Doc Blog

2008-02-27T14:15:00.000-08:00

Spring break we are shooting again!

2007-10-23T19:45:00.000-07:00

Well two people we were supposed to get b-roll of blew us off when we went to Raleigh so we only got a lot of b-roll of ONE person!! But, I'm glad we got something. We got footage of Aj. He was very nice and helped us out a lot! He let me look though all his photo albums and was reflecting on them how he was "a different person" then. Here are some pictures. Ps. I love his dog!!
Here is AJ now

AJ as a baby :)

AJ at prom

And... his Dog Zoe

Shoot tomorrow!

2007-10-19T08:21:00.000-07:00

Well, we are going to Chapel Hill for another shoot tomorrow. Aj, Conner, and Ericka have agreed to let us scan pictures of them (of family, childhood, etc.)We want to get some serious b-roll so our film is more than talking heads! We may talk to our specialist as well. I hope this helps our film because lately I have been worried about it.

Cool Mistakes

2007-09-11T19:58:00.001-07:00

Random Scene

2007-09-11T10:49:00.000-07:00

Here is a scene of the drag queens at Ibiza getting ready for the show. Unfortunatly, You Tube doesn't do our footage justice. Enjoy!

Ericka!

2007-09-09T09:42:00.000-07:00

The shoot was fun and raised my spirits. I really love Erika. She is so easy to talk to and has been so helpful to us. We plan to make her a focus of our Doc and follow her around in Chapel Hill.

Oy!

2007-08-27T12:50:00.000-07:00

We have all this beautiful footage, we have spent so much time and put so much heart into this project but right now all I feel is anxious and completely overwhelmed. Where do I start? To look at our footage will take 20 hours alone and I can’t even imagine editing that amount of footage. I know we will have to pick and choose but it’s easier said than done. I don’t feel like we have all of the footage we need- and unfortunately the footage we still need is seeming to be the most important aspect of our film: following around a few transgendered people in daily life. We planed to shoot this summer but my partner (our wonderful DP Chris) was out of town and now he is really busy with this and that. I begged him to take editing with me so now I have to be understanding about his busy schedule. I just don’t know how to get this momentum going. I have never edited a feature film before and am worried about finding a structure that works. I have high expectations for this film and for myself and I just don’t want to fail. Today I am just not feeling confidant ☹ This may just be stress talking.

Some Pics I took at Ibiza!

2007-07-03T09:54:00.000-07:00

A question for you...

2007-06-22T14:05:00.000-07:00

So, I am starting to think about editing the film and I am kind of freaking out. I am not sure what the structure should be. I don't know if we should stick with the 15 min rule or try to make it longer. We have so much great footage I just don't know what to do with it all.

I think inbetween all of the footage there should be some type of graphic with statistics or quotes. But statistics are so ... well I need to find ones we can trust and I am not sure what I even want statistics about or where to get them. How many people get gender afferming operations each year? Thats one. So I'm asking, What kind of information (text wise) would you want to know about in a film about transgender????? What questions do you have? Please help me help you enjoy the film more.

Theres always more...

2007-05-07T19:15:00.000-07:00

I know its the end of the semerster but I thought of more things our doc needs, and if I forget later on I can always look back to this, would it be crazy just to blog to myself??? I just loose paper so easily.
-I was thinking we could search for yearbooks and find pictures
- If anyone has home videos that would be awesome
- I think we need some stats, some information or results to studies and use text and graphics
- If we show the transgender interviewees our footage maybe they will let us into their lives more and may be more willing to give us pictures and such
- We need to find pictures of the penis/vagina after op. I think a lot of people are curious about that...

Vox pops

2007-04-23T07:19:00.000-07:00

We went downtown to get vox pops yesterday. Emilie went up to ask people to be in it, I asked the questions and Chris worked the camera so it all worked out pretty well. It was really pretty yesterday so I'm sure the footage is beautiful. We got 29 people to answer, "What does it mean to be male?", "What does it mean to be female?", "What does it mean to be transgendered?"(If they didn't know I told them) then, "How do you feel about those individuals?" we got a lot of different answeres ranging from, "its all good people can be anything they want to be to"... "God only made male and female thats it, and I know the truth" he also said that women were here to serve men so yeah to each their own. We should still go to campus and do more so we have more responces. I think thats about it for now.

2007-04-18T09:14:00.000-07:00

Well this week was full of good intention. But... we got cancelled on by Big Poppa (it wasn't his fault) it had to do with corporate issues. We will still get footage of him at the soapbox next week though. We also had wanted to shoot outside at campus but the wind wouldn't let us. Where is another good location for vox pops? I kind of like the idea of them being outside... Also we got in conatct with our expert to ask for old photos of our interviewees as well as for contact info for one of the people we would like to follow around. I have no problem taking this project into the summer and I think its going to happen, but I really want us to get the middle school, day care, highschool shoots done while school is in session, but that seems like the most hard interviews to get of all!!!

2007-04-09T19:00:00.001-07:00

Still in the lab 11 hours later.... hehe

I never think of good names for blogs

2007-04-09T11:18:00.000-07:00

Well lets see. Either Wednesday night or monday night we are going to get footage of Big Poppa (aka Shannon) a drag king who works at the Soapbox, Bluewater Grill, and also is an artist and makes jewelry so we are going to tape her doing her thing. When I asked about the other drag kings this is what she said, " Bridget (aka Ashton) is a firefighter so I'm not sure she'd be able to let you tape her during work but maybe if you don't say it's about drag, lol. Sara (aka Jack Dailey) works at a nursing home as a CNA, so there again, I don't know how that will work for them." So we will contact them but we don't know if we will be able to tape them doing those things even though it is a PERFECT example that transgender people are in the community being helpful, not just these isolated freaks. Besides that this weekend was not awesome. We were supposed to get Erica doing Drag but her Grandma is really sick and then we had some... well a lot of trouble logging and capturing but we are in the lab now and on our 4th tape phew!!! We don't have any vox pops yet or any general gender context footage. Lots to do!!!!

"Lifes a DRAG"

2007-03-30T06:58:00.000-07:00

The shoot went well. We got the drag kings getting ready (putting hair on face, binding boobs, etc) then we got the show and it was so much different than the divaish drag queen shows. This was more hip hopish and more sexual. We had fun talking with everyone and it's cool cause they are filmmakers too.

Oh and check this out (GER!):

http://mediamatters.org/items/200703260009
I'll copy here but there is also a sound clip on the website.

Savage blames sexual reassignment surgery for Columbine massacre

On the March 23 broadcast of his nationally syndicated radio show, Michael Savage continued to discuss a March 20 report in the San Francisco Chronicle detailing the murder of a transgender woman whose body was found naked near a freeway outside San Francisco: "The wages of sin are death. You're gonna cut off your willy, you're gonna walk around in women's clothes, you're gonna hook -- you're gonna wind up dead under a freeway, Johnson. It's not gonna be an HBO special about your travails, and how surgery made you a happy woman." Later, Savage asserted that "the capital of [sexual reassignment surgery] is somewhere in Colorado, near Columbine," adding, "You wonder why the kids shoot each other there with black raincoats." According to MapQuest.com, Trinidad, Colorado, known as "the sex-change capital of the world," is about 194 miles from Littleton, Colorado, where the Columbine High School massacre occurred.

As Media Matters for America has noted, on the March 20 broadcast of his show, Savage called the murder victim -- who according to the Chronicle report "had been in the process of becoming a woman" -- a "psychopath" and a "freak," and said, "[She] should have been in a back ward in a straitjacket for years, howling on major medication."

As Media Matters has also documented (here, here, and here), Savage has a history of hateful attacks on gays and lesbians. He has repeatedly referred to "the homosexual mafia," claimed that "the homosexual dance of death" is the "seminal issue of our time," and compared gays to "drug addicts." As Media Matters has also noted, Savage was signed by Hollywood's Creative Artists Agency (CAA) for "representation in all areas" -- including television and film -- but was reportedly dropped after Media Matters documented his comments attacking singer and CAA client Melissa Etheridge for thanking her wife during her Academy Awards acceptance speech.

The Savage Nation reaches more than 8 million listeners each week, according to Talkers Magazine, making it the third-most-listened-to talk radio show in the nation, behind only The Rush Limbaugh Show and The Sean Hannity Show.

From the March 23 edition of Talk Radio Network's The Savage Nation:

SAVAGE: The wages of sin are death. You're gonna cut off your willy, you're gonna walk around in women's clothes, you're gonna hook -- you're gonna wind up dead under a freeway, Johnson. It's not gonna be an HBO special about your travails, and how surgery made you a happy woman.

I never understand these people. Guy is 55 years old, he had three children, he discovers there was a woman within, and he goes -- shots and hormones, three years of hormones, and live like a woman. And then you gotta dress like a woman for two years. And then they go to a psychopathic, sadistic doctor who does the thing for them. No more in Denmark -- I mean, the capital of it is somewhere in Colorado, of course, near Columbine. You wonder why the kids shoot each other there with black raincoats. But that's the sex change capital of the world -- in America, rather -- is somewhere in Colorado; they cut off the willies and they put on the willies, depending on whether you're a Johnny or a Jane.

And apparently it costs more to put a willy on than it does to take a willy off. I've always said if a city's gonna pay for this kind of insane self-mutilation, the least they could do is put a willy on ice. I mean, if they're taking a perfectly good willy off a guy, why throw it in the garbage? Put it on ice, save it for the next time one of these psycho women in the city wants to be willied, I mean wants to be a John when she's a Jane. Because it costs like 40 grand to put one on and 20 grand to take one off. I would say you can do a mean price of 30 grand if they could start saving the willies from these psychos. But that's a separate story. I'm into cost saving at all costs.

Things

2007-03-28T14:39:00.000-07:00

We are getting footage a drag king show at midnight on Thurs. Should be interesting, I'm not sure what to expect or how the dynamic will change from the drag queen show. We have been working so hard lately I feel like the doc is all I think about these days. We need to start following around individuals in daily activities so as to not just generalize everyone by only talking head interviews, we just need to get more and more personal and delve farther and farther into transgender issues till the very end.

I hate missing class but this wednesday it was unavoidable. The Reel Girls had to meet and this was the last chance b4 our deadline, it is so hard to find a time when everyones scheduals are so different. I'm sure it will be the only time I will miss class this whole semester though, but sorry :( I don't know why I always feel so guilty.

Well anyway, I'll update on Fri and tell you how the shoot went!

Our day of 13 Interviews

2007-03-25T09:55:00.000-07:00

Yesterday Chris and I woke up at like 5:45 drove to Chapel Hill met Emilie there she got snacks, set up at 9 and shot from 10 am till 10 at night and got I think 13 interviews, then Chris and I went out to dinner with some of our interviewees till 11:30 and got home at 2 am! What a day! It was amazing. My brain is a little mushy after all of it I am exhausted and still have a massive amount of other work to do, oy. There were only 2 things that were less than ideal with our shoot 1.) The house was right in back of a noisy rode and 2.) The room was SO HOT we all felt like passing out. But this was nothing compared to how touching, insightful, and wonderful our interviewees were. It is so great to hear so many stories from so many voices. So far we have 15 interviews with transgendered people so far and they each have such unique experiances. I can't wait to show our footage but I don't know how we will make like 15 hrs into 15 min.

Hola

2007-03-23T07:10:00.000-07:00

So ya know we only have about 14 interviews tomorrow!!! We are leaving for Chapel Hill at 7 or 8 am and then shooting all day and as much of night as they will allow us. We are not 100% that everyone will be there so I don't want to get too excited yet but some of the people include: Nancy: a Baptist Minister who is a lesbian, Jennifer: male to female person who has been in the Military, maybe a doctor who does top surgery now but is learning bottom,Terry: male to female who is 64, Kelly: male to female and bringing wife. We also have female to male interviewees. I'm nearvous because I really want to take advantage of this wonderful opportunity. I've been doing some google searching, trying to look at new web sites to help me think of new questions. Wish us luck!!

So happy

2007-03-19T09:00:00.000-07:00

Our shoot last night was amazingly fun and we met some areally cool people. We got to Ibiza at 10 and went up to the dressing room where all the Drag queens were getting ready for the show. We took pictures and got to know them a little and got footage of them getting dressed and they were NOT shy. We got them duct taping their bodies so it looked like they had boobs,joking around, making fun of eachother, gossiping about people who werent there, helping each other put on makeup, wigs, and costumes. We shot the drad show, Chris and I both had cameras, him on the tripod me handheld. I had a lot of fun and I hope I didn't zoom a lot in all the excitement. Terra while on the floor announced that we were makng a doc about transgendered people and that anyone should come talk to us if they are interested and they did. I think I gave my number to 3 people and got a few #s. One think I am happy about is that there is a group of Drag Kings who we didn't know about who invited us to their show and said that we could use them in our doc(they are filmmakers too at Cape Fear). After the show it was fun we went back up to the dressing room and talked some more. Got more numbers. I am so happy to get to know this community. :)

Weekend Update

2007-03-17T14:51:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow we are going to get footage of Terra getting ready, getting in drag for her show at Ibiza then we are going to tape her show! I'm excited. Then on mon we are going to do vox pops on campus I'm not looking forward to that as much cause I am shy when it comes to approaching strangers but this is a good time to work on that I suppose. Oh and next weekend we have interviews lined up in the Chapel Hill area and I'm pumped for that because we have a specialist who is helping us find people to "cover our bases" so thats just awesome to have that kind of help and support. Oh and I figured out how to capture video tapes on to the computer well Aaron figured it out and showed me but anyway so we can capture the Girls Toys and Boys Toys this week and maybe we should start looking into other videos like that at the lib. :)

B-Roll

2007-03-13T13:10:00.000-07:00

The article reminds me that our group has to think of creative uses of B-roll for our film cause so far we have none. At the interview shoots we haven't gotten any. This is because of the location of our shoots, we were at Erica's friends house not her house (and someone was moving so the apartment was bare!) there didn't seem to be anything we could use. We could have got some just hand shots but we didn't (we didn't read the article yet:) ). We are going to film a drag show for B-roll soon. We also have boys and girls toys videos that we want to use for B-roll. I think we should use our own homevideos also if we find a gender trait captured. We also want to get exterior shots of places talked about by our interviewees, and also other B-roll of things they mention. We need to go through our footage and take notes of what may be good B-roll and make sure eveything is covered because I know I'm going to be editing it and not having all the material needed is NOT an option.

Yay! Yay! Yay!

2007-02-26T05:09:00.000-08:00

I AM SO EXCITED RIGHT NOW!!! Last night we made a huge step for our doc. We went to Ibiza last night (a gay club downtown) and three people agreed to an interview! These people are awesome! It was so much fun.

The Interviewees:

1.) Erica: She wants to have a sex change. She does drag at Ibiza and se said we could tape one of her shows!! Erica is so sweet and pretty and said she will answer ANY question. She is very open. She gave us her myspace page and the website of the photographer of Ibiza that will be a great source for us.
2.) Terra: She is more manly, lots and lots of makeup. She hosts the drag shows every week and also said we could tape one of her shows. She seems like a Diva! She agreed to an interview without talking to us much and only seemed really interested in us when we were talking to Erica.
3.) This all happened because of Jimmy, a bartender at Ibiza who was checking ids at the front. He introduced us to Erica and Terra and gave us like four other contacts! He is a part of the pride group and they are hosting two events that he said we coulod film. One is the white party for the opening night and the other is drag duets. He also knows some history of whats going on in Wilmington, and was very friendly and helped us a great deal and has seen a lot and he said we could interview him.

Like Chris mentioned last night, meeting these people makes me want to research more and more so we ask the right questions. Also, it is interesting that our film is taking its own form. So far, it is much less about the intersexed and much more about transgendered people and the consturct of gender, and I think thats okay, these people have stories to tell and I'm excited to hear them.

questions oy

2007-02-22T06:42:00.000-08:00

Good news and bad news. Bad news is that a lot of the questions we intended for Dan about the intersexed he doesn't feel good about answering but he said he can talk about any of these issues, (a lot of them seem interesting) We are supposed to figure out what ones we are interested in and let him know...I think we need a group meeting ASAP b4 we go to Chapel Hill so we know what we want to ask, etc. Because I think he wants to know by tomorrow. Anyone free tonight?

Gender and the Brain

Behavioral Endocrinology
Evolutionary Psychology and Women.
The female brain.
Why are males so violent? Listen to the interview here (Pull the slider to about 14 min into the interview).
Selected reading from A Natural History of Rape: Biological Basis of Sexual Coercion
Excerpts from "Brain Sex".
Sex and the Corpus Callosum. Also, check this.
Stalking the Wild Taboo: Homosexuality, Birth Order and Evolution
"A sex difference in the brain and its relation to transsexuality" Read the Nature article. Find the Time review here. Listen to the National Public Radio Interview.
"A Difference in Hypothalamic Structure Between Heterosexual and Homosexual Men" Read Simon Levay's August 30 1991 Science paper. A review can be found here.
National Public Radio Interview with Deborah Blum (You'll need Real Audio for this)
Homosexuality topics: Read each of these to stimulate discussion (read here). All letters are in response to National Public Radio series on the biology of homosexuality.
A comparison of rearing male vs. female children.
Why Can't a Woman be More Like a Man? Find out here.
Men, Women, and Sex Differences: The Attitudes of Three Feminists.
Read a review of Sex on the Brain: The Biological Differences between Men and Woman.
Are Men Smarter than Women? Read Gender Mender.
Various links to gender and sexuality issures. Some good, some odd.
Hormones affecting "Pillow Talk"
Sex Differrences in the Brain. Read the review.
Angry Adolescent Brains.
Sexual Selection and the Mind.
A father's imprint on his daughter's thinking. Download the article here (needs Adobe Acrobat. Get that here). More comments here.
A gender difference in social-cognitive function. Download the article here (needs Adobe Acrobat. Get that here).
Brain News.
Bio-Feminism Web Resources.
New York Times Interview: "Are some people born gay?"
A difference between heterosexual and homosexual/bisexual women.
Study questions gene influence on male homosexuality.
Why do we know so little about human sex?
The real truth about the female body.
Bio-feminism Web Resources.
Sex and Anger: Differences between males and females.
Male vs. Female Developmental Biology READ THIS
All about Eve: High-Math-High-Mechanical Females and Testosterone
Love: Hormones Converge for Couples in Love
Love: First Flush of Love Not Emotional
Love: Married Men Have Less Testosterone
Love: Cohabitating Boosts Men's Mental Health
Love: Divorce and DNA
Love: Genes and Fitness
Love: Romanic Love Abstracts
Gay Genetics
Gay Sheep
Genetics and Human Female Infidelity

A BIG reason that I didn't mention the 1st time..

2007-02-20T13:04:00.000-08:00

Looking back on my last post I feel like I forgot the biggest reason that I need to make this film and it's that I need to some degree make an impact on society (however small it is) I feel like I do a lot of hating on and criticizing of today's American culture, but that means nothing if I don't actively do something to try to make a change, or in this case, open up a dialogue. There is a reason why not many people know about the intersexed, if it's a fear of the unknown or simply something that we feel we cannot indenify with...but the reason needs to be challenged! So to open up this conversation in our film , I hope will open up other private conversations that will lead to a perspective that would not have been gained without confrontation. My goal is social change, even if it's only a few people.

Some of the reasons why I care

2007-02-18T11:30:00.000-08:00

It’s really hard to articulate why I personally feel like I need to make this film but here are some of my scattered reasons.

Since like 6th grade I have always had a few gay friends who I love dearly and just cannot understand why they receive so much undeserved malice for something that they did not choose. Being gay is only one aspect of their being but still it’s seen as everything. It hurts me that they receive so much hatred from society. I wonder if people fear or question their own sexuality so much that they constantly have to defend the “right way to be.”

I absolutely love sociology because it teaches you that people can be any way if in the right context. I can’t help but apply this notion to everything I see. In soc there is an emphasis on gender, and it really opened to a lot of issues about discrimination and gave me a vocabulary for what I was seeing at school, in the public sphere, in my family.

I have two identical twin cousins that are around my age. My grandpa always judges me by my looks and not by intelligence or talent but my cousins represent everything I don’t- power, potential, strength. When we were like 8 we asked him what he thought we would be when we grew up. For Jaron it was a doctor, for Nick it was a lawyer and for me it was an artist, but not just an artist, a FAILED artist. I can’t help but laugh at how close his prediction was, Jaron a pre med major, Nick wants to be a sports journalist and I’m a film major, and I wonder if he is right that I’ll never really succeed. Even though I have been on the Deans list for 5 semesters, my grandpa still thinks my cousins are more successful in college because they are charismatic athletic young men. My grandma Fofo has always been considered with my weight. She used to criticize everything I put in my mouth, because in her eyes I was overweight, and that mattered more than anything else. It’s interesting to look at the generation gap- what they think a woman should be vs. what I think a being a woman is. My mom has always been the opposite of my grandparents; she’s a feminist who raised me basically by herself. She is very strong and independent. I am basically a less OCD version of her. I believe that my former Step dad is gay, but I know he will never ever come out because he knows it wouldn’t be accepted. So my family has been an interesting place to look at and examine gender roles/society.

I just feel like I have a lot invested in furthering my own personal knowledge and understanding of gender, and that I would be a good person to make a film about people who don’t fit in the mold because I am empathetic and very concerned with social equality and the reasons that equality is not achieved and the ways we can change that.

Updation

2007-02-16T13:50:00.000-08:00

Things this week... Sat. Chris and I met started making some calls, I found the people he called them. Monday I seached for my gender studies book but couldn't find it and it made me sad. We had our meeting with Shannon on Wed. and she asked us if we could write a breif history of our subject and it got me thinking, well, sort of. I have studied this topic in a gender studies class at UNCG but I need to study it again so I can whip out facts if asked. So I looked in the internet and read. We were supposed to meet with the principle at the highschool but he broke his foot. I talked to this 50 or so man to see if he knew any old people who we could interview and he works at a golf course and said yes so thats good. I rented Southern Comfort and Middlesexes and am hoping to get a movie night together with my group. At some point I want to go to a bookstore and buy a gender studies book because it would help, and I could write notes in it. My camera just got in but I need to pick it up at ups, so I'm excited about that.

Articles

2007-02-14T10:41:00.000-08:00

In everything that I have read there has been a pattern that there isn't any "health" related reason to have "corrective surgery, that it really has to do with cultural norms. If a child is born with both a vagina and a penis, it will not cause any harm to them, it really has to do with fitting in, making a choice, and playing that role.

1.) "The Medical Construction Of Gender: Case Management of Intersexed Infants" by Suzanne J. Kessler. I am going to print it out, it is 23 pages.
- I found it on JSTOR. It won't let me cut and pase anything.
It gives historical background about surgery/procedures but also says that gender assignment is more of a cultural issue, since the medical desicions are based on cultural standards. It talks about what has been done when there are infants who show signs of both male and female, and possible reasons.

2.) "Intersexed Identities: Locating new intersextions of Sex and Gender" by Stephanie S. Turner Also found on JSTOR. This article is written by a member of a group that wants to prevent unnecessary surgery for infants and then to provide options later on in life. It is about how gender and sex are equated and how that creats a lot of problems for gender politics. Again, the subject at hand is what to do with infants.

3.) "Managing Intersex: Most Vaginal surgery should be deffered" BMJ 2001;323:1264-1265 ( 1 December )This article is about how a lot of infants with both genitalia are raised as girls and have clitoral reduction and a vaginoplasty. The issue is very controversial.It talks about the different patterns of chromosomes. The article is again, about what to do with infants. The doctors feel that a choice HAS to be made.

4.)"One Percent On the Burn Chart: Gender, genitals, and hermaphrodites with attitude" By David Valentine (foiund on JSTOR) This is about the relationship between gender and sex, and medical procedures. I will print it out.

5.)"Mistaken Gender: 5-Alpha Reductase Hermaphroditism abd Biological Reductionism in sexual identity" found on JSTOR. This is about biomedical research on hermaphroditic condition among males in the Dominican Republic. It "refutes the unicausal biological model" and suggests that it is more of a cultural decision.

More Pitching

2007-02-12T09:37:00.000-08:00

I don’t think we have agreed about how to shoot this film yet, not that we disagree we just haven’t talked about it much. I just bought a Canon XH- A1 so we can shoot with that, and bring a tripod and lighting kit to our interviews. We want to have the Intersexed and Transgendered people as the experts. We can use more flattering lighting for them, but then what about the other experts like doctors? I’m not sure… but we also want to see the Transgendered and Intersexed people as fun loving human beings, and want to show them do things they do on a daily basis not just in a formal interview setting. We were also interested in being a little experimental. If we can tape a drag show, it would be cool to have fast and fun camera work. Also, we can paint on film, and kind of animate the female sign and make it into the male sign, to show it’s a spectrum. Making our film style a little abstract would parallel our message of not blindly following conventions without questioning them.

For the middle school kids, we want to do vox pops with all of them, then have 4 or so do more serious interviews (my mom thinks she has a good idea who these kids should be) and then have 2 or 3 groups of 3 (friends) who may push each other to answer more honestly, or may want to show off (like in the 7 up series). We will probably conduct these in a school setting, an empty classroom, the hall, outside at recess or in the lunchroom. We shouldn’t bring a lot of lights for them.

I’m like Chris in that I like getting my message across with satire or sarcasm but I’m not sure that would be appropriate for this film. If we did that it would seem like we should be interviewing people who we know would be totally against our message, and then we would showcase their opinions so we could make them seem ridicules. Instead, I think we have decided that we would like to try to get a positive and intelligent perspective, one that hasn’t really been heard. So…for the tone… it seems like we won’t really know until we hear the stories.

Pitch

2007-02-11T19:01:00.000-08:00

For our documentary we are going to examine social dynamics of gender roles in society. The aim is not to define right or wrong, but rather enlighten ourselves and the viewer about how these dynamics are formed and see where they fall on the line between instincts and social norms. We hope to focus on the youth around us and question their ideas about gender definitions. Of course, people who are struggling with social norms are imperative in order to understand how society affects the individual’s identity and how it influences them to make certain choices. We are interested in gender assignment, as it applies to the direction of our lives. What does it mean to be “male” or “female”? This question may seem easy, but what if you ask it to someone who was born with both genetalia? What if we ask a person whose parents chose for them at birth, were given the corrective surgery, but they still feel like they don’t fit into their gender? Also, since we are all different, we want to discredit the extremes of gender definition such as the recent Snickers commercial that focuses on “doing something manly.” We hope that the heart of our film will be the stories of transgendered people and hermaphrodites themselves; learning of their struggles/successes will be crucial. It is also important to look at members of society who embrace the diversions of social norms or who are disgusted by them, and ask, why? We would like to interview doctors, therapists, sociologists, and people of all ages and gain a very broad range of perspectives. It may be interesting to start with children, a time of “innocents” then move to adolescents, a stage of figuring out their identity, and then adults, who are supposed to know who they are. Our topic may seem hard to relate to, but we are hoping that everyone can relate to the need to be understood, loved, and accepted.

"Boys Beware"

2007-02-10T15:59:00.000-08:00

Audience

2007-02-06T18:56:00.000-08:00

Not a lot of people can relate to being transgendered, but I think that everyone can relate to wanting to feel accepted, loved, and understood. This is what we hope will come out of our film, and what will make our audience feel connected. But who will they be anyway? Well, our wish is for our audience to be the youth, we don't want to just "preach to the choir" and we also have to concider how there are a lot of people who will come in with strong judgments before they even see the film. It also is interesting being in the South (I grew up in the North) and I have noticed the audience is quite different... We would like to try to offer a bit of insight and maybe get people thinking about different froms of being in a positve way instead of it being a despicable thing that is not talked about. Besides festivals, we can do podcasts, put it on Youtube, and stream it elsewhere. We could make a website, and create a forum for people to talk about it. We could go to local art house places (in Wilmington Jengo's house) and send it to places that may want to screen it. We could talk to women's studies dept and see if they would host a screening for our film andother gender related films. What would be really cool, (but would take some $ and time) is to go around town and leave the DVDs places, maybe have a really intriguing label on them, or even pass them out on campus.

Definitions!

2007-02-01T18:17:00.000-08:00

Transgendered: 1.)is an overarching term applied to a variety of individuals, behaviors, and groups involving tendencies that diverge from the normative gender role (woman or man) commonly, but not always, assigned at birth, as well as the role traditionally held by society. 2.) appearing or attempting to be a member of the opposite sex, as a transsexual or habitual cross-dresser.

Transexuaism:s a condition in which a transsexual person self-identifies as a member of the gender opposite to the one assigned to them at birth. Transsexualism is considered a taboo subject in many parts of the world. The justifications for negative beliefs about transsexualism may be perceived as being supported by religious beliefs or cultural norms. 2.) a person who has undergone a sex change operation or a person whose sexual identification is entirely with the opposite sex

Hermaphrodite: an individual in which reproductive organs of both sexes are present.

This is great so be patient!

2007-02-01T13:17:00.000-08:00

I have watched/ listened to a bunch of blog entries by this blogger, I really enjoy it. Pay attention around 8 and a half min, I think this is important to our film!

Interviews, Interviews

2007-01-31T09:49:00.000-08:00

Well, this week I have spent a lot of time researching! This is what I think: We should start out in Wilmington and then take a trip to Chapel Hill and other places for interviews because it seems as if there are so GREAT programs out there. Below are just some that sounded interesting. I am working on organizing these into lists by location, and professions, then we can all look at the websites together to choose who we want to contact, and see what we are missing, and what we don't need.

People I found in Wilmington:
Louise Hahn, MA, NCC: She is "nationally certified counselor specializing in gender-related issues.
Alpha Counseling Center: they run a transgender group by wrightsville
Ralph W Fox II, Ph. D: works with transgender clients
On mondays at 7pm its gay and lesbian AA and the 4th monday of every month, at St. Jude's Metropolitian Community Church there are there are PFLAG (parents families and friends or Lesbians and Gays)
I also think we need to find a consevative chruch and maybe a program that tries to make gay people stright.
We also have Cape Fear Acad. 7th graders (my moms class) and Chris also got some High School Students, I think we need some really young kids, (has anyone seen the 7up series? little kids sometimes have telling answers)

Other people/groups not in Wilmington:
Kindered spirits located in Black Mountian, NC Its a group that focuses on the speritual journey of transgendered people
Center for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Life at Duke University, Durham
North Carolina Gay and Lesbian Attorneys: Would be VERY interesting to get some legal insight! Durham, NC 27702
Equality North Carolina Political Action Committee and Equality in Raleigh
NC TG Unity in Raleigh
Triangle Transgender Support in Chapel Hill
Triad Gender Association in Greensboro
Lisa Griffin, Ph.D: She specializes in gender issues and also there is Kimball Jane Sargent, in Raleigh who also specializes in gender issues, including the transgendered.

52 things you can do for Transgender Equality

2007-01-30T09:01:00.000-08:00

http://www.nctequality.org/52things.asp
Check it out if your interested, everyone can help...

Transgender equality website

2007-01-30T08:55:00.000-08:00

"Because of the transphobia that is prevalent in U.S society, transgender people face many issues that negatively impact our quality of life, from joblessness to homelessness to acts of violence. It is important that we name and understand these issues. By educating ourselves and others, we can better fight for the right to live our lives openly without fear of abuse or discrimination"

This is an interesting website. I really liked this passage because it just gets to the point. I think the "national center for transgender equality" may be a good resource we should explore.
http://www.nctequality.org

Stephen Lynch song

2007-01-29T11:47:00.000-08:00

In our society it is a joke to be a hermaphrodite... It alsmot seems that by over-simplifying what it means to be a hermaphrodite makes it easier to handle, to laugh about...

Transexual pop group in Russia: Music video

2007-01-29T11:34:00.001-08:00

Friday

2007-01-26T21:29:00.000-08:00

Well I'm excited about our project. This week we got our group together and just got the converstaion started. So we have been talking about who would be good to interview and such. Someone lent me some stock footage today ( Girl's Toys and Boy's Toys: Favorite TV commercials of the 50s/60s/70s) so that shall be splendid. I've been thinking we should paint on some film and maybe have the ♂ and the ♀ and the ☿ thats (the intersexed symbol) over it in marker for lots of frames so you can see them change into the other... and then transfer it to video. Group, does that sound like something you would be interested in doing? Oh and its will be fun to go to the film "The Great Happiness Space: Tale of Osaka Love Thief" on Sunday!

Email from Dan my step dad

2007-01-25T17:41:00.000-08:00

... You might cast it as a conflict between nature (parts are parts) vs. nurture (how individual is socialized), or when nature can't decide, or gets confused, double dips, or tries to go both ways. How to sort it out?
If sexuality is ambiguous, I think psychologists and courts will generally go with how the child has been socialized, even if their predominant parts say otherwise. Can you imagine being raised as a boy til, say 5 years old, and then hearing, "ooops, wait a minute, you're really a girl." You don't stop the train and turn around--you just keep going.
There are certain brain parts that are different based on sexual preference, even more than gender. It would be fun to be part of it. Let me know...

So I think that sounds interesting, I really want to learn more about the brain in relation to sexual pref.

And the Brain...

2007-01-25T14:57:00.000-08:00

Oh and I forgot, so If we went to Chapel Hill to interview him we can also interview my former step dad who is a Neurologist at UNC and he is very used to answering questions and would be fine with cameras. I can email him to ask if he knows a lot about the subject but I'm sure he does he is like a sponge.... That would be great if we have two doctors opinions, Emilie, does your sis work in Wilmington?

Psychotherapist hmmm

2007-01-25T14:48:00.000-08:00

This may be an interesting interview...I don't know how "credible" this would be but It would be cool to get interviews from all over the spectrum... whether or not phychotherapy is a good measurement of anything or not, he has still probably heard a lot of anxieties and may give us some sort of perspective...

http://samallencounseling.com/

"Samuel Allen is a licensed psychotherapist with over twenty years in the mental health field. His professional background includes work with adults, children, adolescents, couples, and families-- from the general population to individuals with severe/chronic mental illness, in community, private, in-patient, and outpatient settings. One of Samuel's areas of specialization and expertise is LBGTQI concerns, and he has been privileged to serve the Lesbian/Bisexual/Gay/Transgender/Questioning/Intersex community since 1982. Samuel offers face to face psychotherapy and counseling in the Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill area of North Carolina, along with telephone counseling and consulting for clients outside this geographic location. Help is available for depression, anxiety, phase-of-life issues, relationship problems, identity and sexual orientation issues. Samuel also works with individuals who are exploring spirituality issues and their own spiritual/metaphysical path."

Any thoughts?

About biases

2007-01-25T13:05:00.000-08:00

Yes, I definitely have them... I am a feminist, I believe there is a lot of sexism in our culture, and that human interaction is mostly determined by social context. I do have very strong opinions about this subject matter- I also am very interested in equality, gay rights, etc. I’m really glad that my group is balanced though, and I’m interested to see their perspectives and to all work together on this film that could turn out many different ways, and I’m excited just to start the process and to see where it goes.

Cape Fear Academy

2007-01-19T20:35:00.000-08:00

My mom is a 6th/7th grade teacher at Cape Fear Academy and she was excited when I asked about getting interviews/ footage of her students. She said it would be great to come in one day to all her Launguage Arts classes. She can make a form for the parents to sign saying it's okay to film their children. I think it would be interesting to get a perspective from pre teens about what it means to be male/female, what they think expectations are for each, steriotypes, their interactions w/ the opp sex, just a wide variety of things...

Intersexed stuff

2007-01-18T19:23:00.000-08:00

"Our culture conceives sex anatomy as a dichotomy: humans come in
two sexes, conceived of as so different as to be nearly different species.
However, developmental embryology, as well as the existence of
intersexuals, proves this to be a cultural construction."

Did you know that there are actully up to 5 sexes? It's a spectrum, and it happens a lot more than you would think. Alice Domurat Dreger says 1 out of every 100 children is born with a body that differs from a standard male or female.
In some cultures intersexual people are considered to be part of a 3rd gender, could you imagine our culture being that accepting? It seems that in our society the only appropriate thing for you to do if you are intersexed is to choose male or female, but what does that say about our identity and culture? But who is really doing the choosing? Mostly its the parents, because they want to "fix" the problem as fast as they can, but what if its not the right choice, how would they know? What if that individual grows up feeling like they are in the wrong body? Some of the medical procedures ruin that persons sex life FOR life, and that seems so unfair to me. I'll write more later..

The Coastal Therapeutic Riding Program Idea

2007-01-16T13:16:00.000-08:00

Another idea, even though I like the gender one better...

I just started volunteering for the Coastal Therapeutic Riding Program; it’s a nonprofit organization and part of the North American Riding for the Handicapped Association (NARHA). I’m going to quote the website’s info; “Therapeutic horseback riding provides physical, emotional, and social enrichment to children and adults with special needs. The rhythmic action of the horses' gaits relaxes and strengthens riders' muscles and improves body tone, posture, balance, joint mobility, and coordination. Sitting proudly on the back of a friendly horse, riders experience the thrill of independence for perhaps the first time in their lives.”

The other day, we had an autistic 13-year-old rider. The theme of the day was circles. There were circles drawn on the grass, we had him throw a ball back and forth (while on the horse). He was asked to read “pizza” off a piece of paper, so the lessons are specifically designed thematically. The place itself is pretty run down, it’s messy and dirty but its organized chaos, but that gives it an interesting aesthetic. There is so much to look at! The place also seems so isolated, the first time I went in I felt like I was in a horror movie, I walked into these empty stables… anyway…It is this little microcosm and from what I can tell so far, there are some unusual people that work there. There would be a lot to look into for a doc: the helpers/stable people/organization and the disabled kids, and there’s much to say about both sides...

Gender Doc Idea

2007-01-15T14:43:00.000-08:00

I think it would be awesome to make a documentary about gender that addresses some of these questions:

Since gender is socially and not biologically constructed, how from birth are we conditioned to fit into the mold of male or female? How do we embody our gender and how is it reflected in society and in the media (stereotypes)? And conversely, how does the media’s perception of gender affect us? How and where are stereotypes perpetuated and how is sexism enforced, or is it so ingrained in the way of things that we don’t even recognize it in our dailey lives? And what about the people who are left out of these two categories? like Transexuals,transgendered people, hermaphrodites?

If someone is interested in this let me know.

Schedule

2007-01-15T14:17:00.000-08:00

Mon: No class!
Tues: 2-3:15 FST 317-003
Wed: 6-8:45 FST 495-002
Thurs: 10-12:45 FST 398-003 then 2-3:15 FST 317
Fri: 2-6 both my idependent studies with the Silvas

Artist Statement

2007-01-11T13:35:00.000-08:00

Artist Statement

I am interested in experimental and nontraditional filmmaking but also narrative filmmaking as well. Most of my favorite films are foreign and/or independent. I love screenwriting, production, editing, painting on film, and participating in and programming film festivals. I am very interested in sociology and issues of class, race, age, and especially gender. I am primarily interested in making films that create social awareness through portraits of people, and human interaction in general within society.I am very interested to see all the many ways people live and are, and love to see new perspectives even if I don’t personally agree with them. I like all types of Documentaries, I wouldn’t say I favor one kind over the other; it just varies film by film. This semester I am doing two independent studies: I am making an experimental film, and in the other, Reel Girls, we will teach selected middle school girls filmmaking. I am also taking intro to Editing, and writing about film. Other film classes I’ve taken include: FST 201, 203, 205, 227, 292, 318, 395, 398, and 491. As for the future, I am going to graduate school to prolong entering the “real world” but what I really want is to be an independent filmmaker working on projects I believe in.