucks it all away to drink and drugs. He starts to loose everything and he has written a song called I walk the line, the lyrics "Because your mine, I walk the line" really powerful and it links me back to the fact that he has a wife and children, he has everything yet he still wants June, he always goes back to her. 

Every one of his gigs started with the words "hello I am Johnny cash". You could almost say that it was his conversation starter or when he said those words you knew he was ready to perform/entertain everyone. - link this to the power of the mind once you heard those words you knew already what was going to happen. 

The colour red within the poster makes me think about the romance within his life, again reinforced by the ring of fire as he finds himself in a vicious circle around love, he has a wife and children but the love of his life is June. 

June herself looked incredibly glamorous throughout the film, when on stage with Johnny as they two of them played the nights away but also in the scenes where she was just out shopping, with her family and when she was in bed with Johnny. This got me thinking about representation of women within a particular film, we see camera shots as the two of the main characters Johnny and June, they are continuously glancing at each other, the camera has deliberately been placed to see the two main actors as they look at each other in fetishistic ways. Laura Mulvey believed that women were seen as erotic, portrayed across to entertain a male audience, also she wasn't always aware especially at the start of Johnny looking at her.

Tie into the american dream, Power of the mind - Psychoanalysis 

Why is he known as the man in black (good luck charm - he auditioned whilst wearing black, lead to him writing a song called "Man in Black" Throughout the film he was always wearing black, even in the scenes where he was with the band, or at his house. 

He once told Larry King (american television and radio host), “[I've] never done a concert in anything but black. You walk into my clothes closet.

Johnny Cash - The Man In Black

Another poster that I liked the look had a dominant image of Alcohol, Drugs and Money as well as a guitar, I thought that this image was so powerful because it showed Johnny's life and the different that he had within his career. 

I think that I could make use of the colours from this poster as they would link back to the idea that he is the man in black, reinforced by the wording at the bottom of the poster that says The Man In Black. 

Like the font of the poster too as the white bubble writing looks like smoke, gives a great effect, power of the mind but it links me back to the issues that his smoking and drinking brought into his life. Really powerful use of font. 


From analysing and glancing at these two posters, I had decided that I would like to bring lots of different elements together to re-create a new poster for the existing film "Walk the Line" Going back to the poster above, if we take a closer look at the image, the lines around the ring of fire looked to me like prison bars, I had the idea of a dollar bill, superimposing Cash's face onto the money, then slapping a picture of prison bars over the top, giving it the feel that Cash is in Prison. 

References

Poster 1

Studio Number One (2006) Walk The Line (2005), Available at:http://www.impawards.com/2005/walk_the_line.html (Accessed: 22nd November 2015).

Poster 2
CallumCrewGraphicdesignTypography (2015) Johnny Cash Poster, Available at:http://cargocollective.com/CallumCrewGraphicdesignTypography/Johnny-Cash-posters(Accessed: 29th November 2015).

Walk the Line (2005) Directed by James Mangold [Film] USA: 20th Century Fox

Contexts of Practice BCOP100 - 18th November

Wednesday 18th November 2015

Course Module - BCOP100                     Contexts of Practice                    Lecture - Lucy Leake

Modernism and the rise of the machine

We are now in the 20th Century

Modernism - Period of time during the 1950' to 60's, celebration of industry and new materials, development and progress, reason, discovery and explanation i.e. why we are here, Museums, Charles Darwin - gives people a flavour of where we are with the world. 

Science is a threat to humanity - Seen in art, literature, music, film - as machines, monsters, aliens and other white european protestants (the atomic bomb) - Science has created this thing with humans, they will never be the same again - Short speech 'I have become death, Destroyer of worlds'. 

Two theorists for modernism

Zygmunt Baumann - He believes in the theory that we will go out for a specific object or purpose but we will tend to wander off to look/explore different places. Pilgrim and the Nomad.

Jean Baudrillard - No distinction between representation and reality.

Knowledge is sourced from the internet.

Think about how Cyborg you are - The political Cyborg - Roseanne Stone - Hallucination within the media i.e. the internet.

Come up with a story to do with how science is a threat to humanity.

Research - Brief given 

Poster Research project

Required to design and make a poster that investigates a particular area of theorists that we have covered through our contexts of practice sessions.

Film Poster

A2 minimum DPI 300 - Upload to the google drive

Research some graphic design - rely on the image to tell the story.

Finally, write up an evaluation which will include a summary to go with the poster, talks about the choices behind the decisions, relate it back to a session that we have done in class. Can perhaps link the poster to the idea of hyperrealism.

Practical Screen-craft - 17th November

Tuesday 17th November 2015 

Course Module - BAFI101                       Practical Screen-craft               Lecture - Stu Bailey

Colour Correction and lighting

Three point lighting - Typical set up for someone in front of the camera or within an interview etc. 

Light one - Positioned on the right or left side of the subject, high with a 45* degree angle - The first light is known as the Key light, main source of illumination. 

Light two - Positioned on the opposite side from the 1st light, high with 45* degree angle again - Known as the fill light, gives 1/2 power.

Light 3 - Positioned behind the subject, known as the rim light - Makes the subject stand out from the background. 

You can change the framing as well in order to eliminate any lighting or use a defuser or snoot to direct any particular light to cast shadow or shine.

Colour Correction

Little tweaks can make the shots look better. Premiere is a fantastic programme to use for colour correction editing. 

Always make sure to get a rough cut of your film before applying effects and colours. 

Editor hands the film to the colourist and then they will pass it on to the sound-man.

 Effects we used for editing the colour within Premiere were RBG Parade, Vector-scope and Curves.

All light (contrasts within the image) had to be no higher than 100, not lower than 0 - Illegal to be broadcast. 

Ideas and Concepts BAFI103 - 16th November

Tuesday 16th November 2015

Course Module - BAFI103                          Ideas and Concepts                       Lecture - Dan P

Reviewing Super 8 Films 

Throughout the day, we spent time looking at everyone's super 8 films to critique and reveal what our films actually looked liked, had everything we had planned to shoot worked? Mine and Jay's was the first film to be showcased on the big screen, at first I felt a little nervous but at the same time I was ambitious to find out how successful our shot was, what worked well and had the colours and effects that we proposed, did they come out the way that we wanted, especially the shots showing reflections in water.

One of the clips that really stood out to me was towards the middle of our footage, we filmed from a really high angle as one of the concrete struts was reflecting in a puddle of water, wanted to give the feel that we were using the water to reflect back on the time period of the building and the age of the buildings architecture, in this case the concrete struts which held up the outside interior roofs around the Civic Centre. The film appeared to be received well by other students in the class, they liked the panning shots of the building and so I have planned to place this shot at the start of the film.

I was quite pleased with the shoot itself and after watching the footage back, I now have a digital copy which I can import into Premiere Pro, my chosen editing software to use for this super 8 project. From looking at the film, I have generated a visual storyboard, also I have decided on a few more sound recording ideas which could be beneficial to make our film feel/look abstract.

Great panning shot, looking up at the scale of the building, seems taller than it actually is, adds a separate dimension to the architecture of the building. The colours from the film itself help to reinforce the age of the pebble dash and concrete struts attached to the place, reinforces our proposed VO line "Their original intent forgotten"

Photographs were taken using the Nizo, Super 8 camera, the image itself is a screenshot from our film, "City 8". It was taken using preview on my Mac Laptop - November 2015 Film by Luke Curno and Jay Austin (PCA students). 

Contexts of Practice BCOP100 - 11th November

Wednesday 11th November 2015

Course Module - BCOP100                     Contexts of Practice                    Lecture - Lucy Leake

Representation of Women 

Towards the start of the lesson we had a quick recap on psychoanalysis and film, we were asked to share our findings and research, I talked about Shaun of the Dead and the idea behind super ego, ID, and ego within cartoons.

Women have always been looked at - Quite often the women will look back at you as the spectator, women start to become an object to be looked at by others. Whilst the men admire the women, the women tend to watch themselves, behind every glance is a judgement.

As a class we had a look at a few paintings and we discussed the idea that painters paint how they want to see women.

Laura Mulvey - Theorist who believed that women are portrayed across to look appealing, to entertain the audience who is watching, she also believes that a male character will drive the narrative for a film. She claimed a few things regarding cinema.

A theory that she created was called the male gaze which was the term used to describe two different ways of looking known as Voyeuristic and Fetishistic.

The representation of women, how has it really changed? We had a look at a range of film posters, the front covers to see how the women were portrayed, we went into a bit of detail about the film Alien (1979), the main character who was called Sigourney Weaver, who was a girl but the role was for a male character.

Scopophilia - This word has been derived from looking, when people or images are viewed as erotic objects, known as deviant behaviour i.e. voyerism.

Voyerism - Pleasure becomes voyeuristic when it is dependent on the object of gaze being unaware
Peeping Tom - as an audience we watched a small clip, sort of a spy film, we are viewing a film on film within a film and so it was as if the audience was in on the act.

Fetishism - Objects which replace things that are desired.

Narcissim - Erotic pleasure which is derived from looking at one's own body

References

Alien (1979) Directed by Ridley Scott [Film] USA: 20th Century Fox

21 Jump Street (2012) Directed by Phil Lord and Christopher Miller [Film] USA: Columbia Pictures

http://griid.org/2013/02/12/normalizing-male-dominance-gender-representation-in-2012-films/

Research

Examples of a film for masculinity

21 Jump Street - The film itself stars the two main actors of which are played by Channing Tatum and Jonah Hill, they go undercover as cops at a high school to track drug dealers. They both play hyper-masculine roles within the film with Tatum being the top boy, not necessarily the bright one and then Hill who is trying to relieve his high school days, works well and wants to be accepted by the cool kids and find a girl. Within the film there are several party scenes where women are said to be objectified, linking back to Freud's theories and Laura Mulvey. However, the two male leads use language that is over the top and dismissive of women. I guess it could be said that for movies like "21 Jump Street" it appears that the men never mature much beyond puberty and women have become available purely for male pleasure - linking back again to Laura Mulveys theory "Male Gaze" where she believed that women are portrayed across in film to look appealing, to entertain the audience, predominantly a male demographic.