BODY TYPED Film Clips:

Winner: Sundance Film Festival - Short Subject Jury Award
Winner: Newport International Film Festival - Best Short Film
National PBS Broadcast on POV
Click here for more info and clips & to ORDER Educational Use DVD (NEW DAY FILMS) /// Click here to ORDER Home Use DVD
If you are having trouble viewing any of the clips above on your browser visit: NEW DAY FILMS and join us on Facebook!

Tuesday, June 30, 2009

CBC

Did an interview with CBC this morning, which was an interesting process. In the end we left off talking about fashion in terms of eating disorders, and about the obesity epidemic. Not sure this is the whole picture. Anorexia exists in places where large bodies are celebrated, and is usually associated with OCD. The same medication can be used for treatment of either. It can be easy to talk about body image in terms of extreme cases – and this almost let’s us off the hook. I’m really interested in images and perception – in what messages are coming at us – and how this affects how we see ourselves and each other.

In terms of advertising it’s all art and fantasy – but fantasy that needs us to think it’s real. Images are photoshopped “to death” but traces of imperfection are left in to make us think it’s real – or attainable. Attainable through a product. In an interview a re-toucher said:

"What you're looking for as a retoucher is a broom, something that covers your tracks. Some way of obscuring where you've been. And the first thing that people take out is the bloodshot-eyes, that's the last thing that I take out or just wipe, because that just makes it look retouched. So you stay away from those obvious makers that show that you've been there…That’s real and compelling, and the fact that I leave that in makes it seem more real."

There are some talented retouchers out there, and I would like to see how we react if they were given a credit in magazines.

We also talked about Elle magazine's recent publication of images without photoshop. And it made me wonder whether the discussion should be flipped. Maybe it’s the fantasy, or the perfected image, that’s competing with real life.

Wednesday, June 17, 2009

NCGS Conference

Headed on the bus (wifi!) with Trish to the National Coalition of Girl's Schools conference. Presenting a video that I directed for their opening night.
Interested in talking to teachers about how they use films in the classrooms. Do they stream films, or always use DVDs? And, how do "smartboards" work?

Monday, June 15, 2009

Vogue editor launches new war on size-zero fashion

by Will Pavia

The editor of Vogue has accused some of the world’s leading catwalk designers of pushing ever thinner models into fashion magazines despite widespread public concern over “size-zero” models and rising teenage anorexia.

Alexandra Shulman, one of the most important figures in the multi-billion-pound fashion industry, has taken on all the largest fashion houses in a strongly worded letter sent to scores of designers in Europe and America. In a letter not intended for publication but seen by The Times, Shulman accuses designers of making magazines hire models with “jutting bones and no breasts or hips” by supplying them with “minuscule” garments for their photoshoots. Vogue is now frequently “retouching” photographs to make models look larger, she said....continue reading

Absolutely Fashionable

Donald Schwartz from Imagelink Productions in Brooklyn just sent the
link to his wife's work. Looks like a pretty incredible installation:

http://www.absolutely-fashionable.com/MPB/my_perfect_body.htm

Saturday, June 6, 2009

Be part of the film project!

I'm thrilled that New Day Films just accepted 34x25x36 into the collection! So all three films will be distributed on one DVD. Each film is one piece of a larger story -- and designed to raise a specific discussions -- and I am excited for them to

During a very lively discussion around how teachers can best use these films in classrooms (here at the New Day Films annual meeting), I am planning to create a new website that includes videos showing teachers using the films -- and leading post-screening discussions.

If you are planning to use any one of the films in your classroom and want to be part of the videos let me know.

--Jesse

Friday, June 5, 2009

New Day Films new website!

Greetings from the New Day Films annual meeting in Northern California. We are excited about the launch of our new website. New Day is a coop -- a filmmaker owned & operated distribution business and this website had to be decided on collectively. Took a while but happy it is up.

check it out if you have a sec.
http://newday.com/




Founding members Julia Reichert, Jim Klein, Liane Brandon

-----

Formed in 1971, New Day sustains many of the ideas of those times: collaboration, hope, social change:

The feminist movement had just arrived. And a group of independent filmmakers could not find distribution for their feminist films.

“We met at the 1971 Flaherty Seminar, where some of our films were programmed,” recalled founding member Amalie Rothschild. “I was in production with It Happens to Us. I'd been trying to get distribution for Woo Who? May Wilson. I'd take it to non-theatrical distribution companies and they'd say 'It's wonderful, dear, we really like it. But there's no audience...’ ”

Founding members Julia Reichert and Jim Klein had already started self-distributing their film, Growing Up Female.

more at:
http://www.newday.com/history.html