Media Literacy Monday: Advice from a Cartoon Princess

Whenever I see someone taking on the challenge of teaching media literacy in a fun, new way, I can't help but sit up and clap my hands with glee. Second City's hilarious web series Advice from a Cartoon Princess does such a fine job, I didn't just cheer, I laughed like crazy, too.

In the videos comedian Danielle Uhlarik portrays a number of different cartoon princesses. So far she's been Ariel, Belle, and Snow White. Her quips are short lines, describing accurately how things take place for Disney princesses. In the Belle video she tells us "candlesticks are really good at love advice. Because they're French!" Overall, she does a great job of pointing out how ludicrous the roles for women in princess movies really are. The Belle video ends with her reminding us that "the lesson here is that beauty is in the eye of the beholder... as long as the woman is good looking."

I really love this series because it takes a complex discussion (gender roles in Disney movies), and makes them easy to understand, humorous, and enjoyable. If only all media literacy discussions could be this fun!

Look below to check out Snow White's advice for you. (Please note, some of these videos do contain a little profanity.)

Youth Media Thursday

We hope you are having a wonderful thanksgiving. You know what we're thankful for around here? All the amazing work our foremothers did to ensure that women have the right to vote.

This past summer some of our advanced grrls in the apprentice program made this great video about how women won the right to vote here in Washington state. Check it out!

Media Literacy Monday: Toy Ads and Learning Gender

Our friend Anita Sarkeesian, who does the great Feminist Frequency vlog, just posted this new video about how kids learn gender through toy ads. She makes some great points, and includes a clip that some of grrls made in the video remix workshop last winter.



For information and resources on ending advertising to children, check out the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood.

Grrl Vlog #4: Celebrity Weight Loss

Check it out! Maile and I made a new video blog, all about the recent high-profile weight loss of Jennifer Hudson, Kelly Osborne, and Sara Rue. What kind of message does their weight loss send? Do we focus too much on weight as an indicator of health? What do YOU think?

Read about Health at Every Size on wikipedia. And if you'd like to read the article about body image and chronic dieters that I cited in the video, you can download the PDF here.

Tech Tip Tuesday: Computer Backups

Hello RG friends & followers! For today's Tech Tip Tuesday I made my first ever vlog (video blog), inspired by friend of Reel Grrls and feminist vlogger Anita Sarkeesian of Feminist Frequency! I'll let the vlog, about backing up your computer (the why & the how), starring me and Carrie Bradshaw of Sex & the City, speak for itself:



And as promised, here is a brief list of backup programs I have heard good things about. Be warned: I have not tried all of these personally, and I encourage you to do some research for yourself to decide which is the best option for you. Please also leave comments on this blog post if you have other suggestions or want to weigh in on which is the best backup program in your opinion.

PC users
• MiMedia
• SOS Online Backup
• Norton Online Backup
• Acronis True Image

Mac users
• SuperDuper

• Time Machine
• Dropbox
• ZumoDrive

That's it for today. See ya next time!

Tech Tip Tuesday: Autosave Vault

Well, I've gone and done it. Somehow I have managed to go several weeks without posting a Tech Tip Tuesday for you! I bet you all have been anxiously checking our blog every single Tuesday only to shed a tear when you saw that there still wasn't a tech tip for you. Well, cry no more my friends & Reel Grrls followers! 'Cause here we go...

To ease back in to the Tech Tip Tuesday world, here's a quickie for you: It's about setting your scratch disks in Final Cut Pro, specifically setting your Autosave Vault.

We all know how important it is to set Scratch Disks when editing. It allows us to keep all of the files associated with our Final Cut Pro project in one place.

If you're like me (and the Reel Grrls crew), you edit most of your projects on external hard drives, so your scratch disks aren't set to your computer's hard drive. That's why this tech tip is so important!

Here it is. Ready?
Set your Autosave Vault to a different location than your other scratch disks.

Why, you ask? Well, the Autosave Vault saves a backup copy of your project every few minutes (the length of time between saving is based on what you choose in your "user preferences"). If you've ever had a project file get lost or corrupted, you'll know why these backup copies of your project in your Autosave Vault are your best friend in the world. But what happens if your external hard drive, holding your project and all of your Scratch Disks, somehow fails??

Hey, it happens. BUT if your Autosave Vault is in a different location ... BOOM. Your life (or at least your project) is saved.

Now go forth, and set your scratch disks, with your autosave vault in a different location. Enjoy!

Reel Grrls in Detroit this summer!

As we say goodbye to summer, here at Reel Grrls we've been reflecting upon all the rad stuff we did last season: Like traveling to Detroit in June for the Allied Media Conference and US Social Forum!

(coincidentally, tonight the NW Media Action Grassroots Network & Reclaim the Media are holding a reportback from all the Seattle folks who made it out to Detroit, at Hidmo on 20th & Jackson at 6:30)

Reel Grrls was seriously representin' at this year's Allied Media Conference. In attendance (from left to right) were board member Adrienne Wiley-Thomas, participant Mariana Urban, staff members Nickey Robare and Lila Kitaeff, and graduates Tani Ikeda and Monica Olsson. What an awesome showing!

I had a great time at the conference, but I'll let grad Monica Olsson tell you all about it:

Hello Reel Grrls family and RG followers!

I was fortunate enough to attend the AMC from June 17^th to the 21^st with the fabulous RG team.  Our time together was a whirlwind of hard work, workshop-ing, hot hot sunshine, lots of laughs, art, music, and beautiful collaboration.

Some of you may be wondering what exactly is the AMC?  Well, the Allied Media Conference is a three-day event that happens each year in Detroit.  This year the AMC was followed by the U.S. Social Forum, which also took place in Detroit. The AMC is a national convergence of people from all over the United States that come together to discuss the importance and direction of media justice, democratic media, and the role of media justice in social movements, and representation. The purpose of the AMC is to network, learn new things and new skills, and leave with renewed inspiration to use media to make positive changes in the world. There is a huge youth presence at the AMC, and I was happy to note that several of the individual workshops and workshop tracks (different themes or focuses) were led by youth.

Mariana and I stayed in a dorm room together at Wayne Sate University, where the AMC events were taking place.  We had the opportunity to meet a lot of other folks also staying on campus from so many different cities across the country; I couldn’t count them now even if I tried! Our mornings began early with complimentary breakfast and coffee through the conference.  Then it was off to a full day of workshop-ing, taking notes, and sharing ideas.  I felt as though I was in a constant comforting yet challenging information bubble my entire time at the AMC.  It was so wonderful to stretch my thinking and unite with a community of like-minded people.

Reel Grrls definitely took the conference by storm (the Reel Grrls way of doing things, if we’re honest). We put on our working gloves mixed in our playtime together. Our second day there we co-led a workshop called the Next Generation of a Queer Trans Youth Narrative.

We worked with Sid Peterson from the Three Wings Organization that was created through the Queer Youth Space this past March.  Reel Grrls also worked with Kalil Cohen from Reel Boi Productions.  During this workshop we screened the 2004 RG video “Coming Out”, and a segment from the Three Wings’ documentary “Put this on the Map”, and also a piece from Kalil’s short film.  The workshop group engaged in a participatory conversation about the media presentations.  This is when smart people said smart stuff, and I loved every minute of it.  We played a game that explored the intersectionality between gender and sexuality that spurred even more wonderful conversation and debate.

Perhaps however, the most fun and inspiring thing we accomplished during this workshop were the small group PSA video clips.  The workshop participants divided up into three or four groups and brainstormed together what they wanted to see presented/represented through media as the Next Queer/Trans Narrative, beyond the linear coming out story line.  Sound bites were then chosen to be video recorded, and edited together.  For example, some people said things along the lines of, “I want to see more out public figures or Politians” or, “I want to see more representations of Queer Asian Americans”.  We pulled together a few of the strongest sound bites to show during the closing ceremony on the last day of the AMC! Here's the clip that played there to thundering applause:

The Next Generation of Queer/Trans Youth Narrative from ReelGrrls Workshops on Vimeo.

My favorite part of the AMC without question was something that happened for the first time this year in the history of the conference.  This year there was a strong disability presence in the fact that there was a Disability Social Justice track.  This means that a complete series of workshops throughout the conference centered on discussions of disability from a positive, proud, and social liberation point of view.  The Disability 101 workshop explored different ways of defining or looking at disability with a focus on the social construction of disability.  This explains that there are ongoing attitudinal and physical barriers constructed and maintain that create or manifest the experience of being a disabled person.

I felt that it was pretty darn fortuitous that I came to the AMC with RG this year because I am a disabled filmmaker and a student in the Disability Studies at UW. Reel Grrls is also becoming more comprehensively accessible and inclusive as a program. A few people from Sins Invalid were at the AMC and lead workshops.  Sins Invalid is “a performance project on disability and sexuality that incubates and celebrates artists with disabilities, centralizing artists of color and queer and gender-variant artists as communities who have been historically marginalized from social discourse” (www.sinsinvalid. org). Sins Invalid is based out of the Bay Area, and I have been yearning to see a live performance of theirs for a bit now. So, being able to workshop with some of the program’s members put a smile on my face, and totally made my day!

A big thank you to Reel Grrls and MAG-Net for making this trip happen!  Next year I hope to see a larger group from Reel Grrls attend the AMC!

Word,

Monica 

--

Thanks for the inspiring words, Monica! I wholeheartedly agree, and will add that Reel Grrls also led a second workshop called "Media Literacy Mad Libs" that was a lot of fun:

Also, staff members Nickey and Lila (that's me) stayed on for the US Social Forum, in which social justice organizers from all over the country working on many different issues took over Detroit for the week! 10s of thousands of us streamed in to the city and participated in workshops and programs, People's Movement Assemblies, and an amazing march through downtown Detroit:

As Monica mentioned, we are grateful to the Media Action Grassroots Network (MAG-Net) for funding us to go to Detroit, as well as all of the RG supporters who stepped up to make this trip possible. We had an amazing time and can't wait for next year's Allied Media Conference! Save the Date: June 23-26, 2011

Attend the 4th Annual Reel Grrls Gala and Auction!

Reel Grrls events never fail exhilarate me! Even our board meetings have an energy that can revive any weary mood. This year’s Gala and Auction will no doubt be yet another inspiring experience as we showcase the great work of Reel Grrls PLUS an inspiring look at where women filmmakers are shaking it up in the industry!

This year’s special guest, Anne Rosselini, the writer and producer of award winning Winter’s Bone, will indeed top anything we have experienced yet at the Reel Grrls Gala and Auction, coming up on October 23rd at the Fare Start Restaurant in downtown Seattle.

If you haven’t seen the film yet, it is a must see! It is what I would call a PERFECT movie: a story driven by the tenacity of the resourceful and smart young female protagonist, Ree Dolly, as she goes looking for her meth-cooking father who has disappeared under strange circumstances. This film is a true thriller and the characters are written and acted to perfection. The pacing of this film draws you into an intensely impoverished world where we see the human spirit dominate unbearable odds. I can’t help but wonder, who wrote this? We will hear Ms. Rosselini tell her story at the Gala!

Watch the trailer:

The evening is sure to be a compelling, festive occasion where we celebrate this amazing spirit of women in film! Please join us at the Fare Start Restaurant on October 23rd and support the work of Reel Grrls. This organization makes these heights of creative expression possible for over 100 girls every year, launching reel careers and enriching our world. Hope to see you there!

- Jennifer Geist, Reel Grrls Board

The Reel Grrls Guide to Local Sightings 2010

Local Sightings 2010 is here!

For 13 years (wow!) our friends at Northwest Film Forum have been showcasing film and video produced in the Great Northwest through the awesome Local Sightings Film Festival. This year's festival takes place October 1-6, 2010, at the Film Forum’s cinemas on 12th Avenue on Capitol Hill.

This year’s festival features a handful of feature films, as well as seventy-five short films! Dang! How's a grrl to decide what to see? Well, you could start with the films that were produced by Reel Grrls mentors, staff, and friends - which are plentiful! Here's our must-see list.



1. True Enough. Saturday, October 2, 9 PM. This collection of documentary shorts features not one but two projects created by Reel Grrls mentors! You may have heard of I SAW U, which was directed, produced, written, shot, edited, and animated by Reel Grrls mentors and staff (including moi). This is one of your last chances to see it on the big screen, so don't miss it! WCF? was created by Reel Grrls mentors/friends Katie Gregg and Cassidy Dimon. It's a 10-minute "look into the underground world of guinea pig fanciers" and it looks awesome! Watch the trailer and get psyched! There are a number of other women-directed docs in this shorts program, and they all look great. Get your tickets for this screening here. They're going fast!



2. Drawn to Moving. Saturday, October 2, 7 PM. Animated Shorts! Need I say more? OK, just a few words about why I'm psyched about this screening: Nicer to Have One, the beautiful/charming/sweet/wonderful creation of Reel Grrls mentor Celena Adler is part of it! It's about the experience of being a twin, and it's a must-see. We also really want to see Gentle Giants, created by Clyde Peterson. Clyde is working on a really exciting giant animation outdoors at Cal Anderson Park which we have been following. You can too. Clyde has also made a bunch of cool music videos locally and we're hoping he might make a cameo as a guest speaker at our upcoming Music Video Production Program. But anyway, we think he's cool and want to see his movie. Plus, Animated Shorts!!! Get your tickets for this screening here.



3. With or Without You. Sunday, October 3, 9 PM. This lineup looks great, and we're especially excited about the chance to see Orpheus & Eurydice on the big screen. It was shot by Reel Grrls mentor Katie Gregg, and produced by a team of Reel Grrls friends from The Last Quest. It's a really beautiful example of pixelation animation, a technique Katie has taught at past Reel Grrls Animation Camps! Get your tickets for this screening here.



4. Objects in the Mirror. Monday, October 4, 9 PM. This shorts lineup features Betty. Not only was this film directed by Seattlite Heather Ayres, it also features a gripping performance by Reel Grrl big sister Davie-Blue! Seriously, the lead actress is the older sister of Reel Grrl extraordianaire, Summer! It was also shot on 35mm and has an amazing look. This is probably one of your last chances to catch it on the big screen so don't delay - get your tickets now!



5. Two Indians Talking. Saturday, October 2, 5 PM. This feature film explores the question, “When you do something for the right reasons, does that make it the right thing to do?” It's preceded by Unreserved: The Work of Louie Gong, directed by Reel Grrls friend and fellow youth mediaster Tracy Rector (she founded Native Lens). It's about a Pacific Northwest artist and activist who merges Native Coast Salish art with pop culture in the custom skate shoes he creates for Vans. Get your tickets now!

SPECIAL NOTE: Everyone knows that the Northwest Film Forum throws awesome parties. Local Sightings kicks off with a Big Opening Night Party on October 1 beginning at 9pm. It has a 90s theme, which is the decade when some of us (cough, cough) went to high school so that will be a lovely/terrible trip down the fashion memory lane. More importantly, there will be sumo wrestling! We wouldn't dream of missing this, and neither should you. See you there!

Time to Sign up for the Reel Grrls Music Video Production Program!

The Reel Grrls Music Video Production Program kicks off in just one week! We launched this program as a five-day camp over spring break, and it was such a huge success that we have decided to expand it into a 10-week program. It's a great opportunity to discuss the music video genre, what we like and what we don't like about it, and the cliches and tropes we want to avoid as music-video-makers.

This time around we'll be working with Shenandoah Davis! We're still confirming the other artists we'll be working with, but we know they'll all be awesome!

This rad stop-motion animated video is an example of what you might create in this program!

The Next Door Neighbors: Liars from ReelGrrls Workshops on Vimeo.

See more grrl-created music videos in this Vimeo album.

If you want to get a feel for what this program will be like, check out this blog post about the Music Video Camp we offered earlier this year.

You can learn more about this program on our program page, and you can also apply online!

All Reel Grrls programs are fun, but the Music Video Production Program is SUPER fun. Hope to see you there!