Independent Film Production Company

Since I would be working for an independent film production company, I thought it would be relevant to research this area of the creative sector. I wanted to find out what an independent film production company is; how they operate; how to form your own production company and the roles and responsibilities within this field of work. Here are some notes I have extract from various articles about independent film production companies.

An independent film production company is a business that creates independent feature films. Technically speaking, an independent feature film is any film not made by any of the major Hollywood studios – Warner Bros., NBC Universal (which includes the Comcast Corporation), The Walt Disney Company, Paramount, Viacom, CBS Corporation, News Corporation, Fox, or Sony (which includes Columbia Pictures, MGM, and United Artists). 

Major Studios

Essentially, a major studio differs from an independent production company in that it has all of the following:

(1) Its own production capacity; 

(2) Its own studio lot;(3) Its own financing capabilities;  (4) Its own distribution and marketing capabilities.

Generally, with independent film production the filmmaker retains artistic and budget decisions concerning the film. However, if the film obtains studio distribution, the major decisions in the production will be subject to the approval of the studio.

Independent Film Production Financing

The filmmaker should utilise a combination of financing. A filmmaker should not try to finance a film alone. The old saying is the filmmaker should use “OPM” – Other People’s Money. However, that is not totally accurate. Nowadays, the filmmaker is likely to put in some of his or her own funds toward the financing. This shows faith in the success of the production company and the film project.

Source:Sterling, J. (2015) Independent Film Production Company Formation & Financing Basics. Available at: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/independent-film-production-company-formation-basics-sterling-esq- (Accessed: 10 May 2016).

How to Form Your Own Production Company in the UK - 5 Tips from Elliot Grove, the founder of Raindance.

Tip 1 - Create a legal entity for your film company

In the UK it's blindingly simple to set up a company.

• Choose a name: do a quick google and IMDB search to make sure no one else has already grabbed it. If they have you need to change it.

• Register and form the company at Companies House. It's so easy to do now, but if you need advice, why not choose one of the short Raindance Basic Legal Contract courses. These are live in London and Toronto. You can also take them online.

• Get registered for local taxes.

• Get a bank account.

• Get a website - making sure you have the url of your name. You can search web names on Whois.com.

• Register your social media profiles: Twitter, FaceBook, Instagram, Pinterest. Make sure these profiles are available in your company's name too. Start getting followers and likes.

• Create your own YouTube channel and start getting subscribers.

Tip 2 - Create a business plan for your films

Nothing guarantees success more than a good, solid business plan. Decide what it is you want to do and how you are going to do it. Line up a team. Make a budget and schedule. Get an idea of who is going to fund it and how the money is going to return to investors.


Tip 3 - Raise some funds

There are several different ways to raise money depending on your business plan.

• Take your business plan to one of the big production companies, or even a studio.

• Apply for government funding like the UK's BFI.

• Partner with a producer in another country who will bring local public funds to the table (co-production).

• Get money from a brand (product placement).

• Find an angel investor.

• Launch a crowdfunding campaign.

Tip 4 - Assemble your team

Any production company of note has 4 key personnel. In your start-up phase you will deliver many if not all of these key roles yourself. As you grow and develop, and as your social media profiles kick into gear, you will start getting swamped with work, and you will need help.

• Head of development
  - to find and assess scripts.
  
• Head of production
  - to make sure the films are created on time and on budget.
  
• Head of post-production
  - someone to navigate the technical thrills and spills of the edit, and make sure the long list of film deliverables are met.
  
• Head of film sales and distribution
  - an increasingly key role. This person will supervise crowd-funding and self distribution in addition to the traditional sales routes.

Tip 5 - Film distribution

Embarking on a filmmaking career without a clear distribution strategy is a terribly bad decision. Digital technology advances have democratised the filmmaking process - anyone with a very few quid can make a film. This has flooded the market with inferior products meaning traditional distribution routes are choked with so-called product driving down prices. It's really not difficult to set up a film production company WITH distribution. It's just hard work.

Source: Grove, E. (2015) Starting Your Own Film Company - 5 Tips. Available at: http://www.raindance.org/starting-your-own-film-company-5-tips/ (Accessed: 10 May 2016).

Roles and Responsibilities within an Independent Film Production Company
Main Roles
Director This role varies tremendously from project-to-project, but, in general terms, a Director has creative control over the project from when he/she comes on board until the project is completed.

Producer
This is a hard role to define because there are so many different aspects to being a producer and each Producer is different (especially when it comes to making a short film). But, put simply, a Producer is where the buck stops on money, organisation, the team and rights.

Heads of Department
There are no hard-and-fast rules about how many crew members you need, but there are some heads of department that will make your life a lot easier:

Line Producer - ensures that the film comes in on time and on budget.
Director of Photography (DOP) - in technical charge of how the film is lit and shot.
Production Designer/Art Director - in charge of the production design helps create the style of the set. On low budget films these two roles are often merged.
Gaffer - chief lighting technician.
1st Assistant Director (1st AD) – runs the set according to the needs of the director.
Editor – cuts the film together.
Production Manager – organises everything and everyone on set.
Sound Recordist – in charge of everything to do with recording sound.

Additional Crew Members
Depending on the scale of your production, you may also need:

Focus Puller – in charge of focussing the camera.
Clapper Loader – loads the camera, takes care of the stock and records each take.
Location Manager – finds and secures locations.
Grip – looks after all the equipment for supporting and moving the camera while shooting (tracking, cranes etc.)
Continuity/Script Supervisor – makes sure everything seen on camera is consistent from shot-to-shot.
2nd Assistant Director (2nd AD) – helps the 1st AD, particularly co-ordinating actors to and from set.
3rd Assistant Director (3rd AD) – is the 1st AD's right-hand person. He/she is always on set and often co-ordinates the runners.
Boom Operator – holds the boom, ensuring that the microphone is as near as possible to the actors without being in shot.
Sparks - lighting technicians.
Costume Designer – designs, purchases, and manages costumes.
Hair/Makeup Designer – designs, and usually executes, hair and makeup.
Production Co-ordinator – works under the production manager to co-ordinate the smooth running of the set .
Storyboard Artist – works with the director to create a shot by shot storyboard of the action to be filmed.
Stills Photographer – takes still images of actors and crew for publicity reasons.
Assistants and Runners – needed in every department - the more hands the better.

Source:

BBC (2008) Film Network - Film Making Guide: Cast & Crew. Available at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/filmnetwork/filmmaking/guide/production/cast-and-crew (Accessed: 10 May 2016).

http://www.bfi.org.uk/sites/bfi.org.uk/files/downloads/bfi-film-industry-companies-june-2015.pdf

TO DO LIST

WHAT MY PROCESS JOURNAL STILL NEEDS

Annotations for each week

- Finish off adding contact sheets, call sheets and reflections

- Image selection for project

- Editing Images

- Test and Final Prints

- Project Reflection

- Specific Photographers research

- Previous works in Photography

Title & Project Description [250 words]

Your project description should be written as if for a potential curator or publisher of your work (i.e. it should not be informal). You should reflect on the inspiration for your project and the relationship of the images to the title. You should also comment on the style/form you have chosen (eg. documentary) and on the idea/subject matter itself. Try to place your work in the wider context of the genre you have chosen you may mention an influence here. 



Title: Dad

Description: 

Dad is a creative photographic project composed by George Whale. Initially, the project's aim was to tell a personal 'picture story' (Bate, D. 2010, p.46) of his father. However, Dad developed into a project that embodies the approach of environmental portraiture, with elements of documentary, lifestyle and vernacular photography all present within Whale’s collection of images.
Inspired by the works of Richard Billingham, Tina Barney and Richard Harkin, Whale's photographs tell a visual story about his father’s identity within his family and society by capturing his subject in environments in which he carries out his everyday lifestyle activities and spends his leisure time. By focusing his project on a personal subject, Whale takes up the role of being an eyewitness to his subject's lifestyle activities and he positions his audience to gaze at the subject through his own eyes, observing Whale's interpretation of his own father's identity.

Whale choses to photograph his subject in natural environments and manipulates the elements of portraiture discussed by Bate in Photography: The Key Concepts such as the props and his subject's costume to create ideologies about the subject's personality. "It is thought that you will be able to better illuminate their character, and therefore portray the essence of their personality, rather than merely a likeness of their physical features"  (Hilton 1999) which is why Whale choses to photograph his subject in settings that they feel comfortable in.Using a Nikon D300 to accomplish his project, Whale's environmental portraits exhibit an authentic portrayal of his subject's identity and uses the art of semiotics and the construction of mise-en-scène to exaggerate certain qualities of his father's character. 

Bibliography

Bate, D. (2010) Photography: The Key Concepts, Berg: Oxford, New York. 

Hilton, J. (1999) Special Occasion Photography (Pro-Photo Series), : RotoVision.

Week 11 [Workshop Notes]

Re-Editing on Photoshop and Camera RAW

In this week's workshop, our tutor gave another tutorial of how to use the post-production softwares available for us to use for editing our photographs for our creative project. This was because a few students were not there for last week's workshop, so it was vital they had an understanding of Camera RAW and Photoshop. Here are some notes that I took down that I found relevant for me to further my knowledge in these softwares.

Camera RAW edits our photograph from 16-bit RAW files into an 8-bit shape. The higher range of tones, the higher bit rate the photograph file is.

On Camera RAW we can change the colour balance of our original photograph from the presets available from the camera, for instance we can add a flash balance which can make the image appear warmer.

We want to create the best photograph with the high amount of tones in order to make it easier to edit in Photoshop.

Vibrancy deals with the peaking colours, you can reduce this so they're not clipped. It doesn't matter if they go off the chart vertically as this is the range of tones of a certain pixel/colour. We do not want the histogram clipped off horizontally.

Use sharpness and noise reduction to get rid of graininess within the image.

Lens correction is important. This is because the circular lens cuts a square out of what we see, thus the light makes the focus sharper for the centre of the image.

Use a software called 'Spider' to calibrate your screens for editing.

Photoshop allows you to:
- Crop 

- Orientation

- Texture

- Brightness

- Vignette

- Filters

Set your photoshop workspace to "Photography" --> This makes the tools and workspace more relevant for photograph editing.

Set you crop/size of image to A4 which is 210mm x 297mm (dimension WxH)

PRESS ENTER TO APPLY EDITS

Always duplicate your layer before applying effects to your image so you don't ruin your original image, plus you can compare the original image to the layer that you've edited.

Usually you'll add a layers of:

- Hue and Saturation

- Curves

- Levels

These help enhance the richness and depth of your photographs. You can adjust how much of these layers come through to your image, so the effects may not appear as strong.

Photoshop and Editing Images - Week 10 [Workshop Notes]

Editing Your Photographs

Using Photoshop

An image is a set of RGB values (Red, Green, Blue). Each pixel in your photo has a different tone a colour in are valued and labelled in the form of RGB (Red, Green, Blue) between 0-256.
We can convert them to CMYK (Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, Black)

Photoshop allows us to adjust these numbers in order to change the exposure, contrasts etc.

Be sure to shoot in RAW. files as well as jpeg. jpegs is a condensed image in comparison to RAW. By condensing the files, making contain less data reduces the image quality. Also, the limited range (8-bit file), RAW files are 16-bit so it can capture brighter and darker bits which a jpeg image could not. 

Shooting RAW. has a lot more tonal quality.

We need to launch 'Camera RAW' before launching photoshop. Non-creative work is done with Camera RAW before doing the creative treatment on Photoshop. Once all tweaks are done, we then export the files as jpeg.

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Using Adobe Bridge

When using Adobe Bridge

Film Strip - For those more comfortable with Microsoft users, you can used it to compare images.

Metadata - Shows you how the camera was set for the images.

Output - Create a PDF contact sheets and we can edit all captions.

You can label images with star ratings and then we can easily pick and chose images, reducing you collection of quality images.

Double click an image you want to edit, this will automatically launch photoshop an import the image to it. However, with RAW images, it will launch Camera RAW as photoshop wants to change the images from 16-bit to 8-bit.

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Editing your Images in Camera RAW

Using the image's histogram graph, 

X-axis = shadows to highlights
Y-axis = pixel strength

You want to get the best tonal range of the image. You want to reduce and enhance the values so they are within the boundaries of the histogram.

Black triangles shows you where on your image you have gone out of the tonal range.

Icons

White Balance - These alters the colour temperature of the image. Even if you preset your camera to a 'daylight' filter, Camera RAW will get rid of this. 
You can alter the tint and colour temperature too.

Highlights and Shadows - Top and low end tones will be alter, this can add a lot more detail to your photographs. 

Lens Correction - Lens gives you a round image, but your camera takes a square format. This helps alter light dispersion through the lens. Lens correction loses the vignette of the image, this can be re-added.

XMP files are changes to an image. They do not read or burn over the original file.

Once all corrections are done, select open image to open them in photoshop.

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Editing your Images in Photoshop

Change your tool options to photography, this will bring back the histogram.

Photoshop works through layering images. They're a non-destructive way of image manipulation.

Your cursor becomes you tool. Learn keyboard shortcuts to save yourself some time.

As you flattened your image in camera RAW, you now want to give your image some depth and contrast.

First thing you do when you start to edit the image is to duplicate the layer and add an adjustment layer.

Curves Layer - Make a characteristic curve, you can add film themes and various other edits to adjust your image. 

Black and White - You monochrome the image and you select the relevant colours and alter them. 

Clone stamp tool is really good for getting rid of reflections and blemishes from an image.

Dodge tool - Makes values brighter
Burn tool - Makes values darker

These subtle retouches are really effective for your images in terms of it's lightning.

Shape and size. Make sure you [Crop tool, fourth icon down] crop your images before you touch it up

You want your images to be in these format
A4 - find these presets online 210 x 297 (double the small number for landscape)
ppi - 300 (print resolution - find out)


Save your image as a either a photoshop file (when you haven't quite finished editing) or a TIFF for when you print your images (full resolution with no compression) or a jpeg for when you hand them in. jpeg is when you images are FULLY EDITED.

My Previous Work in Photography

Photos on Instagram/Phone:

Landscape

https://www.instagram.com/p/_jy1qwHCNd/?taken-by=gwhale69

https://www.instagram.com/p/9PHs92HCAh/?taken-by=gwhale69

https://www.instagram.com/p/4_5Ha8HCMh/?taken-by=gwhale69

https://www.instagram.com/p/3MFnV9HCKp/?taken-by=gwhale69

https://www.instagram.com/p/2Y24nhHCHq/?taken-by=gwhale69

https://www.instagram.com/p/xW4IRonCGH/?taken-by=gwhale69

https://www.instagram.com/p/xM6c98nCJk/?taken-by=gwhale69

https://www.instagram.com/p/sZs61YHCGJ/?taken-by=gwhale69

https://www.instagram.com/p/sNVkncHCAK/?taken-by=gwhale69

https://www.instagram.com/p/ibkD_cHCEK/?taken-by=gwhale69

https://www.instagram.com/p/c3yz7bHCJm/?taken-by=gwhale69

https://www.instagram.com/p/bT7cq9nCHM/?taken-by=gwhale69

https://www.instagram.com/p/Y-J42SHCNx/?taken-by=gwhale69

https://www.instagram.com/p/V9m2SyHCLt/?taken-by=gwhale69

Portrait

https://www.instagram.com/p/BA2KQ_LHCB7/?taken-by=gwhale69

https://www.instagram.com/p/5yy2fdHCND/?taken-by=gwhale69

https://www.instagram.com/p/bKgtRCnCPK/?taken-by=gwhale69

https://www.instagram.com/p/VxTU0SHCEB/?taken-by=gwhale69

https://www.instagram.com/p/WYC6skHCH5/?taken-by=gwhale69

Documentary

https://www.instagram.com/p/5IQLrNHCEs/?taken-by=gwhale69

https://www.instagram.com/p/dXDXJkHCFC/?taken-by=gwhale69

https://www.instagram.com/p/Z1R4LcnCEI/?taken-by=gwhale69

Street

https://www.instagram.com/p/_INOpCnCH7/?taken-by=gwhale69

https://www.instagram.com/p/Z3ldkMnCFN/?taken-by=gwhale69

https://www.instagram.com/p/UjfjgYHCME/?taken-by=gwhale69

https://www.instagram.com/p/T80oEfHCFm/?taken-by=gwhale69

Tips on Shooting Environmental Portraits - Week 9 [Project Research Notes]

Notes from 'Chapter 2: The Environmental Portrait' taken from David D. Busch, Rob Sheppard (2012) David Busch's Portrait/candid/street Photography: Compact Field Guide, : Course Technology. (page. 27-37)

Keep It Simple
Concentrate on your subject and try not to let your surroundings/environment dominate over the subject. Remember to consider your focal length and depth-of-field as this affects perspective.

Practice!
To get more comfortable with your environment, shoot and experiment with non-threatening subjects such as a friend/relative or even a doll. By experimenting, you will understand how to control the sharpness of your backgrounds before the real subject comes in front of the camera.

Smile :)
This will make any situation with someone feel more comfortable and confident so don't forget to smile as you shoot. This can create great facial expressions you can capture during your shoots.

Think About How to Best Get a Sharp Photo
Using a tripod definitely helps in this case. However, this isn't always possible with environmental portraits. If you use a hand-held camera, be sure to use a fast shutter-speed and/or anti-shake/image stabilisation technology built into your camera or lens. The most common cause for unsharp images comes from camera movement during exposure. 


Choosing Focal Length
Your choice of focal length influences three important aspects of your photograph. These are:
Angle of View
The most obvious effect of focal length choice. A wide-angle lens will show you more of with environment with your subject. A telephoto lens will narrow down that and of view to less of the surrounding in which the subject is based.

Environmetal Photography Mood Board - Week 8 [Homework Task Photos]

Using inspirational photographs relating to my own creative project theme of environmental portraits of my father, I created a mood board via the Picasa image application. Here are some examples of the mood boards that I have produced:

Photoshoot #1 @ Graveney School - Week 8 [Photoshoot Notes]

Environmental Photography - Week 8 [Project Research Notes]

During our workshop after the Easter break [Week 8], our class's tutor, Paul Vincent brought up the topic of environmental portrait photography. I was intrigued by this style of photography as I noticed from the photos projected in class that, in some way they related to the project I was undergoing regarding the subject of my father. Since I wanted to take photos of my father in different locations to signify his lifestyle and identity I took upon myself to do some research into this area of photography and find an online journal to review which related to this approach of photography.

Environmental Photography

This is a genre of photography by which subject's are photographed in their usual environment, such as in their home or workplace, and typically illuminates the subject's life and surroundings. It is most commonly used by magazines/newspapers as including background detail and elements of someone’s environment through props and the mise-en-scene tells more of their story than a plain portrait shot in a studio.

"By photographing a person in their natural surroundings, it is thought that you will be able to better illuminate their character, and therefore portray the essence of their personality, rather than merely a likeness of their physical features. It is also thought that by photographing a person in their natural surroundings, the subject will be more at ease, and so be more conducive to expressing themselves, as opposed to in a studio, which can be a rather intimidating and artificial experience."

Quote from Jonathan Hilton in his book:Hilton, J. (1999) Special Occasion Photography (Pro-Photo Series), : RotoVision.

Tips on Shooting Environmental Portraits

1. Get Candid
Warm up by snapping some candid shots of your subject going about their normal routine. Try not to be too intrusive as the less your subject notices you’re there, the more relaxed they’ll feel. It takes people a few minutes to stop feeling awkward in front of a camera.

2. Add Props
Add a prop to show more personality and to give your subject something to pose with. his is also a great solution if you’re working with an uninspiring background; tools of the trade or even pieces of uniform, such as a chef’s hat, instantly add interest and detail.

3. Monochrome
Black-and-white has timeless appeal and is also a great way to make a busy shot like this one more restful to look at. This post-production technique further enhances the reportage feel of the image. 

4. Strike a pose
When you’ve taken a few candid shots, ask your subject to pose for you. Position them in their surroundings in a way that keeps them in the foreground as the main focus of the shot and keep chatting to them while you snap to keep their face animated and natural.
- If the background feels too busy, dial down to an f-stop like f/3.5 to blur it.

5. Widen up
For a different look, whip a wide-angle lens like our Sigma 10-20mm out of your camera bag and try including more of the surroundings in the shot. This is an especially effective trick if there are multiple people milling around as you’ll be able to capture them all in one photo.

6. Use the light
If you’re shooting indoors, like us, position your subject near a natural light source. Another option in low light is to ask a friend to use a golden reflector to bounce more light onto your subject’s face.

Taken from: 
Meyer, J. (13th November 2013) Environmental Portrait Photography: How to Shoot Candid Reportage-style Portraits, Available at: http://www.digitalcameraworld.com/2013/11/13/environmental-portrait-photography-how-to-shoot-candid-reportage-style-portraits/ (Accessed: 13th April 2016).

Week Six [Workshop Notes]

Student Presentations:

Connotation and Denotation - Stadium + Punctum

In Language Analysis
- Words are not limited to one single meaning, most of them now have more than one which are categorised as Connotative and Denotative 


In Image analysis

Denotative - "It is the literal face-value meaning of the sign" which means that it refers to the literal meaning of the photo, the elements we can see

Connotative - "It is all the social, cultural and historical meanings that are added to a sign's literal meaning."This means that it refers to the associations and emotional suggestions that are connected to a certain word. It is adding attitude to the a word. 

Value of a photo
The image reveals what the creator wants us to see.


Studium - A kind of education (civility, politeness) that allows discovery of the operator (Provides a range of meanings obvious for everyone.

Punctum - An object/image that jumps out at the viewer within the photograph.


Studium - Similar concept of denotation, to study and understand the meaning of the photograph

Punctum - Similar concept of connotation, rare details that attract an audience to an image that is compelling to the spectator.


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Ethics of Representation in Photography

Ethics are principles reflecting values of a society. Issues arise in interpretation and and application.

Key Ethics of Representation: Representation, Profit, Conformity, Ownership

Ethical Considerations when taking your photos:

- Autonomy - 
In what way can I show respect for a person's right to decline or consent to photography? How do I handle informed consent

- Non-Maleficence - 
(Do No Harm) Am I creating and using photos in a manner that will do no harm to persons appearing in photos?

- Beneficence - 
(Do Good) What is my intention or purpose for taking this photo? How can I use a photo to promote a good cause while ensuring that I do no harm to individuals in photos?

- Fidelity -
Am I using photos in a context that fairly represents the real situation, subject identity, or physical location of the image?

- Justice - 
Am I photographing people and communities with the same respect I would show to neighbours and strangers in my home country?

Profit Making - Diane Arbus
"A world in which everybody is an alien, hopelessly isolated. immobilised in mechanical, crippled identities and - Sontag

Kevin Carter "Struggling Girl" Sudan 1993



Manipulation - Check the work of Brian Walski on the Iraqi War. He crossed-over images and made a huge photo hoax from it

Portrait and Fashion Photography

The most 'photoshop' form of photography today. It takes the spectator aware from the 'true' image by the manipulation of certain elements in the photo.

Image Theft
Richard Prince - Plagiarised other people's work on Instagram and pulled the images off their accounts for one of his exhibitions

It's important to consider the bigger picture and the aftermath of your photographs. What does it represent and express.



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'The Other' in Photography

19th Century photography focused on the documentary mode, this tendency came out of social criticism and journalism.

Things that photographers may represent:

-
-

Sebastiao Salgado - Culture
A documentary photographers where his worked aimed to uncover and show the 'other' to a westernised audience. His work tells the truth inn order to get recognition on an under privileged society.

Michael Chelbin - Identity
Aimed to capture human stories in everyday life, those that exist in the space between the odd and the ordinary.

Diane Arbus - Sexual Identity
Her photos "flaunt and humanise abnormality" of her works from 1968.

Matthew Brady - War
Jacob Riis - Slums of East NYC Shows scenes in the ghetto for his middle class lantern slide audiences and newspaper readers.

Lewis Hine - Child Labour
Photographs children in their working environment, he promoted photography as a tool of social criticism.

August Sander - Identity/Social role 
He developed a taxonomic model of portrait photography where the identity of the sitter was defined, in their social role.



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The 'New Aesthetic'

The new aesthetic is a native product of modern network culture from London and it was born digitally, on the Internet. The New Aesthetic is a 'theory object' and a shareable concept.
The New Aesthetic is a collaborative attempt to draw a circle around several species of aesthetic activity - Drone photography, Ubiquitous surveillance, glitch imagery, street-view photography.

Drone Cameras
Drone cameras can fly close to the ground, through a tree, along a wall and then climb high for an amazing panorama. BBC's Earthflight demonstrated just how valuable a drone can be. It's quiet rotors allowed the camera to shoot a flock of flamingo's that a helicopter could never have done with it's loud propellers.

Street-View Photography
You can take a virtual walk down almost any street in the developed world

Presentation Script

Lutz, C., & Collins, J. L. (1993). The Photograph as an Intersection of Gazes. In Reading National Geographic (pp. 187–216). Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

What is the 'Gaze'?

‘The gaze’ is a technical term which was originally used in film theory in the 1970s but which is now more broadly used by media theorists to refer both to the ways in which viewers look at images of people in any visual medium and to the gaze of those depicted in visual texts. According to Schroeder, the gaze "signifies a psychological relationship of power, in which the gazer is superior to the object of the gaze"

We'll focus closely on the Lutz and Collins article on 'The photograph and the intersection of gazes' to help structure this presentation. Their article talks about how the National Geographic magazine is of a tremendous potential cultural importance, where its photographs have voraciously focused on the third world scenes. 

A majority of their photographs are of the non-westerner and can be seen not simply as captured view of the other but a dynamic site at which gazes or view points intersect. This intersection creates a complex and multi-dimensional object. It allows viewers to negotiate a number of different identities both for themselves and those pictured.

The article explores the significance of the gaze, and the 7 kinds of gaze that can be found in the photograph. The 7 are...

1. The Photographers Gaze
2. The Institutional Gaze, magazine gaze.
3. The Readers Gaze.
4. The Non-Westerners Gaze.
5. The Explicit looking done by westerners.
6. The Gaze returned or refracted.
7. Our own academic gaze.


[Next Slide]



AN EXPLICIT WESTERN GAZE

The effects of this type of photograph on readers are potentially important and complex, both in representing and teaching the National Geographic audience about that relationship and perhaps allowing for a kind of identification with the Westerner in the photo and through that allowing for more intensive interaction or imaginary participation in the photo.

Throughout the years National Geographic has been publishing articles on the non-Western world. Their photographs show the westerners engaged in a variety of activities: they view the local landscape from atop a hill, hold and closely study an artifact, show a local tribal person some wonder of Western technology, such as a photograph, mirror or the camera itself, or interact with a native, in conversation, work or play.

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The pictures of westerners can serve a validating function by proving that the author/photographer was there. The reader can be convinced that the account is a first hand one, brought from the field rather then from the archives.

Whether or not Westerners appear in the picture, we 'are' there, but in pictures that include a Westerner, we may see ourselves being viewed by the other, and we become conscious of ourselves and relationships. The act of seeing the self being seen is antithetical to the voyeurism which many art critics have identified as intrinsic to most photography and film


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THE REFRACTED GAZE OF THE OTHER
(To see themselves as others see them )

The film theorist Christian Metz made an analogy between the cinema screen and a mirror (Metz 1975), arguing that through identifying with the gaze of the camera, the cinema spectator re-enacts what the psychoanalytic theorist Jacques Lacan called 'the mirror stage', a stage at which looking into the mirror allows the infant to see itself for the first time as other - a significant step in ego formation. 

Extending this observation to still photography, in a small number of National Geographic issues, a native is shown with a camera or mirror.  These are both tools of self-reflection and surveillance. Each creates a double of the self, a second figure who can be examined more closely than the original — a double that can also be alienated from the self, taken away, as a photograph can be, to another place. For many Americans, self knowledge is a central life goal. On the other hand, there is a childish naivety when a native gets to see his reflection.

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There have been changes, Take a look at this photo, where the Indians may have stood unwillingly for photographs they are now charging 80 cents a person as they pose. It depicts the act of looking at unwilling subjects, suggesting two things. The first, voyeurism of the photograph of the exotic.  The camera gaze is doubled in this picture, not the native subject as in the photos above where the camera enters the frame in some explicit sense, and this doubling underlines the western gaze.


Success in avoiding boredom is key to retaining readers interest the photographer is always trying to colonise new experiences or find new ways to look at familiar subjects–to fight against boredom. For boredom is just the reverse side of fascination: both depend on being outside rather than inside a situation, and one leads to the other. Thus, images are constructed rather than found in some cases.



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THE ACADEMIC SPECTATOR 

This gaze is simply a sub-type of the readers gaze.  We read a National Geographic magazine with a sense of astonishment and wonder, both as children and, in a way that is different only some of the time as adults.

We aim to make pictures tell a different story than they were originally meant to tell, one about their makers and readers, rather than their subjects.

This seventh kind of looking is guided by the idea that an alternative gaze is possible, one which is less dominating, more orientating toward seeing how a scene and its viewer might be changed than toward its imagined essential, unchanging and unsatisfactory form.

As we are invited to dream in the photograph, we are also invited to forget and be lost in it.
Our reading theory has also tutored our gaze at the photographs in distinctive ways, it has told us how to understand the techniques by which they work. We are captured by the temptation to view the photographs as more real than the world or at least a substitute for it.

Through attention to the dynamic nature of these intersecting gazes, the photograph becomes less vulnerable to the change or illusion that it masks or stuffs and mounts the world, freezes the life out of a scene. While the gaze of the subject of the photograph might be fairly lost in the heavy criss crossing traffic of the often more privileged producers and consumers gazes, very contemporary stories of contestable power are told there nonetheless.

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THE GAZE AND GENDER THEORY

Laura Mulvey discusses feminist film theory in relation to the gaze in her essay "Visual pleasure and narrative cinema". She focuses on way in which looking in patriarchal society is "split between active/male and passive/female. The determining male gaze projects it's fantasy onto the female figure which is styled accordingly." Women are to be looked at and put on display; both the camera apparatus and the male gaze regulate their gaze and thus women can only identity with the self as an object. Mulvey concludes that the gendered gaze of the cinema systematically determines who sees and who is seen, and the gaze serves as an aggressive medium for male domination.

The gaze can also be seen by some as masculine.  John Berger points out in his book Ways of Seeing (1972), contemporary gender ideologies and envisages men as active doers and women as passive presence, men by what they do to others and women by their attitudes towards themselves. (men act and women appear). 

Both Mulvey and Berger alert us in the ways in which the position of the spectator has the potential to enhance or articulate the power of the observer over the observed.


The unique vision of the female spectator is explored, and seen as multiple because it can move between identification with the object and with the spectator in comparison to the male gaze. For example, there is no single masculine spectator position for viewing the ethnic representations in the National Geographic. While the image makers at National Geographic are overwhelmingly white and male, the magazine's readers come from a wide range of social positions within American society.