Grrls make movies: the emergence of women-led filmmaking initiatives for teenage girls.An initial glance at Martha M. Lauzen's "Celluloid Ceiling The term celluloid ceiling is a variant on glass ceiling, and refers to women being statistically under-represented in creative positions in Hollywood. Statistics compiled by Martha M. " study is enough to induce math anxiety. This annual San Diego State University San Diego State University (SDSU), founded in 1897 as San Diego Normal School, is the largest and oldest higher education facility in the greater San Diego area (generally the City and County of San Diego), and is part of the California State University system. study has been reporting on statistics related to women working behind the scenes on the top 250 domestic grossing films since 1998. Lauzen's 2003 study found that women made up only 25 percent of producers, 13 percent of writers, 15 percent of editors, and a mere 2 percent of cinematographers. (1) In 2004, despite Sofia Coppola's historic Best Director Academy Award nomination for Lost in Translation, only 5 percent of directors were women. (2) Compared to the field of medicine, where steady annual increases since the 1970s have resulted in a 46.9 percent female medical student population during the 2002-3 academic year, (3) these film-world statistics clearly lag behind. Given the power of global media in imprinting imprinting, acquisition of behavior in many animal species, in which, at a critical period early in life, the animals form strong and lasting attachments. Imprinting is important for normal social development. and encoding our identities, this gender imbalance is nothing short of a feature-length wake-up call. With continued bestselling books such as Mary Pipher's 1994 treatise Reviving Ophelia issuing clarion calls about "girls in crisis" in the United States United States, officially United States of America, republic (2005 est. pop. 295,734,000), 3,539,227 sq mi (9,166,598 sq km), North America. The United States is the world's third largest country in population and the fourth largest country in area. , these factoids provide a clear plan of action. Statistics aside, it's time It's Time was a successful political campaign run by the Australian Labor Party (ALP) under Gough Whitlam at the 1972 election in Australia. Campaigning on the perceived need for change after 23 years of conservative (Liberal Party of Australia) government, Labor put forward a to get girls to the media-making helm. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Several national initiatives are taking this challenge head-on. Since the turn of the millennium, women filmmakers, youth advocates, media artists, and self-proclaimed "geek A technically oriented person. It has typically implied a "nerdy" or "weird" personality, someone with limited social skills who likes to tinker with scientific or high-tech projects. The origin of the term dates back to the late 1800s. chicks" have moved beyond media critique and hand-wringing to proactive girls programming via digital filmmaking. Some of the most successful programs include GirlsFilmSchool at the College of Santa Fe History The oldest chartered college in the State of New Mexico, the College of Santa Fe was founded in the Lasallian tradition of education, a Roman Catholic teaching order in which the schools are run by laymen. The institution's first incarnation opened in 1859, as St. in New Mexico New Mexico, state in the SW United States. At its northwestern corner are the so-called Four Corners, where Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona, and Utah meet at right angles; New Mexico is also bordered by Oklahoma (NE), Texas (E, S), and Mexico (S). ; Girls-Eye View at Eyebeam's After-School Atelier in New York City New York City: see New York, city. New York City City (pop., 2000: 8,008,278), southeastern New York, at the mouth of the Hudson River. The largest city in the U.S. ; Divas Direct in San Diego, California “San Diego” redirects here. For other uses, see San Diego (disambiguation). San Diego is a coastal Southern California city located in the southwestern corner of the continental United States. As of 2006, the city has a population of 1,256,951. ; Seattle, Washington's Reel Grrls, and Girls Inc.'s national pilot video program for teenage girls, Girls Make the Message. These organizations combine studies of women's learning styles with Lauzen's study and Director's Guild statistics (compiled from annual studies) as part of their strategies to land major funding for women's filmmaking programs taught almost exclusively by women. In a bold attempt to address the persistence of gender and racial inequities behind the scenes in mediamaking, these initiatives have established girl-friendly environments for mastering filmic film·ic adj. Of, relating to, or characteristic of movies; cinematic. film  i·cal·ly adv. arts. The
goal of these programs, funded by the National Endowment for the Arts National Endowment for the Arts (NEA)Independent agency of the U.S. government that supports the creation, dissemination, and performance of the arts. It was created by the U.S. , the MacArthur Foundation MacArthur Foundation: see John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. , and the AOL (A division of Time Warner, Inc., New York, NY, www.aol.com) The world's largest online information service with access to the Internet, e-mail, chat rooms and a variety of databases and services. Time Warner Foundation, among others, is to teach women how to maintain the long-term commitment to script, produce, direct, edit, and distribute films, videos, and Web media, while teaching valuable career skills. Through coalition building with Apple Computer, Girls Clubs, YWCAs, media art centers, university film departments, and local cable stations these national girls film programs are gaining substantial recognition, proving them capable of staying power. As Deborah Fort, founder of GirlsFilmSchool states, "You cannot grow up gender-neutral in your perceptions of the world, just as you can't grow up class, race, etc., neutral. That is why it is so important to have more diversity amongst those who are creating the images by which we define ourselves." (4) [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] The women behind these projects often have their own anecdotes of gender bias from film sets and academic film departments. Some have concluded that the only way to create a viable women's film network in an industry of entrenched en·trench also in·trench v. en·trenched, en·trench·ing, en·trench·es v.tr. 1. To provide with a trench, especially for the purpose of fortifying or defending. 2. gender bias is to inspire teenage girls to explore the power behind the camera as early as middle school. By the time they are ready to navigate film departments and professional work environments, they will have acquired enough fluency in the language of the craft to gain credibility. The mission is to establish a national girls film network, which feeds into and expands the women's film network, with ongoing cross-pollinations of mentorship. GIRLS GONE DIGITAL The digital revolution has proven to be a great gender equalizer. With lightweight high-resolution cameras and laptop editing software now available, the possibilities for broadcast quality video production on a relatively low budget have expanded exponentially. Tech programs across the country are increasingly providing young women with creative outlets to counter the conformity codes that channel so much of their resources into consumerist quests for "cool." As iPod advertising Apple has used a variety of distinctive advertising campaigns to promote its iPod portable digital music player. The campaigns include television commercials, print ads, posters in public places, and wrap advertising campaigns. conveys, trim technology is sexy and girls are drawn to gadgetry gadg·et·ry n. 1. Gadgets considered as a group. 2. The design or construction of gadgets. Noun 1. gadgetry - appliances collectively; "laborsaving gadgetry" as much as boys. Apple computer products have been crucial in the growth of these youth programs, many of which use Apple's Final Cut Pro and other Apple software and hardware products. Girls Inc.'s Girls Make the Message program purchased Macintosh computers with iMovie software to make their pilot program as user-friendly as possible. Fort, who has maintained a strong relationship with Apple for many years, notes, "the affordability of the technology opens up possibilities for all previously underrepresented un·der·rep·re·sent·ed adj. Insufficiently or inadequately represented: the underrepresented minority groups, ignored by the government. groups. The accessibility opens it up particularly to women, who are generally acculturated to not feel comfortable with technology." GENDER AT PLAY--WHY FEMALE-ONLY ENVIRONMENTS? In his book Gender Play (1993), based on playground research conducted in California and Michigan, Barrie Thorne Barrie Thorne (b. 1942) is a Professor of Sociology and of Gender and Women's Studies at the University of California, Berkeley. Her work focuses on the sociology of gender, feminist theory, the sociology of age relations, childhood, and families, and ethnographic methods. observes that some girls and boys play in single-sex settings, while others are adept at crossing the gender divide, fluently shifting from same-gender play to mixed-gender play. Girls accepted in boys' games are usually those with a comparable or superior athletic skill level. (5) Applied to technology, girls must have the same level of competency, or endure "keyboard takeover" by boys. Malory Graham, executive director of Seattle's Reel Grrls, taught youth in mixed-gender settings for several years before deciding "the only way for girls to learn technology was in a safer girl-only environment where they were not intimidated by boys and had women filmmakers as role models." Liz Slagus, director of education at Eyebeam's After-School Atelier, created the Girls-Eye View program not because of what she saw as girls' inherent inabilities but as a way "to get rid of one more distraction" keeping girls from deep engagement with technology. In an era of animation and special effects special effects, in motion pictures, cinematographic techniques that create illusions in the audience's minds as well as the illusions created using these techniques. , the number of credits at the end of a film for technical jobs greatly exceeds the number of actors. How many talented women wait tables for years in an attempt to make it as an actor when a comparable amount of effort backed by tech skills would land them a job as an off-line editor or an assistant producer in their twenties? Filmmaking initiatives like Reel Grrls, GirlsFilmSchool, and Divas Direct are inspiring women to adopt a lifelong career path rooted in these stepping-stone skills. As an example, take Thelma Schoonmaker, who in 2004, at age seventy, won her second editing Oscar for her work on Martin Scorcese's The Aviator (2004). BEYOND MEDIA LITERACY Media literacy is the process of accessing, analyzing, evaluating and creating messages in a wide variety of media modes, genres and forms. It uses an inquiry-based instructional model that encourages people to ask questions about what they watch, see and read. Parents and educators know that a "see no evil" attempt at insulating girls from mainstream media is a limited enterprise. No one in the U.S. exists in a pop culture vacuum. Whether we actively consume popular media or not, we collectively navigate the Lolitas, Mean Girls, and Amazon Barbies appearing in movie trailers, on television or the Internet, on billboards, and on grocery store magazine racks. Pop culture icons have always been part of the zeitgeist; they seep in through visual osmosis osmosis (ŏzmō`sĭs), transfer of a liquid solvent through a semipermeable membrane that does not allow dissolved solids (solutes) to pass. Osmosis refers only to transfer of solvent; transfer of solute is called dialysis. . Media literacy, combined with courses in digital photography and film/videomaking, should help expose the technical underpinnings of image construction and icon-making in popular culture. Filmmaking requires females to look through the same kinds of lenses used to produce corporate media's images of beauty, power, and celebrity. And it grants them the power to create rather than simply consume. Once girls begin to frame their world through the lens, issues of power, reference, and choice come into focus. REEL GRRLS The Reel Grrls Web site opens with a startling star·tle v. star·tled, star·tling, star·tles v.tr. 1. To cause to make a quick involuntary movement or start. 2. To alarm, frighten, or surprise suddenly. See Synonyms at frighten. Flash sequence that includes this fact: "Most girls will have watched 5,000 hours of television before entering kindergarten." Where does all of this electronic information get stored and how do children process it? And what does it mean to overcome the identity and gender encoding of those messages received by preschool brains? Reel Grrls' annual program encourages girls to tap the referential riches of their media minds. No doubt as a response to their extensive programming as toddlers, the Reel Grrls team produces a spoof of Barbie every year. The Barbie videos are some of the funniest and most on-target projects to come out of Reel Grrls, along with self-portraiture and pieces on gender identity and sexual orientation sexual orientation n. The direction of one's sexual interest toward members of the same, opposite, or both sexes, especially a direction seen to be dictated by physiologic rather than sociologic forces. . Through collaboration with Seattle's 911 Media Arts Center, they have hosted stop animation and clay animation Clay animation is one of many forms of stop motion animation; specifically, it is the form where each animated piece, either character or background, is "deformable", i.e. a malleable substance, usually plasticine clay. workshops. If Men Menstruated (2003) features GI Joes and World Wrestling Entertainment World Wrestling Entertainment, Inc. (WWE) is a publicly traded, privately controlled integrated media (focusing in television, Internet, and live events), and sports entertainment company dealing primarily in the professional wrestling industry, with major revenue sources dolls discussing the performance-enhancing merits of their "cycle." The breakthrough quality of these animations lies in the outrageous, often deadpan delivery of decidedly feminist messages, which could otherwise be Miss Manners dogmatic. While feminism is definitely part of the staff's agenda, Graham has "learned from our girls that fighting for feminism seems irrelevant to them because they believe that the feminist movement is no longer needed. While from my perspective this can seem naive, it can also be ... refreshing." The Reel Grrls program, founded in 2001, includes a four-month period of weekly after-school meetings, culminating in an intensive, week-long post-production workshop; it is one of the most comprehensive programs offered in the country. Through partnerships with the Metro-Seattle YWCA YWCA abbr. Young Women's Christian Association YWCA n abbr (= Young Women's Christian Association) → Asociación f de Jóvenes Cristianas YWCA and their local PBS PBS in full Public Broadcasting Service Private, nonprofit U.S. corporation of public television stations. PBS provides its member stations, which are supported by public funds and private contributions rather than by commercials, with educational, cultural, affiliate, Reel Grrls has managed to attract a multicultural group of girls to its programs every year. In addition to the digital skill set, graduates of Reel Grrls come away with a significant video exhibition record that has included showing works at the Gen-Y Youth Conference at the Sundance Film Festival, the Hong Kong Hong Kong (hŏng kŏng), Mandarin Xianggang, special administrative region of China, formerly a British crown colony (2005 est. pop. 6,899,000), land area 422 sq mi (1,092 sq km), adjacent to Guangdong prov. Film Festival, the San Diego San Diego (săn dēā`gō), city (1990 pop. 1,110,549), seat of San Diego co., S Calif., on San Diego Bay; inc. 1850. San Diego includes the unincorporated communities of La Jolla and Spring Valley. Coronado is across the bay. Girl Film Festival, Women in the Director's Chair, and other venues. The compilation of these impressive credentials is due to Graham's dogged distribution efforts. Their "get the videos out" approach serves as a programming role model to other girls film programs, as does their innovative Web site, which includes updates on Reel Grrls graduates and clips from their reels. Tentsin Tingkhye, a Tibetan political refugee living with a foster family in Seattle, proved to be an editing wizard in Reel Grrls' 2003 program; she is now studying filmmaking at Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington Olympia is the capital of the U.S. state of Washington. It was incorporated on January 28, 1859. As of the 2000 census, it had a population of 42,514. Olympia is the county seat of Thurston County and a major cultural center of the Puget Sound region. , and served as video mentor to incoming Reel Grrls in 2004 and 2005. In addition to working on her own documentary, she edits projects for nonprofit clients. Inspired by the success of their videos, other Reel Grrls graduates have also become youth advocates, covering issues such as abusive relationships, eating disorders eating disorders, in psychology, disorders in eating patterns that comprise four categories: anorexia nervosa, bulimia, rumination disorder, and pica. Anorexia nervosa is characterized by self-starvation to avoid obesity. , self-mutilation, and teen homelessness. Reel Grrls have served on panels at film festivals and youth leadership conferences sponsored by the National Organization for Women and other organizations. Jamie Wheeler, a 2001 Reel Grrl now enrolled at the Vancouver Film School in British Columbia British Columbia, province (2001 pop. 3,907,738), 366,255 sq mi (948,600 sq km), including 6,976 sq mi (18,068 sq km) of water surface, W Canada. Geography , Canada, was featured as an "up-and-coming filmmaker" in Teen People magazine. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] GIRLSFILMSCHOOL In 2001, Fort, then a film professor at College of Santa Fe, decided to create a summer film program for teenage girls when she noticed that the majority of her undergraduate students were male. Spurred by studies indicating that girls learn better in single-sex environments, Fort established the GirlsFilmSchool to address the gender disparity in film departments and by extension in the industry. Despite some girls' initial reticence to learn filmmaking in a female-only setting, by the end of the program they often realize that the boys' absence allowed them to apply themselves more fully to the technology. "The girls will tell you that it works," Fort says. "I believe them. I've seen it." Fort would like to see the girls-only trend in technology education continue but is aware that "a lot of men, who are still in the majority in film programs, don't understand why it is important to have a single-sex environment. Fortunately my colleagues and the administrators at College of Santa Fe do understand." In addition, at the college level, Fort noticed that "the work of my female students is generally very different from that of my male students. The women tend to be much more interested in social issues.... The girls are generally more mature than the guys and you see it in their work. I almost never see drinking, pissing, fighting, guns, fast cars, sight gags, etc., in work by women students." Fort perceives the collaborative tendencies of girls as a professional asset, because ultimately a film set requires teamwork and pooling of resources. "Many are techno-phobic when they arrive but once they get involved in their projects, even the most skittish skit·tish adj. 1. Moving quickly and lightly; lively. 2. Restlessly active or nervous; restive. 3. Undependably variable; mercurial or fickle. 4. Shy; bashful. overcome their fears. The small group mentoring definitely helps, as does the emphasis on community and collaboration." While GirlsFilmSchool's two-week summer camp format focuses on digital video, self-portraiture, and animation, they also produce a narrative 16mm project, complete with sync sound, using dollies, audio equipment, and lights. Fort explains, "all the girls rotate though all the positions on the set.... It is one of the favorite activities because it is like a 'real' film set." Their alliance with College of Santa Fe affords them access to a variety of film formats, which sets them apart from other programs which use only digital video. Graduates of GirlsFilmSchool have so far enrolled in film programs at College of Santa Fe, New York's Sarah Lawrence College Sarah Lawrence College, at Bronxville, N.Y.; primarily for women; chartered 1926, opened 1928 as Sarah Lawrence College for Women; renamed 1947. It is noted for its creative arts program. , and New York University New York University, mainly in New York City; coeducational; chartered 1831, opened 1832 as the Univ. of the City of New York, renamed 1896. It comprises 13 schools and colleges, maintaining 4 main centers (including the Medical Center) in the city, as well as the . Says Fort, "I write letters of recommendation for five or six girls a year.... The program is too young to see any real long-term effects, but we will." GirlsFilmSchool makes a huge effort to maintain a diverse student body, which means their funding efforts include offering one large scholarship. "New Mexico has a strong Hispanic and Native American population so we make an effort to get New Mexican New Mexico Abbr. NM or N.M. or N.Mex. A state of the southwest United States on the Mexican border. It was admitted as the 47th state in 1912. girls who represent that demographic," says Fort. GIRLS-EYE VIEW Slagus developed Girls-Eye View at Eyebeam Atelier Eyebeam, an Atelier, is a not-for-profit arts and technology center based in New York City. Their stated purpose is to promote the creative use of new technologies by funding artwork, education and exhibitions. Founders: John S. Johnson, David S. Johnson (unrelated) and Roderic R. as a means of engaging middle-school girls from underserved populations in the practice of creating new media. Through a competitive application process, female teaching artists apply to work at Eyebeam to develop individual and group projects investigating media's influence on female identity. Since 2002, projects have included digital photography self-portraits, Web-related projects, and multimedia. Eyebeam's unique location at the heart of New York's contemporary gallery scene in Chelsea allows for field trips to local art institutions to explore cutting-edge applications of video projection, large-scale digital photography, multi-channel film and video installations, and Web media exhibitions. Each girl in the program is given a journal in which to record impressions of the art seen, respond to presentations by guest speakers, and brainstorm ideas for their final projects. Girls-Eye View's three-week-long after-school projects occur two to three times per year with students selected in collaboration with the New York City Superintendent of Schools. In spring 2004, visiting artist Cat Mazza partnered with girls from the Women's Leadership School in Harlem. As part of her ongoing project on sweatshop sweatshop: see sweating system. and women's labor issues (see www.MicroRevolt.org), Mazza invited the girls to contribute knitting and crocheting designs to be posted on the Web site. Through software Mazza developed, stitches are translated into pixels as "small stitches to create a movement." Slagus marveled at one girl's design, which included an image of Batman taking off his mask, revealing that he was a woman. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] SAN DIEGO GIRL FILM FESTIVAL/DIVAS DIRECT Following the success of the 2003 San Diego Girl Film Festival, with the slogan "Positive Women--Positive Media," Renee Herrell, executive director of the festival, established a summer workshop for young women filmmakers. In 2005 Divas Direct was launched as a summer program taught exclusively by professional women filmmakers. As part of Herrell's plan to involve faculty and student interns from academic film programs as far away as Los Angeles Los Angeles (lôs ăn`jələs, lŏs, ăn`jəlēz'), city (1990 pop. 3,485,398), seat of Los Angeles co., S Calif.; inc. 1850. , she hired Giovanna Chesler, a professor of communications and film at University of California, San Diego UCSD is consistently ranked among the top ten public universities for undergraduate education in the United States by U.S. News & World Report.[3] It is a Public Ivy. [1] For graduate studies, most of UCSD's Ph.D. , as the director of programs. Herrell hopes to establish Divas Direct as a feeder program for undergraduate programs in film and broadcast communications. One Divas Direct graduate recently entered University of California The University of California has a combined student body of more than 191,000 students, over 1,340,000 living alumni, and a combined systemwide and campus endowment of just over $7.3 billion (8th largest in the United States). , Los Angeles's film department, and Herrell plans to invite her back to mentor in 2006. Girls from their inaugural program have become volunteers for the summer program, where they presented their films to the new "recruits" and talked about their experiences. One of Herrell's goals is to "build a network of women filmmakers in San Diego." San Diego's cable provider, Cox Communications Cox Communications is a privately owned subsidiary of Cox Enterprises providing digital cable television and telecommunications services in the United States. It is the third-largest[2] cable television provider in the United States, serving more than 6. , donated airtime for the public service announcements (PSAs) produced at Divas Direct, and in 2005 was one of the sponsors of the third annual San Diego Girl Film Festival, along with Lifetime/Real Women, Listen Up!, Frills Frills see frilled. , and the Oxygen Network. Clearly, Herrell's network has begun to take shape. GIRLS MAKE THE MESSAGE--GIRLS INC. NATIONAL In 2004, the national advocacy organization Girls Inc. received a major grant from AOL/Time Warner Foundation to produce a girls pilot filmmaking initiative called Girls Make the Message. The concept of the project was to create pilot videomaking sites for girls in eight cities around the country and to publish a reproducible curriculum for girls filmmaking. Pilot sites were chosen for ethnic and socio-economic diversity as well as their track record for completing projects. According to according to prep. 1. As stated or indicated by; on the authority of: according to historians. 2. In keeping with: according to instructions. 3. Associate Director of Outreach Deborah Aubert, the objective of the program was to create "a curriculum that would be primarily facilitated by non-filmmaker and non-artist youth development staff" through the twelve-session production of thirty-second PSAs. The goal of the Girls Inc. initiative was a more "process as opposed to product" program. Says Aubert, "It tends to be the format of Girls Inc. to empower local facilitators to run the programs themselves. We encourage them to reach out to professionals in their community, but it's not a requirement of the program." The lack of professional filmmakers in key roles differentiates the Girls Make the Message program from others in the field, even though their curriculum, which will be distributed to all Girls Inc. affiliates by 2006, is based on many of the same principles as Reel Grrls. Unlike some of the other girls film programs, Girls Make the Message also focuses exclusively on the PSA (Professional Services Automation) An information system designed to organize, track and manage all opportunities, work, resources, costs, revenues and invoices to improve the productivity and efficiency of the workforce. format, favored by youth media collectives like Listen Up! The advantage of the PSA is that it provides a framework for producing a thirty-second media message. This serves as a manageable segment and can be compressed for viewing on the Web in QuickTime or Windows Media formats Windows Media formats are supported in many software and hardware-based players as well as Microsoft's own software-based Windows Media Player. The foundation container format for Windows Media is the Advanced Systems Format (ASF) file, which holds audio, video, meta-data (titles, author, . The short side of PSAs can be prosaic preachiness, as in "Just Say No" or "Clean Up Litter," but the best PSAs deliver a creative message through low-budget innovation. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Some successful examples include Reel Grrls' Can You Look at a Woman Without Judging Her (2001), which explores the ways girls and women are schooled in aggressive female-to-female critique. This piece provides an effective adjunct to the current discussion around female hegemony. Another successful piece Jody, Jody, Jody, produced at the 2004 Divas Direct program, deals with authentic identity. In the video, a chameleon girl "yeses" her friends, telling them she is both a vegan vegan /veg·an/ (ve´gan) (vej´an) a vegetarian whose diet excludes all food of animal origin. ve·gan n. and a meat eater, until they confront her with the contradictions. WORDS FROM REAL REEL GIRLS Lori Damiano has been making films, videos, and animations since the age of sixteen. Her work was included in a 1998 San Francisco San Francisco (săn frănsĭs`kō), city (1990 pop. 723,959), coextensive with San Francisco co., W Calif., on the tip of a peninsula between the Pacific Ocean and San Francisco Bay, which are connected by the strait known as the Golden Cinematheque cin·e·ma·theque n. A small movie theater showing classic or avant-garde films. [French cinémathèque, blend of cinéma, cinema; see cinema, and bibliothèque, program this author curated called "Real Girls/Reel Girls," at the Yerba Buena yerba buena (yĕr`bə bwā`nə), trailing evergreen perennial (Micromeria chamissonis) of the family Labiatae (mint family). It is native to W North America and especially common to woodland areas along the Pacific coast. Center for the Arts in California. Included in the program was her Super 8 animation Strongman, which possesses a garage band rawness in its cartoon-style questioning of male fascination with guns. While in high school, Damiano produced this and other Super 8 shorts and animations at the California State Summer School of the Arts School of the Arts is the name of several schools (usually high schools) that are devoted to the fine arts, including:
While CSSSA was staffed by both male and female instructors, Damiano says "It made a big difference for me to have women mentors.... I remember being especially affected by Greta and her films.... There was a strength about her that I hadn't really seen in women I had met before.... Her influence really opened things up for me. My sense of being limited because of my gender really dissolved for the first time." After high school Damiano focused on graphic design and animation at CalArts in San Francisco. She recently completed her first feature-length documentary about female skateboarders, Getting Nowhere Faster, which premiered in Los Angeles in spring 2005. Melissa Maehara participated in Reel Grrls' inaugural program at Seattle's 911 Media Arts Center in 2001 because she "dug the idea [of] creating media whose intention was to serve as a force for social change, especially within [her] own peer group." Maehara was struck by the all-female composition of the Reel Grrls staff. "Only after I had a better grasp about how under-represented women were in media-related fields did I come to realize how amazing it was to have all my mentors be women actively and passionately working and creating in the field." After her stint at Reel Grrls, Maehara graduated from the University of Washington with a degree in sociology and has spent the past two years as a "wanderlust hobo" traveling the world while teaching English. Along the way, she has created an extensive online digital library of inspired photojournalism portraits. She has begun postproduction on a video art piece inspired by Japanese mass transit mass transit, public transportation systems designed to move large numbers of passengers. Types and Advantages Mass transit refers to municipal or regional public shared transportation, such as buses, streetcars, and ferries, open to all on a and is planning to apply to graduate photography programs in Tokyo. ALTERNATIVE SCREENS Girls' filmmaking initiatives begin with an examination of the visual diet (media literacy); provide girls with digital tools for self-expression (creative activism); then reward them for their productivity (exhibitions, awards, scholarships). Critiquing, naming, and analyzing popular culture is the first step, making films and videos is the second. Finally, establishing girls' networks of distribution is the third. Most importantly Adv. 1. most importantly - above and beyond all other consideration; "above all, you must be independent" above all, most especially , teenage girls who graduate from film programs are acknowledged more for what they create, say, and do than for how they look or who they date. While the focus of this discussion has been Hollywood statistics and the girl "filminista" revolution as response, we must not forget that documentary films like the Academy-awarding winning Born into Brothels BROTHELS, crim. law. Bawdy-houses, the common habitations of prostitutes; such places have always been deemed common nuisances in the United States, and the keepers of them may be fined and imprisoned. 2. (2004) was written, directed, shot, and produced by Zara Briski. (6) Groundbreaking video installations by Ann Hamilton, Shirin Neshat, Eve Sussman and Fiona Tan have been exhibited at major museums in the past few years, while experimental applications of new media at technology labs and universities have many pioneering women at the helm. There are many alternative screens beyond Hollywood. However, success in filmmaking, like any other business, is determined by the marketplace. In order for women filmmakers to make an imprint beyond a single first feature, they must deliver at the box office. If gender balance is ever to occur at the movies, we must support female creators by seeing their films at release and renting them on video. We can start by checking out the reels produced by girls filmmaking initiatives to fan the buzz. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] KATHLEEN SWEENEY is an award-winning mediamaker and writer. Her book Maiden USA: An Icon Comes of Age will be released in Fall 2006. Her Web site is www.video-text.com. NOTES 1. Martha M. Lauzen, PhD, "The Celluloid Ceiling: Behind-the-Scenes Employment of Women in the Top 250 Films of 2003," School of Communication, San Diego State University. 2. Ibid. 3. Barbara Barzansky, PhD and Sylvia I. Etzel, "Educational programs in US Medical Schools 2003-2004" Journal of the American Medical Association JAMA: The Journal of the American Medical Association is an international peer-reviewed general medical journal, published 48 times per year by the American Medical Association. JAMA is the most widely circulated medical journal in the world. , Sept. 1, 2004 (Vol. 292, no. 9), 1025-1031. See www.ama-assn.org. 4. All quotes are from telephone and e-mail interviews conducted by the author from July to September 2005. 5. Barrie Thorne, Gender Play: Boys and Girls boys and girls mercurialisannua. in School (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press Rutgers University Press is a nonprofit academic publishing house, operating in Piscataway, New Jersey under the auspices of Rutgers University. The press was founded in 1936, and since that time has grown in size and in the scope of its publishing program. , 1993), 111-34. 6. Since 1943, women as producers or co-producers of feature-length documentaries have won the Academy award twelve times; eleven of those since 1972. In the documentary short subject category, twenty-one times. In the live action short category, sixteen times. In the animated short category, eight times. www.oscars.org/mhl/reference.html. info FOR MORE INFORMATION Divas Direct/San Diego Girl Film Festival Renee Herrell, Executive Director: ReneeHerrell@sdgff.org P.O. Box 632991 San Diego, CA 92163 (858) 531-5390 Girls-Eye View Eyebeam: info@eyebeam.org 540 W. 21st St. New York New York, state, United States New York, Middle Atlantic state of the United States. It is bordered by Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and the Atlantic Ocean (E), New Jersey and Pennsylvania (S), Lakes Erie and Ontario and the Canadian province of , NY 10011 (212) 937-6581 (212) 937-6582 GirlsFilmSchool Ashley Grisso, GirlsFilmSchool Director: girlsfilmschool@csf.edu Moving Image Arts Dept. College of Santa Fe 1600 St. Michael's Dr. Santa Fe, NM 87505 (505) 473-6409 (505) 473-6403 www.girlsfilmschool.csf.edu Girls Incorporated: Girls Make the Message Deborah Aubert, Associate Director of Outreach 120 Wall St. New York, NY 10005-3902 (800) 374-4475 www.girlsinc.org Reel Grrls Malory Graham: malory@reelgrrls.org Lila Kitaeff: lila@reelgrrls.org 909 4th Ave. Seattle, WA 98104 www.reelgrrls.org MadCat Women's Film Festival www.madcatfilmfestival.org Movies by Women www.moviesbywomen.com Women in the Director's Chair www.widc.org Youth Media Resources ListenUP! www.pbs.org/merrow/listenup |
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