Representation

 

    The novel I chose to make an analysis about representation on is Circe by Madeline Miller. This is the story of one of the daughters of Helios, God of the sun in Greek mythology. She was never accepted by her family, and this led her to go through transformative change and get a kind of power forbidden by Gods: witchcraft. This book not only retells the story of a very famous character in Greek mythology whose story is associated with heroes like Odysseus and other relevant mythological figures, but it represents the struggles of being a woman in a society as discriminative as ancient Greece and stays relevant to issues women face today. 

 The story begins by describing the horrible treatment Circe endures when she lived in her father's court. She was looked down upon because of her rough voice, uncommon among Gods, and was considered "ugly" by the rest of the court, this made her feel like her divinity was indeed inferior and that she wasn't worthy of love. The fact that she is made to seem like everyone else in her surroundings shines brighter, according to the descriptions the book gives about her brother's and sister's golden skin inherited from their father, and that her voice isn't even loud enough to be heard by anyone represents the struggle that woman have historically faced to be listened to. Years of discrimination and countless efforts to be heard aren't only an experience that Circe lived at her home, but it has been the universal experience of many women for centuries now. This isolation within her own home causes Circe to be desperate for any type of love, so she tries to please her father and gives everything for a fisherman she fell in love with, both ending in disappointment when her father exiles her and the fisherman betrays her. This could somehow represent how society's expectations that are impossible to meet force women to please the people who place these standards on them. For example, beauty standards that dictate woman have to be thin, hairless, etc.

    One of the most important aspects of the book's plot is the assault Circe suffered when she was exiled. Some fishermen came onto her island and in her naivety, she decided to help them and provide shelter for them. After her rape she reflects on her situation and expresses her feelings of emptiness and vulnerability and even recalls how she was treated in the palace. How she recalled seeing her uncle's stares on her and even the way she was sometimes inappropriately touched by them. This aspect of the story paints woman's vulnerability in real life and the aggression woman have faced since the start of time. She is represented  as a victim and her struggles are recognized instead of blaming the assault on her, like society sometimes does with other victims. 

    From this experience, Circe started to feel a deep resentment for men in general, combining her father's treatment, the fisherman's betrayal, and the assault, she felt she could never trust a man again. After this incident, Circe began using her magic to seek vengeance. From then on every time a group of sailors came upon her island thinking they could take advantage of her, she would then transform them into pigs with her powers. The choice of making them pigs wasn't a random one, it is actually pretty common for men to be associated with the imagery of pigs in society. Men, specially, who have been associated with any kind of misogyny or aggression toward woman, so Circe turning men into pigs in this models represents them as this filthy, inmoral creature. 

    When it comes to representation, even the  angle chosen by Madeline Miller to tell this story is representative of how women are usually portrayed by media. In the famous book "The Odyssey", the heroic story of Odysseus and his journey home are told from an extremely male-focused lens. The only women who really have any part in his story are either antagonized or are made to be the usual submissive wife. But in Circe, the story focused entirely in the experience of women and how they are treated by this world, but specifically how they can be empowered by their individuality. By choosing this angle, Madeline Miller steered away from villainizing Circe as a cunning witch who is only present for a fraction of Odysseus story, but gives her a life of her own and in turn reflects how skewed the original story was toward the male point of view. The novel chooses to highlight these aspects and shows Odysseus as this side character who actually has many flaws, which was not really addressed by the heroic telling of his character in The Odyssey.

    

                                                                                                             

Genre Research

Romance films are currently one of the most popular genres in the industry due to their reach to a wide audience of different ages and backgrounds, relatability, and the escapism it provides for viewers as they can fully immerse themselves in a story. Although this genre can reach many audiences, depending on the context of the film, it is true that most of these films are directed toward a younger, female audience, specifically teens.  

Romance films follow love stories, generally between two protagonists, as they start unfolding, go through hardships, or end happily. The genre commonly focuses on themes of passion, emotion, affection, and heartbreak. Romantic films can take many shapes and forms, and some popular tropes include love at first sight, enemies to lovers, friends to lovers, forbidden love, happily ever after, and misunderstandings/obstacles. There are also different sub-genres to romance like romantic comedies, historical romance and paranormal romance. Evidently, there is something for everybody within the romance genre, just like there is someone for everyone in real life. 

Romance films can take place in fantastical scenarios like the very famous saga ‘Twilight’ (2008), which deals with the love story between a human and vampire, or they could resemble real life more closely like ‘The Notebook’ (2004), which follows the struggles of a couple to finally end up together.  The themes and scenarios in romance films are largely based on the attitudes toward love and romance at the time. For instance, during the 1940s and 50s movies like ‘Gone With the Wind’ depicted love set in times of war, which was part of the conflict in the story and represented current times. In the present, movies focus more on the complexity of relationships in the modern world like ‘Love at First Sight’ (2023), which focuses on a couple that met on a flight to London for the first time and then had to find a way back to each other. 

When producing Romance films, directors have to consider a range of different techniques they could use to successfully tell their story. The lighting in Romantic films is an extremely important aspect, as it directly affects the mood that the film is transmitting. Dimming the lighting and using warm tones can create a very romantic and intimate scene, which is seen in a lot of movies of this type. Some of the shots that are essential to this genre are close-ups, tight close-ups, over-the-shoulder shots, and two-person shots. All of these are usually used to transmit the relationship between people. Close-ups create emphasis on connection and intimacy, over-the-shoulder shots emphasize the conversations that characters might have with each other, and two-person shots are essentially made to display a relationship between two people. 

Romance is highly successful in the market and here are some techniques that are usually used to achieve this. Some romance films include “branding” within their films to make viewers go back to these productions more often. For example, the movie ‘The Bodyguard’ (1992), which depicts the story of the famous singer Whitney Houston falling for her bodyguard after receiving threats from a stalker, uses the iconic song “I Will Always Love You” multiple times and the previous popularity of the singer to market the movie and gain a wider audience. Another really common marketing technique is to replicate more modern versions of classic love stories. For example, ‘Romeo and Juliet’ (1996) was a play on the original Shakespeare story by the same name, which was changed to fit modern times; this caused new audiences to gain interest in the movie as well as fans of the original story to be intrigued by the remake. 

              Pretty Woman is a film that follows the love story between Vivian Ward (Julia Roberts) and Edward Lewis (Richard Gere). Vivian is a struggling young woman that makes ends meet by working as an escort. One night she meets millionaire Edward and arranges a week-long “business arrangement” in which she has to keep him company. As they spend more time together, they begin to fall for one another in a classic “rags-to-riches” love story and despite trying to deny their feelings for each other at the beginning, they work out the difficulties and end up together. The poster of the movie clearly depicts their relationship as they are leaning against one another and the choice of their wardrobe clearly represents their status differences. The film has many instances in which the two characters can be seen under very dim, warm lighting (mostly when the most important intimate moments take place between them. The warm lighting gives a sense of tranquility and relaxation that goes hand-in-hand with intimacy. 

               The Titanic is arguably the most famous romance film out there. It is a historical fiction that follows the love story of Jack Dawson (Leonardo DiCaprio) and Rose DeWitt (Kate Winslet) at the time of the tragic sinking of the Titanic. The Titanic, at the time it set voyage, was the largest vessel ever built and its first voyage was a huge deal. In the movie, Rose was on the boat with her very wealthy family when she met a passenger from the 3rd class who was financially struggling, Jack. Jack and Rose start falling for one another as they spend more time together and face the difficulties of wanting to be together when they belonged to such different socioeconomic backgrounds. As their romance blooms, the vessel that historically sank in the Atlantic leaving little to no survivors, starts to do just that. The film deals with the tragic death of Jack and with an older Rose reminiscing on their story. Some of the most iconically romantic moments in this film are lit with warm, orange colors that once again, transmit intimacy, while the tragic and action packed scenes have more of a bluish tone which could represent the hopelessness of the situation they were in. The film’s use of close ups to emphasize interactions between the main two characters help develop their love story and show the character’s facial expressions throughout the story.

Sound Project

 The following project required us to create a storyline without any images and solely through the use of sound. We had to create our own soundscape representing our scenario with sound effects we found online as well as with foley sounds we created by ourselves. The sound had to be edited as seamlessly as possible in order to make the soundscape smooth and realistic. 

Me and my partner developed our project by first brainstorming. We sat down and started bouncing ideas off of each other to come up with a good scenario. We decided upon a story set in a basketball court. After this. We created an outline that would serve as a checklist of all the sounds we had to gather for each part of our soundscape. We divided the Foley sounds we needed between the both of us and figured out how we would make them. 

Once we had a clear plan to follow, we truly got to work. We decided to use “Cap Cut” as our editing app and started to play around with the sound. We had found all of the online sound effects at this point. We created the soundscape with put the Foley sounds first and then added them when we were done making them. We had a final rough draft and all that was left was giving it the last final touches through editing in order to make transitions between sounds as smooth as possible. 

Here are a few links to images of our process: 

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1LIPKn8nFLLTMoQpg9Rva9Q-ynpuc73I3/view?usp=drivesdk

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1G8_UVx-aMb_iDwNqyvfC_6NaqSzXEWnk/view?usp=drivesdk

https://drive.google.com/file/d/17VLKr3Saxcd2j86DHkH5n0pY1oq9GdxH/view?usp=drivesdk

Project Outline:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/14SRiCQnQaSyfzueyD3ohEDhxZAy_-q0L/view?usp=drivesdk

Soundscape project:

https://www.capcut.com/presentation/7291115799274733574?workspaceId=7290704452846305286 

Camera Shots/Angles Quiz

Our “Camera shots quiz” project required us to develop a visual story with an inanimate object through 15 shots. These shots had to include the series of shots and angles we learned in class.

Some of these were establishing, long, medium, close-ups, extreme close-ups, and point of view shots, as well as high and low angles.

My partner and I decided to do our project on a water bottle. We planned all of our shots and locations in correlation with our story beforehand so we knew what pictures we had to take. After we came up with the story and the plan, we went out and got to work.

 We used our school as the setting for our project, so we walked around taking pictures of the water bottle with the shots and angles we had learned about and making sure they portrayed our story clearly. When we were satisfied with how our pictures turned out, we created a powerpoint presentation to which we added the images; this way the story flowed and was easier to follow. Each image was designated to a slide and we specified which shot/angle was used and how it played a role in the development of the story. 

I think we did a pretty good job with the organization and execution of the project itself. We planned all of the images thoroughly beforehand in order for them to fit seamlessly to the story; this allowed us to work efficiently and under good timing. I would also say that we made each image be an accurate representation of each shot; a person could easily tell what shot or angle they were looking at when looking at our project. However, I wish we would’ve spent more time choosing each location in which we shot in order to make clear shifts in settings; sometimes it felt like the subject wasn’t traveling around the school as much as we wanted it to look like because the places in which we shot looked pretty similar to one another. If this was fixed it would make the plot of the story a little more clear.

Camera Shots/Angles Quiz PPT

Introduction

 Hi! 

My name is Camila and this is 'For the Record'

This blog will be used to document my experience and work for my Aice Media Studies class.