Photographer Nadia Lee Cohen

Cohen's photography caught my eye because of it's weird mix of sex, femininity, and surrealism. The bright colour palette, creepy masks, and disturbing nature of the photos are just the right amount of shocking to make you think about the 'masks' women are expected to wear.
(I also added in a few more of her photographs that I think could inspire some of our shots/scenes for our film.)

More films for reference.

The first film (trailer as the film isn't online at the moment) is a Screendance short about a power-struggle and expectations:
She/Her
https://vimeo.com/152159178

The second film, shown in the Screendance lecture, is very relevant to our film: showing something that is usually very sexualised (a womans body, specifically her crotch) and making it seem very scientific and, even a bit grotesque.
Samba 2 by Andrea Lerner
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cYtPv4BBxAw
And an interview with the filmmakers:
https://vimeo.com/74757908


Here are two more films which I like the visuals for. One has a narrative, one is in a montage style.

Although the topic is more about looking perfect, it still has the theme of expectations from society and body image, which we want to tackle in our film. I like how it ties in with fashion film, as well as Screendance.

This film just has a nice style and the edit is very careful, making the different clips glide together.

Films that we can use for reference.

i-D are known for being very inclusive and making content about relevant, political issues, such as female rights. Here's a documentary "Exploring LA Strippers, Girl Bikers And Teen Activists Fighting For Sexual Equality With Adwoa Aboah"

It is also worth nothing the StyleLikeU "It's What's Underneath" campaign: a series of videos having women undress to their underneath and tell their stories, talk about their insecurities, and discuss how they feel about their bodies.

Music Videos & Other Visual References

Here are some videos from Youtube that have the kind of aesthetic that we want to explore, and also some of the videos have the same themes of feminism and the riot-girl style.

A lot of this kind of up beat, girl-driven music is the type of music we may want to incorporate into our film.

One option for the format of our film is to make it a music video. This video is a good example, with strong lyrics to get the message across without sounding "preachy" or obnoxious:

_______________

https://vimeo.com/106533935

Aesthetic of the film.

Initially, we were thinking of a very stereotypically pink, fluffy girly aesthetic for the film. But after discussion we are not thinking of more of a rebellious, grungy feel to the film. I think a clever mix of the two would make for a very powerful visual to go along with the message of the film.

A rebellious, grungy aesthetic will tie in with the modern wave of feminism we are experiencing at the moment:

So, some images of our ideas for the visuals and production design for the film are:

Nature - Periods

I found this feminist page on Facebook with this video, I feel like it is in out topic area and could be a subject to review as menstruation is a natural bodily function and shouldn't be something we cringe at when we see. I feel like it is a very eccentric video just because we're not used to seeing anything like this out in the open. This is the kind of thing that we could use to shock the audience with as you'd would normally turn your head to something as bold as this.

                           

Adverts

I like these adverts as they promote the fact that woman can do anything they want just as men can and the they shouldn't just all be categorised into the same think to be only doing things that seem "femanine" Being a woman shouldn't mean you have to be seen like this.

Initial ideas moodboard

For our Experimental film, we are going to explore female sexuality, femininity and exploitation of the female body. To do this, we plan to shock our audience by giving them a series of images, possibly in a montage format, of women in their natural state: having body hair, being on their period, having boobs and curves that are typically sexualised in every day life.
We want to confuse the audience, for example showing them a woman on her period (which would usually be seen as grotesque) with the audio of a woman moaning. Our aim is to manipulate the audiences feelings of these "gross" natural female things, and make them think about what they deem acceptable. We don't want the film to be too "preachy" or repetitive, so we may develop a narrative.


To view Moodboard/ Presentation click here.

Ideas Research

Our group have decided to research the idea of making an experimental film on the topic of feminism.
We are wanting to look at how people sexualise women, when they shouldn't be sexualised and how women always feel the need to look perfect just because it's not seen as normal to go anywhere unshaven for example, We want to produce a film that shocks people into being aware of this situation and maybe realise that women are human too.

I found these images to illustrate the fact that hair is natural on men and women, yet people will cringe at the sight of unshaven hair on woman, when in actual fact it should be a perfectly normal thing to see.
   

Tutorial - 1

Today was our first tutorial. We more about what topic we were going to make our film about. We want to make a film about feminism and make all the natural things about woman seem more normal like they should be. We are still unsure as to how we would set out the film as in have a montage of clips about feminism or have a narrative to it. we are going to go away and look at more films to see if we can get some inspiration.