The concept of our NFT film is to explore the three major waves of feminism in the last 100 years and to celebrate the women who have fought for women in the present to have equal rights to men. The name of our film came from a play on words for Mankind, because as a society in general we are referred to in regards to men, by switching the prefix Man to Woman we are making a statement on the power of women collectively. We Capitalised the K in kind as an ironic reference to the stereotype of women as gentle and sweet-tempered as our film commemorates the strong and courageous women who allowed women their rights today.
Creators: Carmen Kirchner, Sophie Mariette, Karina Smith and Olivia Stoten
After our shoot we began editing on premiere. This was pretty easy as each third was one continuous shoot so we just had to select the best and then piece them all together.
After piecing our work together we created a montage of photos depicting women’s rights protests throughout the past century. This felt really meaningful as it shows the real life stories of the women who helped us get to where we are politically today.
After this we began to select a backing track as without sound the film would be really boring. The music had to be royalty free because otherwise we would be unable to sell it because of copy right issues. We needed up deciding to use the song Luminance by Scott Buckley. The was just so beautiful and spoke to our group on an emotional level as being perfect for out film To add meaning to the film we used recordings of 3 different feminist speeches that we felt related to each of our shots and the issues they portray. The recordings are also taken from similar times considering the timeline of the waves of feminism in regards to our film. The sound put together with the film makes it really dramatic and exactly the vibe we were trying to achieve. The first audio recording we used was taken from Christabel Pankhurst 1908speach protesting the right for votes for women. The second was a 1970 NBC news report on the Women’s rights movement and the4 last was of Britta Badour’s poem entitled “Dear Young Woman2 recorded in 2019.
My editing process for this photo was inspired by the 2016 film “The Love Witch” which uses a strict colour palette to create a 1960s technicolour effect. I think this image connotes old Hollywood and the luxury and decadence that lifestyle allows. There is an ironic spin considering our project is based on female empowerment when the golden age of Hollywood was a notoriously hard time for female staff for dealt with rampant sexual harassment and were filmed almost entirely through the male gaze.
I decided to use adobe Lightroom to edit in lieu of photoshop as Lightroom gives much more space to mess around with colours which is what I was most interested in for this particular photo.
To plan our NFT short film we drew up a story board to allow us to know step by step exactly what to film. This was really helpful in our filming process and definitely saved us time.
We plan to start the film with an opening shot of a door to signify the beginning of the journey of feminism and the metaphorical doors about to be opened for women such as the right to vote. Our second shot was of a woman in a kitchen cooking as she puts down a mixing bowl and puts on a ‘votes for women’ suffragette sash and then walking out the door. This is symbolic for after world war one when homemakers were beginning to join the fight for women’s rights. Their involvement on the home front made bounds for the women’s rights movement. Our second shot is of our model walking across a room, picking up a sign saying ‘WOMEN’S RIGHTS’ and walking out the door. This shot is inspired by the 1960s so the room and model will be dressed according to that periods style. This is inspired by the second wave of feminism where women participated in protests for equality which were made more prevalent with civil rights protests happening at the same time. In the last shot, the model, dressed glamorously, walks across the room, looks into a mirror and then directly into the camera and flounces away. This shot is inspired by the 3rd wave of feminism which alleges that feminists have achieved all that they wanted and women and now equal to men. According to this, the model is carefree and is emancipated from her sexuality. She looks into the mirror to show vanity. which is allowed by 3rd wave feminists as she is taking control of her own image. By looking into the camera she acknowledges the audience for the first time. This shows her confidence with her new persona and awareness for the current state of the modern world where women are free to be who they want
Cindy Sherman’s “untitled film reels” showcase female innocence and femininity from a satirical viewpoint. She works as her own model, morphing into different characters to represent all women. Like the name of the project, each photo looks like a film still, creating the idea that there is much more to the story and the narrative. In ‘untitled film still 21’ Sherman dresses in the style of a 1960s French new wave heroine. Like a majority of the stills, Sherman’s expression is reactive and she seems to be scrutinising something out of shot to express the contingency of women’s since of self by always regarding subjects out of the audiences frame of reference. The act of Sherman using herself consistently as her own model and masquerading as different personalities reflects the performance of womanhood and the many masks a woman wears to conform to society. By using such a variety of characters, Sherman presents the liberating and anti-essentialist idea that identity is not a fixed medium but a chosen path which connects to Judith Butlers ideas of gender and identity as your identity is not something which is culturally imposed, instead it is freely chosen. It is ironic that despite this anti-essentialist view Sherman’s roles in this particular series are all ultra-feminine and stereotypical who’s reactive expressions depict them as fragile. Working in tandem with the semantic field of cinema allows Sherman to establish her character to connote Hitchcock’s stock character of the blonde victim.
Lissa Rivera
Lissa Rivera’s “Beautiful Boy” explores gender and sexuality through cross-dressing her model. The images are brightly coloured and evoke feelings of nostalgia, where the background connotes different eras. Rivera started the project to counteract the idea that femininity in western culture is less valuable than masculinity in both men and women. She uses the ideology that one “can’t deny the power of a glamourous image”. By making her model look beautiful and comfortable in his feminine identity she severs the idea that men who cross dress are being emasculated for amusement as a commodity, like the gag of cross dressing in mainstream media as an object of ridicule as by becoming a woman you are stepping down in society and losing agency. The power of glamour is very important to this project as it is a tool to inspire and gain acceptance rather than the parodic representations of gender expression seen in film and television over the last century.
In this image Rivera uses a vintage aesthetic to challenge modern perceptions of gender identity. Her models gender fluid identity directly contradicts the hegemonic, heteronormative ideals of the 1960s mise-en-scene she is conveying. The use of solid colours shows deeper meaning in this photo as the bedroom, a persons most intimate place is completely pink, showing the stereotypically feminine personality and identity of the model while he wears blue to signify his biological identity and the identity that other perceive him as. This over the top use of colour creates a fantasy world or hyperreality of the models perception of their identity. Rivera’s photographs are often taken within the boundaries of an intimate and constricted space to show the rigidity of society’s view on gender and the desire to categorise a person based on their perceptions of outer appearances. Essentially, Rivera’s message is to stop being so closed minded and begin to make judgments based on character rather than physiognomy.
The Bayeux tapestry depicts the battle of Hastings in 1066 and is over 900 years old but its embroidery still remains in tact and in good condition with popping colour. The tapestry is culturally important as it shows a piece of history that has determined the royal family who now rule over us and the way our country’s culture has grown.
The tapestry is thought to have been made by queen Matilda, wife of the victor of the battle of Hastings, William the Conqueror and is one of the most famous tapestry’s ever made, as well as the most longlasting. The tapestry is 70 metres long and intricately designed showing the battle of Hastings in vivid detail. Most recognisable is the killing of King Harold and the crowning of the New King William the Conqueror.
With the separate embroidery we each made, we plan to join together to create our own tapestry and put on display on exhibition
An NFT (Non-Fungible Token) is a piece of data that represents ownership over a product in a modern technologically advanced way. This is most often used to sell pieces of art and is becoming an increasingly popular way for media personality’s to make money off pieces of media that made them viral e.g memes. Lots of money has been made throughj the selling of NFT’s, the most profitable NFT was the sale of piece “Everydays: he first 5000 days” by artist Beeple for $69.3 million
We are aiming to complete our own NFT to sell at an exhibition, with the profits hopefully going towards a newspaper displaying our work
We were taught simple stitching to allow us to make our own embroidery pieces. We looked at other artists embroidery and were particularly taken by Ghada Amer’s ‘The Bugs and the Lover’s’ which at first glance was a beautiful piece depicting insects and flowers but after further research represent female sexuality. We used this embroidery as a blueprint to influence our own work.
With the help of yulia we learnt how to embroider. We connected this project with out theme of identity and community by using cut-outs from the display we went to see at the jersey museum. To link with the theme of feminism I embroidered halo’s onto the women’s heads and horns and a devils tail onto the man. I used thick red thread to symbolise femininity and brutality.
After I was done stitching I used photos I had taken while creating the piece and turned them into a gif by layering the photos on top of each other and creating a loop on photoshop. This basic form of animation made my piece look much more interesting an showed the progression of my work.
The next week Yulia came in to help us with the last piece of our embroidery work. In this session we worked to put all of our pieces together ready for display. We decided to sew it together like a tapestry and came up with a few ideas of how to present the layout. Some ideas included making it like a patchwork quilt, putting it in a line in order to tell a story or to just put the pieces together randomly to see what looked good. Ultimately we decided to do the latter and set to work arranging our pieces and then sewing them onto the tapestry, hopefully to be displayed in our NFT exhibition.
Class is a defining factor in British culture, especially evident when looked through with the micro lens of schooling. School is compulsory in jersey from ages 5-16 and is a shared experience for all jersey citizens however the experience itself is often completely different and varies depending on class and financial status which seems unfair when considering how our education sets us up for later life, whether we are a success or a failure. There is a dramatic difference in the top schools and the bottom which we would like to study through photography and film. In the UK the best universities and schools are mostly only available to the most high-class pupils with the only exceptions for the academically gifted who push through class creating elitist segregation through education that continue to later life. We wish to bring to light this issue by photographing different types of students and schools.
We were inspired by photography and art surrounding the segregation and the civil rights movement particularly Norman Rockwell’s are depicting Ruby Bridges first day at an interracial school. Although we are not tackling race as the social issue for our in depth project, there is an interesting comparison in the way that we segregate people based on social class.
