Blog #4

I saw the documentary, "Miss Representation", which was about stereotypical media representation of women and the impact it has on women of power, in regards to beauty, sexuality, violence, body image, and power positions. “Miss Representation” was edited so well. The cuts were strategically placed in a way that it made you think of the contrast between images. For example, there would be an image of a scantily clad actress and then one of a female politician or activist. The combination of sound and picture really help the documentary garner support for its cause. While various negative media images of women are shown one by one on the screen rapidly, jarring music is played that really excites and makes the viewer angry. This really makes the viewer question why we have such limiting portrayals of women in the media. Newsom’s relationship with her subjects is not shown in the documentary, but the comfortable and personal nature of the interviews shows the shared interest of filmmaker and subject. There is no "right" place to cut or not to cut as the filmmaker makes those decisions as to what feeling they want to portray in their film. For "Miss Representation", the cuts are more obvious because the filmmaker has to make it clear that there is more than one, (hundreds, thousands) of media images that effect girls and women in a negative way. Expert commentary from people in the media like Margaret Cho was a great bonus to watching this documentary. Cho gave her personal experience with being told by network executives that she was too fat, and being anorexic. “They ended up canceling the television show and replacing it with Drew Carey, because he’s so thin,” she said sarcastically. Seeing this contrast between what different sexes get away with is important for the documentary in order for some viewers to understand the double standards women face.

Final Project

Final from Natasha Ramsammy on Vimeo.

Extra Credit - 2014 Aronson Awards

The 24th annual Aronson Awards Ceremony was Monday, April 28th from 7 to 8:30p.m. at the Roosevelt House. It was a particularly moving and entertaining ceremony for the accomplishments of journalists and cartoonists dedicating their life to advocacy and social justice. Rebecca Carrol,the ceremony's host, said this of social justice journalism. "It runs counter to everything about pop culture." This means that instead of reporting fluff pieces, these journalists pride themselves in giving " a voice to the voiceless" and writing about real people in the world that need media attention in order for their causes or issues to be dealt with. Award winners like Andrea Elliot, Ted Genoways, Chris Hamby, and Angely Mercado wrote pieces about people who don't have a voice in the media. A particularly moving piece was one by Chris Hamby, called "Breathless and Burdened" about how doctors and lawyers were defeating benefit claims for minors who were suffering from black lung. Hamby got emotional when talking about interviewing one of the minors who could barely talk to him for 20 minutes without gasping for breath. At the end of his interviews, the minor's wife broke into tears and told him thank you for reporting on their story. This was just one example of how emotionally attached these journalists are to their stories. Andrea Elliot won for her piece in the New York Times called "Invisible Child", which was about a homeless 11 year old girl. Ted Genoways won for his piece called "End of the Line" about the environment in a poor African American community that is being polluted because of an oil industry. Angely Mercado, a Hunter student, won for writing a piece called "Hunts Point Express" about policies in that area affected by land lords and the gentrification of the South Bronx. All of these pieces give a voice to people who may not have one in the media. Award winner Alexander Mallis did a particularly jarring piece called "After Trayvon", which stood out to me the most. It was a documentary that he made the day after the George Zimmerman ruling where he talked to black men in Flatbush, Brooklyn. He wanted to explore race in America. Another award winner, Terrence McCoy, wrote about an American billionaire role in undermining piece in Palestine and Israel. This piece seemed to take more of a expose type format. McCoy spoke about feeling emotional and angry about the issue, which propelled him to go further in to this story. David Carr won the Aronson Career Achievement Award and gave a inspiring speech about his struggles of being counted out and told the audience to not listen to people that count you out. He joked around by saying, "You'd expect someone dead to walk up here... career achievement.. My only achievement is living." One of my favorite award winners of the night was definitely cartoonist, Clay Bennet, whose cartoons were the very definition of satire, which I am a huge fan of. One of my favorite cartoons of his was "Driving While Barack". He expressed deep gratitude for the journalists that inspire his drawings and spoke of emotion being important to his work. He said, "I'm not concerned with objectivity.. People don't want an objective press; they want a free press." This quote sums up the whole night for me.

MOMI Trip

The Museum of Moving Image trip was a very fun and interesting trip. It was interesting and enjoyable making animation clips, seeing the artifacts from popular movies such as Black Swan, and looking at film cameras of different eras. One of my favorite parts of the trip was seeing the Feral Fount, by Gregory Barsamian, which played with lighting and perception. Because of the flashing lights and the constant motion, it gave the allusion that the viewer is seeing a drop of water turn into a bomb and then into a paper airplane that breaks a plate at the bottom of the sculpture. Then, when the lights came back on, it just looked like a spinning object again. It was pretty shocking and I was immersed by it. I also enjoyed looking at all the different sounds that went into making "Titanic", like dialogue, background noise, and sound effects. Playing with those sounds on Final Cut was enjoyable and showed how important sound can be to the emotional response to a film. Adding or decreasing certain sounds made the scene more powerful. For example, the adding of a musical score to a scene of Titanic made it more breathtaking and emotionally intense. Without the sound, it would have fallen flat. The Museum of Moving Image was actually quite entertaining and I hope I can go back someday.

Sound Project

What I Hear

On Thursday March 20, I decided to do a sound walk around Central Park around 11am by the entrance around 68th street. First, as I was getting closer to the park, I heard keynote sounds like honking, cars moving, and birds chirping. As I walked into the park, I heard a sound mark of church bells that I believe were coming from the church next to the park. As I continued to walk, I heard more keynote sounds of people’s footsteps (including my own) as it had rained the night before so the gravel was sticking to people’s shoes and making that noise. I heard the click-clack of a woman’s heels and the tiny footsteps of a squirrel running across the pavement. I heard more birds chirping, children laughing and playing, and tourists talking to one another and figuring out the direction they were heading. I also heard another sound mark of horses moving the carriages, as their hooves were clicking on the pavement. This is a sound mark because it is very common in Central Park to hear horse carriages. Dogs barking, construction noises, heavy breathing of the joggers on the running path, and a violinist playing for a crowd were all sound signals I heard as well. A cell phone dropping, a field trip of school children chatting, jumping, and running around, the breeze through the trees, and honking from the cars outside of the park were more examples of keynote sounds I heard while I was walking through Central Park last week Thursday.

Extra Credit

On February 28, I went to the "Documentary Fortnight" screening series at MoMa and saw the film, "Housemaids" which was directed by Gabriel Mascaro. Mascaro gave a camera to seven young people to film their family’s housemaid for a week. In the process, the viewer learned about the lives of the housemaids as well as the relationship between worker and employer in the household. The lines between family and employee blend in this depiction of life for housemaids in Brazil.

The artist had the children film everything and then he edited what was suitable for the film. With the kids filming, you could tell they were all amateurs and it felt like a home movie, which made it appear more authentic. Close-ups were used frequently. With the children filming and asking questions from their housemaids, which they all were very close to, you could tell the housemaids didn’t feel as uncomfortable as they might have been if it was an unknown filmmaker asking them personal questions. They filmed the housemaids doing daily tasks, spending time with kids, singing or dancing, and talking about their life story. Many of the housemaids opened up about past marriages where some were victims of domestic violence, cheating, conning, or divorce. By showing the housemaids in a three-dimensional light, the filmmaker humanized them. We saw them laugh and cry, work hard, sleep, get tired, take care of children (more times their employers children rather than their own), cook, sing, dance, and pray. Many of these experiences are very relatable to the viewer.

         The question of freedom is the last question that is filmed. The boy asks his housemaid if she feels free. She pauses and says yes she does and the credits of the film role. I think the film set out to show the lives of housemaids and the way that their employers have impacted their lives. To them, they feel free because this job provides them with independence while also being able to have close and respectful relationships with their employers and family. However, to the viewer, one questions if, with the right circumstances, how far these women (and one man) who are housemaids would go if they had other opportunities to do something they are passionate about. The film makes you questions just how free these people truly are if their socio-economic status forces them to put their employers families ahead of their own.