Category: Media

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Recent news items – 2008

24/4 /08
NUT strike: ITV no explanation of reasons for strike action – interviews with lots of parents inconvenienced.

Housing market slowdown – report accompanied by screech of brakes sound effect.

 

May 08
Fritzl the 73 year old Austrian who kept his daughter a prisoner for 24 years and fathered 7 children by her.

Eastenders had a story of someone who was kidnapped and kept locked in a cellar but aired it anyway.

Salacious detail of the real cellar, computer graphics and graphic detail about how small it was, the lack of headroom etc his detailed preparations, pictures of him on holiday, the number of locks preventing escape.

Update as Fritzl comes to trial March 2009

 

Kojo – murderers sentenced though some only young teenagers; funeral and mourners; French mother’s tears; point about accomplices as guilty as those who dealt the fatal blow.

 

Burma cyclone disaster

 

Enigmas and resolutions

News for 12th May 2008

 

Item 1
International news China earthquake centred in Chengdu

  • Anchor Huw Edwards
  • Brian Hanrahan in studio, cgi, potted lecture on earthquake theory
  • Reporter on spot Alex Somerville v/o of Chinese TV footage
  • Mobile phone footage
  • Chinese TV rescuers airlifted in to area
  • Outside broadcast with Michael Bristol video phone dark location
  • Studio Brian Hanrahan – with back to camera while looking at screen
  • Interview with US Geological Survey
  • Interview with expert professor
  • Footage from Chinese TV of survivors sleeping in open
  • Back to anchor and more info on website

Item 2
?

Item 3
Burma cyclone 10 days on clear comment on B’s gov’s policy ‘high risk for survivors’ of not allowing foreign aid in any quantity and few aid workers.

Item 4
free debates for MPs on subjects like abortion, stem cell research etc

Item 5
Man stabbed in Oxford Street

Item 6
Race relations tension in Pendle Lancs

Item 7
Sex and the City world premiere in London

 

Contact us (the BBC) and more info on website

 

July 3rd

man drives bulldozer into cars and people in Jerusalem (see attendant articles)

 

July 8th 08
BBC top execs pay rises of over £100,000 p.a. BBCs Jana Bennett £536,000 including pay rise, bonus and pension top up.

Dawn Airey ITV £450,000 basic plus annual bonus up to 1 ½ times basic salary!!

But licence fee rise reduced and OFCOM investigation and fine on phone in scams!!

 

Feb 25th 09
First item on the BBC 6 o’clock news is the death of David and Samantha Cameron’s 6 year old severely disabled son Ivan.

 

March 22nd 2009 Jade Goody dies; Gordon Brown PM sends condolences to family; News refers to her as a ‘star’ but was she? Shilpa Shetty’s message ‘I am deeply saddened.’ 10 minutes, some of it live on 6 o’clock news on Mothers Day, an overview of a life lived in the public eye.

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General Notes on Women in the Film Industry

Facts and Figures

$7bn per year at the box office.

$7.6 bn on video

$7.4 bn on rentals

 

1999

4% women directors

)

Declined from 1998

15% executive producers

)

8% editors

)

 

Women 25+ are the most lucrative demographic for sales and box office.

 

Genre Case Study of the representation of women

Women in Westerns

Women generally fulfil a domestic role.

The western is the answer to the domestic novel

Men were driven to the frontier by the tide of feminist evangelists advocating temperance.

In the western the man’s mastery and identity are repeatedly reinvented.

Women are the ‘motive for male activity’

Typically they are ‘good-natured Dance hall girls or virginal guiding lights.’

Of course there have been plenty of exceptions particularly in the early years of film but they were intended for female consumption.

 

Women in front of the camera

In front of the camera her role is usually as sex object, femme fatale and / or victim.

She exists in a world of binary opposites: good / bad; virgin / whore; tart / girl next door.

Her fulfilment comes not through beauty not brains!

1970s feminism made women feel guilty for liking makeup and high heels, for enjoying romantic fiction and fashion!

Roles such as Ripley in Aliens were almost too much of a role reversal whereas the angels in Charlie’s Angels while kicking ass did it in high heels!

 

Jobs within the industry

Producer – all definitions of this job are particularly applicable to women’s skills of organisation and personal communication skills. So therefore is less creative and therefore more supportive of male directors!        See Bfi worksheet 7 here.

 

Research Case Study of Thelma Schoonmaker

Although an editor for 40+ years she is usually referred to in connection with the men with whom she has worked.

 

 

Why are there so few women in the industry?

See www.moviesbywomen.com/

http://skillset.org/careers/

 

Women comprise:

93% of all hair and makeup artists

)

Why?

83% of wardrobe and costume jobs

)

10% of camera operators

)

8% lighting

)

11% sound

)

9% broadcast engineers and cinema projectionists

)

 

Drew Barrymore

)

Have all been producer / director

or co-producer / director

or have set up their own production companies

Sharon Stone

)

Sigourney Weaver

)

Jodie Foster

)

Sarah Jessica Parker

)

Christina Ricci

)

Sandra Bullock

)