Journal Entry #12-Magic Wand

The first trope/annoyance I would get rid of is one of the things we talked about in class, using the woman as a vehicle for male success. It puts women in a submissive position, and propagates this image as something that is socially acceptable. I find it extremely frustrating, because as a woman that has been written off many times because of the way I look, I think it’s necessary to fight the stereotype of woman as victim. It was pretty insane to me how many short films submitted to the festival that were made by men, and even a few written/directed by women, did this. Specifically when women were doing it to themselves. It made me want to rally and be like, “Ladies, if we don’t portray our own strength and take ourselves seriously, who the hell else is going to?” I think that LSU does a generally good job of picking shows with strong roles for women. However it was pretty shocking to me that so many filmmakers in the Take 1 Film Festival did this, and potentially weren’t even aware of the fact that they were portraying women in that way.

             Another tendency that I would get rid of, that I think applies to both theatre and film, is the use of technical aspects to cover lack of evocative content or bad acting. I can think of several instances in both mediums where I believe this applied. There are certain lab shows that have been done recently that I think shaded some of the acting with sound and lighting sequences. Additionally, lots of the student films I have scene are technically sound, but just not believable because of the low stakes acting. I do not think that creations like this are successful, because the core message is unclear. Why is this piece being done? It is hard for me to connect to a creation if I can’t figure out the themes being projected.  There are some shows that pop into my mind that have married the two, such as August Osage County. This was a show that the outstanding technical elements heightened the acting and created a beautiful story.  Especially with student work, sometimes it seems like there isn’t enough time spent working with actors and getting their understanding where it needs to be.

             Thirdly, this is less of a film/theatre thing and more of specific to LSU thing, but it has been extremely irksome to me to see film students saying, “I shouldn’t have to take this class, it doesn’t apply to me so I am not gonna pay attention.” Yes, it is true that the film concentration isn’t fully fleshed out yet, however in any class taken there is something that you can benefit from. Even if it isn’t a film class on paper, there are definitely ideas that can merge with your creative thinking to better your art. I would love to see a communal mindset regarding theatre and film, because although the medium is different the creative process is extremely similar. Both are storytellers, just in different ways, and it’s frustrating to see people writing off classes or information because they think it doesn’t pertain to them. I think that it would help if the history classes address equal amounts of film and theatre, so that students would be able to zone in a little more. If classes were taught under the mindset that they were addressing students in both the film and theatre concentrations, I think it would benefit the students a lot.