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)

Warp Films Fact Sheet

Rushmore (1998)

Is Max a stereotypical teenager? No, Max is not a stereotypical teenager. He tries everything, and isn't lazy like teenagers are portrayed to be. Plus he always dressed formally, no matter what he's doing or where he is.

The Bee's on the book:
- He 'flies' from activity to activity
- Bee keeper president
- Busy as a bee
- The bee's knee's

Activity's:
- Editor in Chief

- Yankee Review publisher:

• 4 People around him
• In the middle
• Formal
• In Charge

- French Club President

• Red hat
• Flag around him
• Stands out

- Model United Nations

• Russia
• Powerful country
• Russia and America dont get along
• Sat inbetween mexico and India which makes him look better
• Taking active role
• Always sat straight

- Stamp/Coin club vice president

• Not a general occupation
• No others
• Geeky aspect

- Debate team captain

• Outsider
• Inexperienced?
• Likes Uniform
• Off at side

Lacrosse Team Manager

• Still in uniform
• Organised
• Part of team but not
• Not even watching

Calligraphy President

• Only him?

Astronemy founder

• Red hat again
• Doesn't seem interested

Fencing captain

Track + Field Decathon

2nd Choir

Kung fu yellow belt

Trap and skeet founder

Bee keeper president

magazine analysis

Leon marshall magazine analysis

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Represetations

Representation

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prouction video notes

- Begins and ends with producer
- The producer; finds original idea, finds director, gets funding, is mainly in charge of everything
- first step is to get a script/idea
- all scripts start wit a big idea or question
- script is blueprint for director
- casting is critical
- get investers
- finance; plan, analysis, above/below line
- audience; who, age gender, interests, where
- marketing

Financing (minus 1 third of budget)

This cut our budget from £35m to £23.4m
The first price we had to cut was the budget for the actors. We paid £7m insted for B list actors.
Then gave the director £2m with a 7% of profits.
And gave £3m to the editors
And paid £5m to shoot the film in the UK

FIlm for specific Audience (before price cut)

Pitch Title: SuperStudent
Target audience: University Students
Brief: A spoof of other popular action hero films, such as spiderman, superman and batman. A nerdy student decides to become a superhero to win over the girl he loves, but unfortunately fails at doing anything superhero like. But then the Dr Evil kidnaps his love and he must do anything to save her. Contains Adult humour.
Cast:
Superstudent = Jonah Hill
Dr Evil = Will Ferral
Girl = Hayden Panettiere

Finance
Our budget was £35m and came from pre sales. But when the Tax was taken off, it left us with £28,857,000.
For the cast we were going to pay Jonah Hill and Hayden Panettiere £4m each and Will Ferral £12m.
Then for the director, Aaron Seltzer, we were going to pay £5m with a percentage of gross profit.
This left us with £3,875,000.
We then paid editors and cinematography £0.5m each, the script writers £375,000, the special effects £0.7m and £0.3 for the location.

Film Financing

Above line costs (Majority of Budget):

• Aquiring rights to novel
• Director
• Location
• Editors
• Cinematography
• Special effects/Equipment
• Cast
• Script writers

Below Line costs:

• Extras
• All other people involved
• Accomodations/Hotels
• Travel expense

Examples of souurces of income:

• Government Grants

- Encourage new talent/Creativity
- Employment oppurtunities
- Development of national culture
- Advertiseing location to international audience

• UK film council
• National Lottery
• Producers Tax Credit
• Pre Sales (selling rights before its made, most commmon finace used)

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.

American Beauty - Lestar Burnham

Lester Burnham (Kevin Spacey)

Make notes

Focus on:

·         Body language

·         Voice

·         Clothes

·         Background (mise en scene) ;

·         Set

·         Colours

·         Backgrounds

·         lighting

·         Rather formal voice, confident

·         Smartly dressed

·         Mid life crisis – unhappy, forgetful yet hopeful

·         Unhappily married

·         Family thinks he’s a loser

·         Defeatist attitude – given up on life, negative about most things

·         Cynical

·         Average and plain – house, wife, child, body, dress

·         Lot of money – car, big shower, wife materialistic, roses.

·         Doesn’t love his wife anymore (mutual, faded away) – obvious from sarcasm

·         Has succeeded – no ambition left

·         Has to ‘please’ himself in shower – best part of the day.

·         Nothing goes right for him

·         Unenthusiastic/ monotone voice – link to body language

·         Sits in the back whilst wife and child in front – wife and child don’t respect him

·         Wife’s in authority – unstereotypical

·         Red white and blue colours repeated

·         Trapped – inside house looking out

Representation - The Man

When i first looked at this man the thoughts about him that crossed my mind were things like
- Homeless with no job
- Very little money
- Rough
- Poor health
Most people in my class also thought along these lines

However....
When you take a closer look you realise that actually his clothes are not scruffy enough and he is wearing smart shoes and his clothes are ironed and clean. He is actually a successful buisness man and is extremely rich.

But this just shows us how we judge someone just by how they look and they are represented.