John Berger - Ways Of Seeing 1972

This is a homework sheet that my teacher gave to analyse and annotate, I agree with Berger because women are represented and portrayed unfairly and are shown this way in advertisements. Also they are stereotyped and judged in the media which reinforces what John Berger is saying. Moreover Berger also mentions how women are seen as 'Submissive' and men 'Dominant' this is also shown in the media and is in the public on a daily basis. 

Nikita And Kelly's First Video - 'Snatched'

Myself and Kelly were given a task as well as the rest of our Media class to conduct a video that was of two people meeting on a bench. Immediately myself and Kelly were excited to be able to film and conduct our very first video. We both knew there were certain steps in doing so which we were delighted to go forth and complete. Firstly was the making of the storyboard as we did not have any speech in this video. The storyboard consisted of 8 shots and were drawn onto a whiteboard which we referred to during filming. Each shot was drawn out and each angle was written so the person filming knew what to do. 

Also although we thought that filming our first video would be exciting and easy there were minor setbacks during filming such as the area in which we were filming our video. The quad is where we filmed our video and the place in which we chose was thought through because I did fall over when filming, which was a health and safety hazard and will enable me and Kelly to be aware of this in further filming. Regardless of me falling over I did continue on filming Kelly walk down the stairs. During the video you can hear footsteps which we kept in the video to add effect to the story-line. Unfortunately I was not present when Kelly edited the Video in the programme Final Cut. However I did take into account on what Kelly did to the video in Final Cut the following lesson. 

With the help of our teacher filming us for some of the video we came across a mistake when watching back. This mistake was that during one shot there is a noticeable jump to the next shot which looks irregular. In order to correct this we added a transition to this although it did not look perfect it did correct it slightly. Adding in credits and text was also shown to us both and being able to delete different shots. Also how to import music files and render them in order to add them into the video is what I learnt from Kelly in the next lesson. 

Our video - 'Snatched'.

For improvements for further filming I will take into account the way in which I film, such as using a Tripod to film to avoid bad quality filming. Also taking into account the surroundings to avoid any injuries or by passers. Lastly timing did come of an issue because we both had to re-take shots which became very time consuming and affected our progress whilst filming. However I feel this was a very enjoyable task and process and look forward to conducting more videos and learning new effective filming techniques - also being able to work on my improvements when filming next time.

Camera Shot Practice

During my spare time I started to play around with the camera and take different shots. This is a close up shot of my face, the main focus of this shot was my eyes, I challenged myself in taking this shot because I didn't want to just take a close up of one eye but I wanted to include a fraction of my face and hair. I feel I was successful in taking this shot because my focus was my eyes originally. I took the picture in a black and white effect because I felt that black and white adds to the feel of a picture and it gives it a naturalistic sense.

I also took the time whilst on the London Eye during the weekend to take camera shots from where I was positioned on the Eye. Here is a high angle shot. 

I also took a bird eye view shot. 

Television Advertisements..

Advertising is probably one of the most important and influential products of television. Indeed, the average adult spends one and a half years of his or her life watching television adverts. For the amount of time we spend watching adverts, it stands to reason that it will have some kind of effect on those who watch. 

When men are shown in domestic situations, they are usually portrayed as being incompetent or are shown to be manipulative: smarter than the female. Examples of this would be in the Persil advert where the young man has no clean shirts and has to 
wash one. First, he has problems discovering how to open the Persil box and whilst reading the instructions on the side of the Persil box, the powder spills all over the floor, to which his reaction is "Mum!". Finally we see him walking along a street wearing a whiter than white shirt. The advert is below..

The second advert above is for Flash multi-purpose cleaner. The husband is told to take over the scrubbing of the bath, much to the surprise of his wife who leaves him to it. The husband then uses Flash in order to show how 'effortless' cleaning can be. When his wife returns, he is sitting on the bathtub holding the Flash product. The wife then says 'Not bad for a little squirt' the camera then does a close up to the husbands face where you see he is somewhat shocked. This line that was said at the end of this advertisement represents and portrays women to be easy. Using the term 'squirt' which refers to sperm.

In both of these adverts, men are portrayed to be more intelligent than women because she was scrubbing away at the bath and when she left the bathroom the husband opens the cupboard to reveal the Flash products. The first advert demonstrates this as the young man makes a mess and even blames his mother for not being there to clean for him. The second represents this in the way we see the husband using his 'initiative' by using the new Flash products. This gives the women a representation that they are less intelligent than men and as if they are easy and available because of the reference to 'squirt' at the end of the advert. The second even goes so far as to imply that women are gullible and not as intelligent as men through the way that the wife is scrubbing the bath and how in contrast, the husband uses a sponge and Flash. It portrays that the wife is ignorant of modern products that can make the job easier, but the husband doesn't tell her , because he can use it to manipulate her into giving him credit for a task which she thinks he has worked as hard as her on.

Further Research On Women Representation In The Media..

Whilst on Youtube I was going through a variety of different videos on the representation of women in the media. I came across many that caught my eye and I found really grasped the concept of this worldwide issue. The videos also increased my knowledge of this issue and gave clear and well presented examples of how women are presented. Jean Kilbourne is a woman who inspires because in her videos and her theories she talks about each and every aspect to the representation of women. She also highlights many areas in which people do not notice or realize that the media do to present women in such ways. Jean talks about the way in which photoshop is used to give the women a thinner look, this causes an issue because eating disorders such as anorexia affect those who feel heavily influenced by such advertisements. Also these sort of representations give the younger generation pressure because they will feel pressured and feel as if they are supposed to look that way as they are growing up. Younger girls of our time look to celebrities and famous idols as role models or even being a fan, but seeing their idols and role models presented in this way upon billboards, television, posters, magazines and newspapers causes issues for them and not only is it in-appropriate but it also is not a good example to be setting. 


Here is one of the videos..


This video gives many examples of how women are represented in the media. At the very beginning it shows the representation of women from 1954 on-wards. The fact that this issue has been ongoing for a very long time just emphasizes how much of an issue this is. This video also gives an insight to women on billboards, posters, magazines and newspapers - it also shows the way in which women are used as a source of pleasure for men, this is used a lot in perfume advertising. 







Another video that I found useful and interesting 
that spoke a lot about the way Women are
advertised in the media..


This video is a well structured presentation given by Jean Kilbourne. Jean Kilbourne's pioneering work helped develop and popularize the study of gender representation in advertising. Her award-winning Killing us Softly films have influenced millions of college and high school students across two generations and on an international scale. In this important new film, Kilbourne reviews if and how the image of women in advertising has changed over the last 20 years. The video highlights the way in which women are portrayed and advertised in many ways, it emphasizes the way in which the media use women to create seductive and sexual connotations.






Jean Kilbourne created a Killing us Softly 4 which 
goes into further detail talking about the way in
which women are represented by the media. She talks about the way in which women observing these types of advertisements are feeling pressured, insecure and less confident. They are made to feel as if they have to be thin and beautiful. Kilbourne explains the way in which these women we see on billboards and posters advertised everyday are not as they appear. Editing is what advertisers do to make the woman look perfect and look flawless, women of the public are empowered by this. Kilbourne also talks about the way in which women are converted into objects in advertisements, an example is below. 

Here is an article I read about the way in which women are represented in a variety of contexts..
http://worldsavvy.org/monitor/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=602&Itemid=1049


As everybody knows Page 3 in the Sun newspaper has been an on-going issue for years, many campaigns and protests have been conducted to attempt to remove Page 3 from the Sun newspaper. The video below is a video that the Sun have produced as an advertisement in order to draw in men to refer to Page 3 in the Sun, the title being 'The Sun: Page 3 - the woman you'd love your woman to be like' sums it all. The video was conducted in such a way to grasp the man gaze, it also sort of teases men because in the video the 'tall beautiful girl' uses mind-playing questions and acts really playful during the video. This is to make the men want her and want to read Page 3 even though they have their own woman.

Kelly and Niki - The Amazing Spiderman

This is Part one of our media blog where we are introducing the film 'The Amazing Spider-man'.

 

This is Part two of our media blog where we are explaining more about the film 'The Amazing Spider-man'. 

This is Part three of our media blog where me and Kelly give more insight into what 'The Amazing Spider-man' is about. We continued to explain the details of the film and how the film was produced altogether.

Annotated Low Angle Shot

Nicki Minaj Vs Lil Wayne

Women in the music industry are portrayed in certain ways such as appearing easy, exposed, playful and available. The music industry is male dominated and although there are successful female artists within the industry the shine never appears upon them. The singer who I am going to focus on is Nicki Minaj. She has become highly successful in the music industry, known for her sexy image and her skills to rap sing and dance. But even her becoming successful she still has not quite made the cut - to overtake male singers and rappers.

Nicki Minajs image is what has people fascinated and quite shocked since she was introduced to the music industry. She refers to herself as the 'Black Barbie' and in most of her music videos reveals a lot of her body and raps about sexual nature using her explicit style. Her first ever appearance was in a song called 'Bedrock' which featured successful male rappers such as Lil Wayne, however the lyrics Nicki Minaj raps give those listening an idea that women are easy and available.

The music video that I am going to focus specifically on is Nicki Minajs song 'Super Bass'.This music video itself is very stereotypical of how women are expected to be.

As you can see above is an image of part of her 'Super Bass' music video. This image shows several girls including Nicki Minaj in tight white vest tops and tight short jeans which are un-buttoned. Nicki Minaj being an icon in the music industry is portraying women to have to be the perfect body shape, with big boobs, big bum and a skinny waist. Also the shorts being un-buttoned can portray women to be easy and 'up for anything'. 

This next image above shows Nicki Minaj to be very revealing, but to also she is very voyeuristic which shows that women are able to catch men's attention. However do women really have to be half naked to accomplish that? According to Nicki Minaj it appears so. Nicki Minaj has a body that is said to be 'perfect' and what a women's body should be like. She represents those who are proud of their body and have a similar body to hers. Although there are some that are similar to Minaj herself, there are those who feel that Minaj portraying herself in this way in her music videos is stirring up that it is okay for women to be revealing and to appear easy when that is not the case. 

Below are two articles which talk about Nicki Minaj, and the way in which she presents herself to the public.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2012/apr/27/nicki-minaj-children-explicit-lyrics

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/gallery/2012/apr/27/nicki-minaj-looks-pictures

Lil Wayne is a very successful and famous rapper who is known worldwide. He has his own record label in which he signed Nicki Minaj. Minaj and Wayne have both been successful in what they do - Minaj however could not exceed Lil Wayne's level, no matter how much she tried to. Although she may be signed to his record label it is very possible for her to become more successful than him. But of course we are in a patriarchal society where no matter how much a woman can try and aim to be of a higher status than a male it will never be accomplished. 

Women are represented and stereotyped to be housewives and are increasingly pressured to look good. They have negative representation and are almost always portrayed as empowered. This gives a overall impression that women are portrayed unfairly and as if they are sexually available.

My first post..

This is my first media blog as an AS student. I chose media because I have an interest in films and music and the way films and music are put together and presented. I look forward to learning new techniques and skills in media and being able to use them in the lessons with a variety of equipment.

Here is my favourite song by Trey Songz.

This is Trey Songz.