Exquisite Corpse Challenge from rmitmedia on Vimeo.
OUR DEMANDS
Positioning Statements
GRACE
MANIFESTO 1
‘Stop Pitching Horrors’
Stop pitching horrors. Pitch stories about intergenerational trauma that explores grief and tragedy. Stop pitching horrors. Pitch stories about morals and the dangers of a Prometheus figure. Stop pitching horrors. Pitch stories about the motherland rotting from the inside out.Stop pitching horrors. Pitch stories about creation and consumption. Stop pitching horrors. Pitch stories about fate and hubris. Stop pitching horrors. Pitch stories about paranoia and conformists. But seriously stop pitching horrors.
MANIFESTO II
‘Manliest Man Movie Quotes’
‘I gagged on a silver spoon unlike my female counterparts of my time who remain uncredited’
‘I’m gonna make him an offer he can’t refuse or ill offer it to a woman and pay her less’
‘Bond. James Bond and a bunch of one-dimensional female characters’
‘Houston, we have a problem, women of colour are still very much underrepresented on and off screen’
‘Here’s Johnny, and still in 2020 the need to have the best actor and actress award while best director and cinematographer are gender free’
MANIFESTO III
‘Subverting Expectations’
Stop having expectations for particularly genre films or films you think are genre films, you’re ruining them for me and everyone else! There’s a reason people think their is no good horrors anymore or when films are labelled as horrors and their isn’t a false jump scare or loud sound effect to guide you when something is scary. Theirs many things you can view if you want to mindlessly view something or have background noise. I’m sick of reading reviews and seeing things like ‘don’t waste your time. The first 30 minutes of this movie really gets your hopes up that it is going to be something of a thriller’ and yes that is a real review. I’m not saying everyone should enjoy every single movie they watch but these comments reek to me of oh this isn’t what I expected! or it didn’t use every genre trop that I’m used to watching of this genre. Which is concerning to me, a movie should subvert what your brain is predicting will happen, especially in an era like this when films are so readily available as well as that modern audiences have watched a much wider variety of films in comparison to generations before. It also sends the message to Hollywood that they should keep feeding us more spin offs and sequels so we can comfortably know what to expect, Boring! Some honourable mentions that definitely subverted my expectations and I now regret not adding them on to my list are ‘A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night’ a great Iranian American vampire film and ‘Mother!’ a biblical poem fever dream. Audiences should expect more! But also expect less of your favourite genre tropes and the way you feel the movie should be.
SUMMARY:
Our Manifesto is a summary of demands that speak to filmmakers and creatives alike but also to the industry more broadly to address the canon’s shortcomings by making films which deserve to be in it by being universal in their appeal. We thought the best way to address this would be in video essay form, For my particular part I took on the representation of women of colour in cinema. I thought the best way to highlight that in a tongue-in-cheek way would be to show all of Hitchcocks female stars and their likeness, and use Foxy Brown following other notable of women of colour to show the disparity in the canons. This process of finding clips was really enjoyable and had me desperately trying to find women of colour on the canon which really cemented my demand.
SAUD
– Organizing canon films around great men who produce masterpieces exclude the marginalized groups like the women, non-western, and non-white directors. They fail to consider works from other people that make more significant contributions to the film industry. The canon films upraise some selected films at the expense of others, thus limiting diversity and growth. Therefore, canons should be overthrown and pave the way for the comprehensive films that uphold the work of marginalized groups.
– The production of canon films disregards some aspects of the field, such as technology and film styles like editing and dialogues. Technology is evolving, and so must the film industry therefore, the failure of canons to cope with technology makes them lose their value in the technological age.
– The formation of canons does not consider the differences between individuals based on their tastes, age, and countries of origin. This is because not all viewers who value the same films. Some want authoritative canons, game films, narrative art, and the young generation prefer entertaining films. These calls for a new approach to art formation that explores different personal tastes and are relevant across people of all ages in other countries.
SUMMARY:
In summarizing my work in Assignment 4, Universal appeal in films implies that films have an emotional, spiritual and personal connection and relation with viewers. To achieve this, future filmmakers should seek to use a descent, clear and simple language, have strong theme and good styles in the films. Also, they should make the films accessible by all people across the world. My work process involved doing an in-depth review on aspects of promoting universal appeal in films and creating a video essay. I gained knowledge of catering to people’s differences in film making and practical skills in creating video essays.
LILLI
– The unconscious and conscious bias women face in the film industry is based off out of date values and norms that should never have come about, it has stopped us all from knowing the name of the women who discovered synchronzied sound for film, colour for film and narrative for film. It doesn’t sit right with me that there are so many unattainable and unrealistic expectations brought on by the status quo in electing a ‘leading lady’, does it not you? The commonality of women being a certain way objectively to deserve their dream role is backward and ‘old school’ not in a cool way whatsoever– and how women are politicized in the industry hasn’t changed for the better but rather for the worse.
– Secondly, I wish to challenge the idea that the best films are the longest films, I get so restless when having to sit down and invest 2-3 hours in a film that leaves me forgetting parts of it due to its longevity. There are some films that must be long, but others could be shortened and their overall quality bettered.
– ‘Subtitles’ I want more imbedded into more films so that everyone can engage with both niche and blockbuster film if they wish to– they shouldn’t be something you have to turn on, they should just be there, always. This also brings me to ask for the canon, award ceremonies, golden globes, Emmys, Oscars and the list goes on to involve and appreciate cinema outside of Hollywood not as a novelty or token but as cinema that is shielded from broad audiences due to the culture of Hollywood voting and choosing for Hollywood to keep it ‘Hollywood’ and fiercely categorize film that’s from other pockets of the world as ‘non-Hollywood’. It is exclusive and to be frank, same old’ same old. International film needs to be more publicly awarded- just to be fair and for the representation to be real life.
SUMMARY:
My work consisted of a one-minute clip that came toward the end of my groups video essay. In my clip I Include footage from some of the most critically acclaimed ‘foreign’ films like ‘Les Enfants’ directed by and ‘Amelie’. I had written my demand before putting the clip together, so, I collected footage that corresponded with what I was exclaiming to strengthen my argument through using screen recordings of films and moments as visual evidence. An example of my process can be noticed when I spoke about the need for more films made outside anglophone countries to be credited at film award events, along with this statement I imbedded footage of ‘Parasite’ winning along with cuts of crowds applauding- a simple way to express my point that backs it up visually without detracting the viewer from the exclamation being said. I feel as though this technique was used by the members in my group so each demand had corresponding imagery along with it, which is a common appearance and structure of video essays. It was nice to sew each of our clips together knowing that style and structure would vary between each making it a patchwork of statements coming from the same manifesto and being delivered in the same tone
JESS
1. No more suffering for art.
2. End apathy, snark, and coolness. We demand sincerity, romance, and the accessible.
3. If the work cannot be appreciated by viewers with limited film knowledge, you have failed.
SUMMARY:
My work for our manifesto involved analysing the common narratives that currently dominate the film canon and calling for representation & diversity in stories and characters to be valued and prioritized by film list makers. In order to communicate this within our manifesto, I utilized similar clips from canonised films to illustrate the similarities in narrative and values between the pieces and paired these visuals with a voice over listing demands for representation within the canon. Working on this manifesto was both a deeply challenging and exciting exercise in learning how to discard academic formulas and reasoning, and to create something that does not need to be justified nor explained.