Documentary Director - Jennifer Siebel Newsom

-

Name: Jennifer Siebel Newsom
D.O.B: 19th June 1974
From: San Fransisco, California
Best known for: 
Miss Representation 

Awards: 
  1. Nominated for Best Feature for 'The Invisible War' (2012) - International Documentary Association 
  2. Won Best Achievement in Female Filmmaking for 'The Mask you live in' (2015) - Las Vegas International Film Festival 
  3. Nominated for Sundance Film Festival Award for ' Miss Representation' (2011) 


Newsom has only done two documentaries. Both of these two documentaries connect with each other as one is about the female representation of women in media (my favourite subject) and her recent one is how men are subjected to stereotypical standards and what it takes to be a man. 

Miss Representation (2011) 
7.7 IMDB 
Synopsis: 
Explores the under-representation of women in positions of power and influence in America and the limited portrayal of women in the media and what it means to be a powerful woman. 


The Mask you Live in (2015) 
7.4 IMDB 
Synopsis: 
How our current culture and the way we define masculinity is harming our boys, men and society at large and unveils what we can do about it. 

Colour Tone: 
- interviews are very set (white background with dark clothing on interviewees = WHY? focus on them and also makes it look professional and sharp) 

Things which inspired me when watching the docs:

  1. archive footage from news, music videos and movies - shows how men are represented and women. 
  2. the layout in both movies are the same: in the interviews they have a white background and the interviewees are wearing a dark colour (this contrasts the white with the dark). 
  3. The majority of the people who are being interview are psychologists, specialists, CEO of media companies whilst they also interview 'ordinary people' (young people mostly as thats where it all begins)  
  4. I like the fact that Newsom didn't only make a documentary about women since that is always what we hear (but not much changes) but she also pointed out the struggles that men go through. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Now or Never (2011) - A short film about family relationships

-
Image
Vivandy Productions  Director: Vivandy and F.C Rabbath  Written and Produced: F.C. Rabbath Synopsis: Its about 3 generations of women; the grandmother, mother and daughter. The same story is being repeated between grandmother and mother as well as mother and daughter. Each mother is trying to reconnect with her daughter; both being unsuccessful. What intrigued me:  Showing the mother getting prepared (I'm planning on doing something like that for my video)  portrayal of family drifting (arguing about being too busy for each other)  when she opens the bathroom cupboard when she's young and closes it when she's old (i like the technique it uses to show time passing)  having the same conversation with her daughter as she did with her mother  the way we are shown that there is an issue (phone call from doctor)  VO flashback to the same line she said her mother 'You're being selfish' = realisation ...
Read more

Documentary - Storyville Episode: Blackfish

-
Image
StoryVille Episode Director: Gabriela Cowperthwaite Producer: Gabriela Cowperthwaite Writers: Gabriela Cowperthwaite, Eli B. Despres and Tim Zimmerman Synopsis: It concerns Tilikum, an orca held by Sea World and the controversy over captive killer whales Even though I analysed this documentary for my script I wanted to analyse it for my research as well.  When watching it, it starts off with Voice over and archive footage of what happened (v.o is the telephone call to emergency).  It then goes on (which I though was smart) and shows and advertisement for Sea World = shows glory, happiness, once in a life time opportunity.  Another thing which I enjoyed was the fact that all the people that were interviewed for the documentary were ex-trainers for Sea World. The technique it then uses is a montage of the trainers saying where they come from (all over the US) A lot of archive footage was used especially when showing the incident or the shows from t...
Read more

Evaluation

-
Writing the final versions of the script was fun, exciting but also a long process. Having a clear idea of what directions my episodes where going I wrote skeleton drafts to begin with and worked like that. With each new draft,  added new jokes, stories lines. With guidance from Simon and his suggestions for certain characters I did make a few changes to some story lines and slightly changed my characters personality. In the first few drafts of each episode Hara was becoming somewhat annoying and lacked a lot of humour. Therefore I decided to make her into a bit of a spiritual person who gives herself a pep talk in each episode but also one of those people who believes in positive thinking and constantly carries a positive thinking book with her, sage and incense.  Kotchy, didn't have much of a story, if you got rid of him you wouldn't even notice. Therefore I made him so that each time his family does something humiliating he captures it on camera or Sebastian does and he...
Read more