Why do you think that so many directors are men?
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RoxyBright said:
I just said the same thing about Fear Factor and Springer. I think that when something really pushes your buttons, you tend to speak in generalizations, just like I did a few posts back...
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...what do you define as 'good'? I think Fight Club was a good movie. (zensteve just posted an article that said a woman, though not the director, had a hand in getting it made or something, I need to re read it).
Maybe you think the Princess Diaries was a good film. Good is relative. The merits of a film are relative.
...who cares if no one takes you seriously right now? You sound as if you are new also. You have to know that you are serious and that is all that matters at this point. If you are trying to get people to see your film, that's a different story, but you still have to move past those who would not take you seriously. Maybe the next person will believe in you.
...we have to make 'good' movies....I think, I hope that our voices can be heard so long as we 'speak' good filmmaking.....
--spinner
RoxyBright said:
Trashy - Baise-Moi - Directed By Coralie Trinh Thi AND Virginie Despentes
Vulgar - American Psycho - Directed by Mary Harron
Just Down Right Stupid - Point Break - Directed by Kathryn Bigelow
"Monster", directed by Patty Jenkins, was fantastic.
Penelope Spheeris has established her own entire market.
Jane Campion is an amazing director, as well as being a kindred Kiwi.
_______
Here's another article (from a few years ago) talking about the poor state of women directors.
Too large to copy/paste (even in parts)... so if you're interested in reading more, here's the link to a Salon.com article.
Four pages total - Link to Page One.
Well... for a girl, that is.
Penelope Spheeris has established her own entire market.
Jane Campion is an amazing director, as well as being a kindred Kiwi.
_______
Here's another article (from a few years ago) talking about the poor state of women directors.
Too large to copy/paste (even in parts)... so if you're interested in reading more, here's the link to a Salon.com article.
Four pages total - Link to Page One.
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Good lord! An article just today, about a female director!
From the NY Times again... quoting it, as the original link requires a login.
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From the NY Times again... quoting it, as the original link requires a login.
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I'm surprised no one has brought up "Lost in Translation".
What are your thoughts on that? I thought it was a fantastic artistic film... but obviously Sophia Coppola had a LITTLE inside help through her daddy (considering he exec. prod. the film...)
I think women have just as much a chance at getting up there as men do. Sure there are roadblocks, but they are there on either side! I've seen a million female ADs on set when I do extra work- and two shoots had working female directors. It's all about the skill and the vision.
What are your thoughts on that? I thought it was a fantastic artistic film... but obviously Sophia Coppola had a LITTLE inside help through her daddy (considering he exec. prod. the film...)
I think women have just as much a chance at getting up there as men do. Sure there are roadblocks, but they are there on either side! I've seen a million female ADs on set when I do extra work- and two shoots had working female directors. It's all about the skill and the vision.
And mine was a good-natured response to an OPINION masquarading as fact (backed by a 'study'). I provided a concrete example of why it was simply not true, and actually, insulting of a woman's comprehensive skills, or (implied) lack thereof.
Yes, there are always generalizations about why there aren't more women in certain male-dominated professions, but I stand by the ones I've made because they are part of my personal experiences. You can argue all you want about these being stereotypical, but, for some of us, they are true.
Haha, a Ferris Wheel? You can get anything on ebay, hmmmm, wonder if they have a 1928 Suiza Cabriolet.
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I don't know if this helps or not, it's an observation rather than an opinion.
When I was teaching I noticed that there was a really strong gender split in some areas. So Music Production, that was a music technology course had a 90% male uptake, whereas Music Performance had a 90% female uptake.
I was teaching sound track for film to the music tech students and what I noticed was that the male students would geek out endlessy about technological trivia, they wanted to know what kind of kit was used to do a particular job, which was the best programme, the differences between 5.1 and THX etc. etc.
The female students were mainly interested actually producing a piece of music that worked creatively and the kit was just the tool to get the job done.
I think this division is fundamental and telling. The film industry is a technologically obsessed industry and most film schools teach far more about technical aspects of production than they do about story telling or creativity. In the industry itself there is a real "willy waving" attitude about technical knowledge. You prove yourself as a director by your ability to know which prime lems to use in a particular situation or your stunning knowlege of aspect ratios. This kind of "boy's world" mentality tends to exclude women from the industry, starting with film schools that adopt a male techno-fetish approach to film all the way through to the industry itself that has "male/tech geek" expectations for it's directors.
Personally I'd like to see changes in both film education and in the industry to swing away from technocentric approaches to more focus on storytelling and creativity. In that world there would be more female directors and better films.
When I was teaching I noticed that there was a really strong gender split in some areas. So Music Production, that was a music technology course had a 90% male uptake, whereas Music Performance had a 90% female uptake.
I was teaching sound track for film to the music tech students and what I noticed was that the male students would geek out endlessy about technological trivia, they wanted to know what kind of kit was used to do a particular job, which was the best programme, the differences between 5.1 and THX etc. etc.
The female students were mainly interested actually producing a piece of music that worked creatively and the kit was just the tool to get the job done.
I think this division is fundamental and telling. The film industry is a technologically obsessed industry and most film schools teach far more about technical aspects of production than they do about story telling or creativity. In the industry itself there is a real "willy waving" attitude about technical knowledge. You prove yourself as a director by your ability to know which prime lems to use in a particular situation or your stunning knowlege of aspect ratios. This kind of "boy's world" mentality tends to exclude women from the industry, starting with film schools that adopt a male techno-fetish approach to film all the way through to the industry itself that has "male/tech geek" expectations for it's directors.
Personally I'd like to see changes in both film education and in the industry to swing away from technocentric approaches to more focus on storytelling and creativity. In that world there would be more female directors and better films.
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bird said:
You can not say that Will's reference of the study is false, and merely his opinion masquerading as fact. Because there's a strong possibility that he's telling the truth. I've never known Will to lie, but even so just because he doesn't have a link to said study does not make it nonexistent. I've read of many studies that I can not for the life of me remember who did the study or what university sponsored it, but I do remember the hypothesis and the result of the study...because that's the important part of the study.
You can always say you don't agree with the theory, but don't call someone a liar just because you don't agree with them.
bird said:
And that's what I am trying to say...generalization is wrong because it is 99% circumstantial. Just because it happened to you doesn't make it an absolute truth. You are entitled to your opinions, but don't tell me I'm wrong when I say the sky is blue simply because you see it as red.
I'm not trying to be inflamatory, I just don't think you're being very open to what anyone else has to say.
Poke
I know this thread would polarize, yet here I post again.
No, i'm sure Will's recollection of said 'study' is quite real. But when someone makes a reference to a 'study' which seems to be as inflammatory as this one, you should be able to back it up. Even if he provided a link, I'd still consider the source. I'm not going to believe Coke is better than Pepsi, if Coke sponsered the survey.
Well I've polled all my women friends for my 'study' and gee the lyrics are different, but the song remains the same.
Friggin Boys Club..so long
No, i'm sure Will's recollection of said 'study' is quite real. But when someone makes a reference to a 'study' which seems to be as inflammatory as this one, you should be able to back it up. Even if he provided a link, I'd still consider the source. I'm not going to believe Coke is better than Pepsi, if Coke sponsered the survey.
Well I've polled all my women friends for my 'study' and gee the lyrics are different, but the song remains the same.
Friggin Boys Club..so long
Not to get into a heated debate but there have been lots of studies done by very many scholars about storytelling...
When I said it was hardwired into the male species, there is actually a lot of documentation supporting this.
Tribesmen would travel from village to village and tell stories. As they traveled and told more stories, they picked up on parts of the stories that the people responded to and developed their stories even more hence, the reason we have a protagonist and an antagonist.
Women simply did not do this. Granted, they probably weren't allowed to in many instances but the innate urge to tell stories goes as far back as when men were either created or evolved.
Just as WE as people are hardwired to know what parts of a story are worth hearing about, men are hardwired to tell stories. I definitely think the line is getting blurry here as we progress into a more equal society but I sincerely doubt that the want or need to tell stories will equalize between men and women in our lifetime.
Notice I don't say who is better at it... I think those kinds of generalizations are useless. For every woman you can find that can tell a good story, a man can be found. I just about said VICE VERSA but in reality, I just don't believe it.
However, when it comes to filmmaking, there are some very competent women out there telling some outstanding stories.
I think the QUALITY is more an individual thing. No doubt about it, some people are better at it than others... Sex notwithstanding.
filmy
When I said it was hardwired into the male species, there is actually a lot of documentation supporting this.
Tribesmen would travel from village to village and tell stories. As they traveled and told more stories, they picked up on parts of the stories that the people responded to and developed their stories even more hence, the reason we have a protagonist and an antagonist.
Women simply did not do this. Granted, they probably weren't allowed to in many instances but the innate urge to tell stories goes as far back as when men were either created or evolved.
Just as WE as people are hardwired to know what parts of a story are worth hearing about, men are hardwired to tell stories. I definitely think the line is getting blurry here as we progress into a more equal society but I sincerely doubt that the want or need to tell stories will equalize between men and women in our lifetime.
Notice I don't say who is better at it... I think those kinds of generalizations are useless. For every woman you can find that can tell a good story, a man can be found. I just about said VICE VERSA but in reality, I just don't believe it.
However, when it comes to filmmaking, there are some very competent women out there telling some outstanding stories.
I think the QUALITY is more an individual thing. No doubt about it, some people are better at it than others... Sex notwithstanding.
filmy
spinner said:
Nice point. I get it all the time while DJing... people come up ALL the time "When are you gonna play something good?" I just look at them, then look at the FULL DANCE FLOOR, look back at them and generally tell 'em I left all the good music at home. But, yeah. Good is relative.
There has been a lot of controversy about research into links between gender and spatial awareness. Any study into conscousness is always plagued by he same issues, the difficulty of isolating cultural and physiological issues.
But actually, in this debate it's actually irrelevant whether there is a gender issue about spatial awareness or not. This is because different directors bring different skill sets to the job. Some are highly visual, some are highly technical, some have a deep understanding of language, some come from a theatrical background and understand actors and some have a profoundly natural spatial awareness.
My friend the artist Robert Gammie was profoundly colour blind and yet his paintings are about specifically about the relationships between colours. Yet, Robert could only keep track of the colours he was reading by the names on the tubes.
I am dyslexic and have made my living as a writer all my adult life. Ironically the upside of being dyslexic is having profoundly good 3D spatial awareness.
Finally, Leni Refrensthal is probably the director with the greatest spatial awareness of anyone, male or female, in living history. You only have to see her work on shooting and editing the Berlin Olympics to see that she that her work hasn't been equaled since.
But actually, in this debate it's actually irrelevant whether there is a gender issue about spatial awareness or not. This is because different directors bring different skill sets to the job. Some are highly visual, some are highly technical, some have a deep understanding of language, some come from a theatrical background and understand actors and some have a profoundly natural spatial awareness.
My friend the artist Robert Gammie was profoundly colour blind and yet his paintings are about specifically about the relationships between colours. Yet, Robert could only keep track of the colours he was reading by the names on the tubes.
I am dyslexic and have made my living as a writer all my adult life. Ironically the upside of being dyslexic is having profoundly good 3D spatial awareness.
Finally, Leni Refrensthal is probably the director with the greatest spatial awareness of anyone, male or female, in living history. You only have to see her work on shooting and editing the Berlin Olympics to see that she that her work hasn't been equaled since.
I said, in a previous post, that I would probably agree that men are, most probably, hardwired to tell linear stories, but a,b.c, isn't the only way to convey a narrative.
There was a time in history (to paraphrase Merlin Stone) 'when God was a Woman' where women were the primary storytellers simply because an agrarian society valued women as shamans.
As for biological proof of men being 'better' storytellers, maybe that should be left for geneticists to determine once they've unraveled our genetic code.
There was a time in history (to paraphrase Merlin Stone) 'when God was a Woman' where women were the primary storytellers simply because an agrarian society valued women as shamans.
As for biological proof of men being 'better' storytellers, maybe that should be left for geneticists to determine once they've unraveled our genetic code.
linear vs. nonlinear...
LOL. It's okay to disagree too! That's what we're here for...
As I said... I sincerely doubt that men are BETTER storytellers per se... But the fact that there are more men telling stories probably does support that hypothesis... At least for the time being...
As for men only being hardwired to tell linear stories...
First of all, linear stories are in fact the BEST WAY to tell stories to the masses at this current time. I will be the first to say that with kids being plugged into a movie, a video game, a book, etc. all at the same time, better ways to tell stories are in fact evolving as we speak.
But I still think men are hardwired into storytelling whether linear or nonlinear.
If we are to believe Stone's hypothesis in her book, then we must also believe that at some point in time, we evolved past those beliefs as well...
filmy
bird said:
LOL. It's okay to disagree too! That's what we're here for...
As I said... I sincerely doubt that men are BETTER storytellers per se... But the fact that there are more men telling stories probably does support that hypothesis... At least for the time being...
As for men only being hardwired to tell linear stories...
First of all, linear stories are in fact the BEST WAY to tell stories to the masses at this current time. I will be the first to say that with kids being plugged into a movie, a video game, a book, etc. all at the same time, better ways to tell stories are in fact evolving as we speak.
But I still think men are hardwired into storytelling whether linear or nonlinear.
If we are to believe Stone's hypothesis in her book, then we must also believe that at some point in time, we evolved past those beliefs as well...
filmy
bird said:
I repeat: generalization is wrong because it is 99% circumstantial.
As I look bacl on this thread I see that a question was asked, and some of us have tried hard to answer the question. Sometimes an answer may be right, but feel very wrong. I think there are many woman directors out there that can do a better job than I, and I was never trying to say otherwise. I was simply trying to answer an asked question to the best of my ability.
Poke
bird!
Consider yourself having less competition!
My girlfriend just recently took a craving for screenwriting, and it's turning out quite fantastic. I think the motivation to become a filmmaker isn't very romantic when you look at the facts. Maybe guys are just stubborn, maybe we get out of touch with reality more often, or perhaps we're whimsical creatures... sometimes it's our faults that bring out the desire to do the best in us!
Consider yourself having less competition!
My girlfriend just recently took a craving for screenwriting, and it's turning out quite fantastic. I think the motivation to become a filmmaker isn't very romantic when you look at the facts. Maybe guys are just stubborn, maybe we get out of touch with reality more often, or perhaps we're whimsical creatures... sometimes it's our faults that bring out the desire to do the best in us!
Spatula said:
Or maybe our fathers didn't tell us they loved us enough.
Poke
Don't worry about poor ol' me.... 