Media Industries 2 – Seminar Involvement Week 2
My group’s seminar will focus on ‘Women in Media’, or the lack thereof. I am in a group of 13 media students who feel strongly about the need for equality in all aspects of media production. After reading astounding statistics about the lack of representation of females in film, I see this as an obvious choice being a woman hoping to break it into the film industry.
Contribution & Collaboration
Media students were frantically running around the lecture theatre last Friday trying to find a seminar topic that tickled their fancy. I walked to the ‘urn’ to find a group of 7 like-minded individuals, I knew this wasn’t enough. I searched the room for familiar faces and pled with them to join the cause. I made a spiel about how these issues were going to be facing them in the future and the importance of equality. It worked; I managed to find another 4 people to join and then another 2 followed. We won!
Participation
After the introductions and brief discussion of the reasons we were interested in the topic, I established a Facebook group and befriended everyone. As Jonno took control of the white board and Georgi jotted down some hand written notes, I established a Google Drive folder for all of our documents. I added my opinion that promoting the event with the word ‘feminism’ would most definitely detract a crowd of people who would gain from the experience, and who do indeed need their opinions about feminism changed. We brainstormed ways of presenting the seminar, positive role models such as Lena Dunham, potential guests as well as recent issues raised in the media including the Triple M promotion that provoked a discussion about their complete lack of female representation throughout their station.
Proactive Learning
After the class I collated the information from Georgi’s notes and my own ideas into the meeting notes document in the Google Drive folder. I added a few extra points mentioned within the meeting, a list of 11 potential seminar guests (Judi McCrossin (Screenwriter/Producer), Sam Strauss (Screenwriter), Joanna Werner (Producer), Jenny Tosi (CEO of Film Victoria), Natalie Miller (Film Distribution), Justine Sless (Stand-Up Comedian), Clare Wright (author/broadcaster), Brodie Lancaster (Writer – Filmme Fatales), Denise Scott (Comedian/Actress), Claire Hooper (Comedian/TV Presenter) and Celia Pacquola (Comedian/TV presenter), a series of links about relevant statistics (see below) and a table of strengths and potential responsibilities (for group members to add to themselves).
In relation to this assignment, my skills lie in organisation, creativity, filming and social media. I would be most interested in being the group manager, guest liaison, event organiser and promoter.
I also developed some agenda items for the next meeting including finalising the group name, consolidating the roles, refining the list of guests and starting to contact them as well as further brainstorming the event structure.
I developed some name suggestions for the event such as Chicks in Flicks, Girls on Film and Femme in Film. I posted a series of links to female related songs that can be used for the video promotions such as Respect and Girls on Film.
Relevant links:
Female? These are your chances of getting on film
For females in film progress is frozen
Gender inequality in film – interesting statistics in relation to whole film industry.
Triple M – a male dominated station
9 depressing facts from the latest women in media report
Destroy The Joint Facebook Page – ‘This page is for people who are sick of the sexism dished out to women in Australia, whether they be our first female Prime Minister or any other woman’. They post a lot of interesting facts about women in the workplace.