11.19.2010

Costuming "Science Sex and the Ladies": hoarding, intentions, constraints, and sizing super powers


I've been staring at vintage (and/or crappy old)clothes on hangers laying in large stacks on my garage floor. They are also in the office closet, in the "gray room" with all our equipment and until recently in the back of our van. They've been laying in stacks in various places since we finished shooting in August 2009. I am notoriously a person that does not keep things. I appreciate a card, but I generally read it and then throw it directly away. If I find something in the closet and I haven't used it in a year, it's gone. I can't seem to get rid of these clothes though.

It's not sentimental. I think what it is is that I was scarred slightly by the process of costuming that movie. I spent so much time (and a fair amount of money) on costuming. I was constantly either researching (albeit - thin web researching) period fashion, making Excel sheets of costume needs, searching stores - particularly thrift stores, organizing and tagging costume combos, lugging stacks of them around, making fits, and all the damn ironing and steaming - oh the ironing and steaming. And, it's not like I wasn't already in scheduling, prop, and shoot day hell. I guess my problem is that I am, for the first time, saying to myself something that goes through other people's heads all the time, "but I might need these some day." I won't. I know that, but I keep thinking maybe we'll use them in another movie, or maybe we'll have some sort of promotional event where the actors are in their costumes from this movie. Don't worry, I will eventually throw them out. The truth is if we make another movie the costumes I have will certainly not only be wrong, but not fit any of the actors we have, and let's get real - even when the actors were in them during the shoots, they usually only fit due to safety pins.

I think I also have a sense of pride about these costumes. I went into this thinking

11.03.2010

Playboy for the LADIES!



Okay, it's not really Playboy...and it's not Playgirl. It's Filament. It's a UK magazine made for and about the "female gaze". If you were not an art, gender studies or philosophy major you may be unfamiliar with the more common phrase - "male gaze." The "male gaze" is the idea that in much of art and media (movies, paintings, photography, literature, etc) throughout history the representation of the female has been through the gaze of the heterosexual male. The assumption is that the perspective through the "male gaze" is different (not necessarily worse though) than the world might be through the "female gaze." The "gaze" within art effects which parts of our world are highlighted, what is sexualized and how it is sexualized, what we see and don't see. Men have made the vast majority of art we are exposed to, and thus the male gaze has an extremely disproportional hold over our cultural perspective (I would argue that it is such a hold that it is hard to even imagine that there is another perspective out there).

Filament wants to create a smart entertaining magazine from the perspective of the "female gaze" - particularly the hetero female gaze. That means there won't really be any lesbian-gaze inspired pics in this magazine, at least not for now. Although they realize that there are plenty of women - even hetero women - who may want to see sexualized pics of other women, they believe strongly that there is plenty of that out there already. What there is not - is plenty of sexualized pics of men specifically for and by women. Pics that include men as the object of desire and are, well,  hot to women. I'm excited to see how it turns out. I also strongly believe there is a female-gaze gap in our artistic endeavors. In fact I'm making a movie that addresses that, among other things, as we speak (You might know it- it's called Science Sex and the Ladies).

Also - what I really love is that this magazine will not cover the traditional "female magazine" topics like beauty and shopping. Filament, and I have to agree, think there is enough of that out there. A magazine with thoughtful articles on a variety of interesting subjects that happens to include lovely, nude, sexualized men... I mean, really, what's not to love? The magazine gives this as their inspiration for this publication:

"Women are 10 times more likely than men to undergo cosmetic surgery and 43 times more likely than men to suffer an eating disorder. Is this because women are 'naturally' life-threateningly obsessed with their appearance, or is this in some way influenced by women's media? Many men's magazines don't discuss men's appearance, but nearly all women's magazines discuss women's appearance. Filament breaks this trend by covering a wide range of topics that inspire and engage, and giving you gorgeous boys the way you like to see them"

I have ordered some back issues and am waiting for them to come. I'll give you a full review when they get here. Check out their website HERE.