Hot Girls Wanted: Turned On (2017)

Series 1 Episode 5: Take Me Private

In general, this series is really good research for our Grad Film as each episode deals with something different regarding the sex industry.

The episode I found particularly relevant is episode 5, which is about a cam girl named Alice, who has a regular viewer who wants to take their relationship to the next level. This viewer sends her a lot of money and pays for different things in her life, hoping that this is sealing a romantic bond between the two of them, even though Alice is married and he knows this.
Basically, the episode shows Alice's life on cam, and her particularly close relationship with this regular viewer, leading to him paying for her to go visit him. It indicates how cam girls can become a huge part of their viewers lives, ultimately leading to the viewers expressing intimate feelings although they barely know each other.

I found this all particularly interesting as it shows how cam girls are actually an important part of people's lives, and are not just viewed as sex objects for people to masturbate to. The man in this particular episode explains how he has romantic feelings for Alice, and that they have a friendship and often just video chat for general conversation and not just sexual gains. This subverts the typical view that cam girls are just seen as sexual 'objects' that make money by stripping and performing sexual acts on camera. 

CAM GIRLZ (2015)

"Cam Girlz enters the world of webcam sex workers who find economic freedom, empowerment, intimacy and creative self expression from the comfort of their own homes"

https://topdocumentaryfilms.com/cam-girlz/

I came across this documentary whilst conducting some general research on cam girls. It shows a variety of girls who work online as sex workers, letting them tell their stories and explain why they might be in this industry. I found it really interesting to watch and listen to, taking a lot of inspiration from it.

This documentary does really well in not objectifying the women, and allowing them to speak freely about their job and what they do, it doesn't feel uncomfortable to watch. As the sound was just laid over the top it didn't feel intimidating or like they were being questioned, they just spoke as if in conversation with the viewer. 

This documentary has brought me to think about the sorts of questions I would want to ask the girls in my documentary to make them feel comfortable talking about what they do, and not as though they are being interrogated. Also if they are in their own environment they will feel more comfortable in general.

Although I do think in some ways it was beneficial to explore the lives of so many cam girls, I know that in my own documentary I would like to focus on maybe one or two individuals in order to have a more in depth look at their lives and a more intimate feel to the documentary.

This documentary does a really good job at showing a lot of different girls with different views, making you understand that these are humans, not just something people 'get off' to. This is something I want to achieve in my own documentary, bringing realism and making you connect with the subject  

Grad Film - Initial Ideas

Surrounding the inital idea of the sex industry...

THINGS TO THINK ABOUT:

• history of erotica
• women as pornographic objects
• "peep shows"
• dangerous exposure
• romanticism by the media
• ease of the industry
• modeling themselves into compliant objects
• how easy is it to escape?
• presentational viewing > cam girls
• online behaviours
• industry angles; dominatrix, sado-masochism, brothels, swinging, sex play
• fetishes and fixations
• objectification and camera rights
• rights of passage associated with sex

visual approach > issue of diversity, gender, race, objectification etc.

YEAR 3 - FINAL YEAR

The past two years have flown by, and here I am in the final year of my degree. This year I will be making a grad film and writing a dissertation. 

I have a lot of ideas surrounding my grad film, and will be collaborating with Alice Ball, who I have worked with consistently in the past. 

We want to stick with the loose themes of feminism, but want to branch out of our comfort zone and produce something unlike the work we have made before. I have been thinking a lot about the porn/sex industry and how it would be interesting to make a documentary surrounding this, focusing on female sex workers and how they fit into this male dominated world.

I have already watched a lot of documentaries on this topic purely due to my own personal interest, and would like to make something that relates to this as I think there is more to be explored.

Alice and I will have a further brainstorm about what route we want to take.

Dance Film - Twirling Evaluation

We are all really pleased with the outcome of this film, and are really happy with how it came together in the edit. Our communication skills and organization as a group means we would definitely work together in the future. Good time management allowed us to complete our work for the deadline, even with the push backs we had on shooting due to the weather.

Working with a dancer was a new experience but due to the workshops we attended we were able to structure the shoot really well. It was really refreshing to work with Paige's sister, Demi, as she was so familiar with twirling since she's competed internationally. This meant that we didn't have to worry about choreography as she came with routines she was already confident doing. 

With Demi being so disciplined and confident with her routines, our shoot went really smoothly as I outlined in a previous blog post about the shoot day.

I was camera operator on the day of the shoot, which was really fun for me as it's one of my favourite roles. I was confident as I was using my own camera, and working closely with Paige as the director was refreshing as she gave me an indication of what shots and framing she wanted.

When it came to the edit, Paige had already suggested that we slow a lot of the footage down so that you can see the complexity of the routine itself. There is also a lot of repetition in the clips because within the routine a lot of the skills are repeated as when the assessors are writing they might miss some of the skills. This therefore made the editing slightly harder for Alice, as we wanted to try and have a variety of the skills shown within the film.

Alice was in charge of the edit and she did a really amazing job, she also found some royalty free music which fitted the edit well, and cut to the music which makes the film flow really nicely.  

We feel like we have really achieved our aims with the film, showing the intricacy and real art of twirling. Obviously we came together as a group quite late, due to a lot of personal issues going on in mine and Alice's lives. Therefore if I could do it all again I would have liked to be on board much sooner so we would have had more time to shoot more and plan better so we could make an even more impressive film. However, giving the time we had I am really pleased with what we created.

The final edit: BOBBY DAZZLER - A Twirling Dance Film

Dance Film - Twirling Shoot Day

The shoot for this film was slightly delayed due to the weather, and since we were shooting outside we weren't able to film in the pouring rain! However, once the clouds had cleared up we went to our location and set out to film.
Luckily it was a fairly warm day which benefitted our dancer as she was in traditional costume which is a leotard, so she wasn't in the warmest of outfits. We chose a costume that she has competed in before, which is also a costume that Paige has hand made.

We set up the tripod and the camera in amongst some trees as it made a really pretty background for the shoot, but also captured a lot of light.

I worked as the camera operator on the shoot, so worked closely with Paige as she was the director and she told me what sort of shots she wanted. It was really good working with Demi as she was really confident with her routines and just kept going and repeating it so we could capture loads of footage and switch angles throughout.

The camera was really good at capturing the movement and is high quality so our footage looked really good. We were blessed that it was a bright day and not too cloudy so we only had to use natural light and didn't need any other light sources.

Luckily the location was pretty quiet so we didn't have any interruption from the general public and we weren't in anyones way. We wouldn't be using the sound from the footage so it didn't matter if there was a lot of background noise. 

The shoot went really smoothly and we managed to get all of our footage before it started raining again.

Dance Film - Twirling

Research and Planning

Paige’s history with twirling - has been competing most of her life and won many titles for her twirling routines whilst competing internationally, she now also teaches it. Therefore we have been looking at the history of twirling, how it originated, what it was for before it was seen as a competitive sport in its own right.

The sport progressed into the armies of some countries which twirled with rifles during marches. When the army was parading, they added a rifle twirler to the front of the marchers. Obviously, the sport has progressed a long way and nowadays it’s much different. It turned into a balanced baton with usually white rubber ends which are used for safety. Rather than being something that is solely linked to the military, it is now a sport in which teams compete and show their routines in front of an audience, for entertainment purposes.

The research for this film has consisted of looking at different routines and sound tracks. We wanted to grasp an idea of the complexity of routines and the traditional marching music.

We have made the decision to have one dancer, as using a group may not appear as aesthetically pleasing as they may not be in sync and it might look complicated on screen.

We have also made the decision to shoot outside as twirling can be a dangerous sport if it is not done in a safe environment, by choosing an outside location we don’t put our dancer or anyone else under any risks

For research we looked at different videos of routines that twirlers have done before, comparing groups twirling against individuals, which confirmed that we only wanted to use one dancer as when you watch a group twirling it can become a bit confusing to watch and you aren't able to focus on one dancer to capture all of their routine and skills.

Our dancer shall be Paige's sister, Demi. She has also competed internationally in twirling competitions and has many different routines that she can perform from memory. This would mean that our shoot will hopefully be rather smooth as she is confident dancing for the camera and in her routines, so there won't need to be any choreography to learn.

Technical Skills

The production will be outside, using natural lighting so no external lights will be needed. Having our film shot outside eliminates any dangers for the dancer or the crew as twirling needs quite a lot of space to be effective

The camera we will use will be a Panasonic Lumix G85, this will make the shoot simpler as the camera is lightweight so will be easy to use both handheld and on a tripod. Also, as it is my own camera we will have unlimited access to using it.