Visual Representation of Women in Bollywood Item Numbers: A Specialist Study

1. Unit 12: Specialist Study Canterbury College U.A.L Level 3 Extended Diploma in Creative Media Production & Technology Film & Television (Group B) By Ameera Thind (World, 2018) Overview of my Work/Work Overview ‘HOW ARE WOMEN REPRESENTED AND SHOWN VISUALLY THROUGH CAMERA WORK IN “ITEM NUMBERS/SONGS” WITHIN THE “BOLLYWOOD” FILM INDUSTRY?’

2. Introduction (Kheraj, 2018) This power point showcases my overview of my work ranging from my very first task to my final task. Since presentation was very significant to focus on here I had decided that I was going to incorporate this for my Specialist study project. I produced a clear portfolio where most of my work was placed, a separate Power Point document which contained some work for a particular task but also this document where I have portrayed and given a clear overview of the work I produced each week as a whole from task one to task seven. Since this project is called ‘Specialist Study’ I had the choice of specializing in what I wanted to research and look further into. This was when I thought about what I am truly passionate about and good at in terms of production skills and techniques. I chose to research and look deeper into ‘Indian cinema’ more specifically “Bollywood”. Coming from an Indian, traditional and cultural background I have always grown up watching “Bollywood” films and experiencing the culture of India through the films and my family’s heritage. From generation to generation my family have always watched this genre of film and have been huge fans ever since especially me who they have passed the passion onto. In particular I feel that I am most drawn to the cultural way of women shown in the films especially through the huge item numbers/songs. From a technical aspect I am also intrigued about the use and involvement of the ‘Camera’ as this makes the films more creative and tells a continuously running story through Camera movement and how the drifting of the ‘Camera’ moves the story onto the item number which is an element to “Bollywood” films. The main purpose of this project is to make me an expert in both my subject and discipline from researching and having a wider range of knowledge about them. I have shown this in both this Power Point but also in my main portfolio to show how much of a professional expert I have become at the end which I feel that I am happy to share as I am more knowledgeable and enjoy sharing my passion and skills from this project.

3. Week 1: Focused skill, passions & influences This unit was about my specialist study which was purely lead by my choices and sources I had available to me, this suggested that I was up for any challenge which came for me in this project. For this week there were three main elements which I had to explore. Firstly, the Focused Skill/Discipline which consisted of the approaches and roles/skills within media production that I personally felt I was confident in more than others even though the roles such as lighting, camera, sound are all involved in any type of production, I had to choose one to mainly focus on. Secondly, my passion which I focused on, this was a subject I felt I was highly interested in but also related to the media industry. The third and final element which I had was the influences which impacted on me choosing both my subject and focused discipline. Considering the reasons why I had these certain influences. To help me choose and decide which discipline and subject to pick I created two mind maps for each (as shown on the next slide). The first one consisted of what my passions were, branching out and thinking about what my true interests using connections of how they could relate to the film and media industry. The other mind map explained about my skills and all of the skills I have as an individual especially during production and what I have done in terms of camera work, lighting work, audio and others in order to produce the productions I have so far. I did also mention about my previous projects I have created. These mind maps were initially to just help me see visually, decide and start off what I wanted my focused skill and subject to be for this project. For my chosen passion, I had already had in mind from the beginning that I have always wanted to research into “Bollywood” and the Indian film industry and what it further entails from commencing watching it from a young age. As I am Indian myself I have collected questions I have wanted to know and by researching into this subject and this opportunity to research into any subject I feel interested in, will help me answer them allowing me to become an expert in this subject as I have a love and passion for “Bollywood”. Then for my chosen skill, I always knew that camera and controlling the camera was my most confident aspects of any production. Even though all production skills are used and I can follow, I best believe that ‘Camera’ is the most significant one for me, this is what helped me quickly decide. To help demonstrate my usage of ‘Camera’ I produced a short video show reel of all the projects which showcase the projects I have produced in terms of ‘Camera’ movement and framing. Here is the link to watch my video show reel to demonstrate my best Focused skill/discipline: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_9Y4_o9t4CI&t=1s With regards to my influences this is where I had produced an influences report in my main portfolio stating my view on why I had placed the items and elements on both my mind maps to help me influence and decide on choosing the skill and subject I did. I did this in the form of a written report as demonstrated in my portfolio, this helped me to form my research question as I had both my skill and subject: My overall research question which I used as my main research question title and helped me to base my research off for that to support this was: ‘How are women represented and shown visually (through camera movement and framing) in “item numbers/songs” within the “Bollywood” Film industry?’

4. My Mind maps As you can see I have inserted in both of my mind maps on the right of this and below which helped me to branch out and explore what my passions are and the skills I hold. This helped me to fully focus and understand what subject area I want to spend my time researching and the skill I feel confident in which is what I found out from completing this task of creating these two mind maps. (Ameera T, 2019) (Ameera T, 2019)

5. Week 2: Culture & Contextuality This week involved me building on the first week of where I had produced my mind maps, video show reel and influences report. This was where I broadened my approach as to why I chose my subject and my focused discipline. To do this, I looked at wider landscape of my family, my heritage and my general life experience. I produced a video which demonstrated my cultural and contextual sources of influence which inspired me to again choose my subject of “Bollywood”. The video was comprised of various styles including still, found and of course actual footage. I used videos from my family in India which they had sent to me and home photos to illustrate historical contextual presented in my own life and how this helped to overall influence my subject chose. My video overall which I created was around two and a half minutes long where I covered elements which inspired me to choosing “Bollywood” particularly on how my past life experience and childhood impacted this love and passion for “Bollywood”. The elements which I included were, the item songs which I watched and my parents grew up watching, my travels of India as a child, where my family are situated and heritage comes from in India, costumes from the films which I have worn for Indian functions are inspired by “Bollywood” films, Camera movement usage and lastly the various item songs I felt most drawn to from growing up with the diverse Indian film industry by the work of cinematographer ‘Aseen Mishra’ item songs. Once I had collected all of the footage and images that I wanted to insert and showcase my influences, I then recorded a voice over which explained why certain elements were my inspirations for choosing my subject and discipline further. It was also a good way for the footage I recorded specifically for this video, to test out my camera work skills and the use of camera movement and framing which I incorporated here to illustrate my thoughts and influences as well as other footage which was correctly referenced in my bibliography in my portfolio. The link to my video showing my culture and contextuality is here where you can find it on my college YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eLwQWwKvfvk&t=39s (Unknown, unknown)

6. Week 3+4: Critical Perspectives For the next two weeks, I was given enough time to begin the actual research, this was week three and four combined. At the start of this week I was able to plan my research and this was all going to turn out like including what I was going to research and remembering to link it back to my main title research question. This was when I constructed a research plan, consisting of three literature reviews (compulsory) and one experimentation. The research plan details the most important aspects of what I was going to specifically research, how I was going to, and the research question for each which helped me to construct and find the right information. The three literature review research questions were split up, with elements taken from my main title research question for example as stated in my title there is “item song/numbers” mentioned so as one of my research pieces I researched and looked into women shown and portrayed in these songs. However I wrote each of my research aspects out as reviews and one of them being the experimentation in a report style written in my main portfolio. With this research plan, I wrote it up then got it approved by my course tutor which was the signal to commence researching and find out the information in order to make me the expert in my subject and discipline. Since this was a two week task, each of the research I set out to complete meant that I would have more tasks to complete. Since I had four main research pieces suggested that I had four tasks. (Ameera T, 2019)

7. My 3 Literature Reviews Literature Review 1: Literature Review 3: Literature Review 2: • My third and final literature review was about the Key characteristics of my subject of “Bollywood” • I looked at the key characteristics or elements as you can say, of the item number/songs which is the musical aspect of “Bollywood” films within this industry • I found three sources (as shown in my main portfolio) which demonstrated this by taking down notes of what I learnt from each – in my portfolio I have mentioned what form each source is • The elements which I covered in my review included the dancing, musical elements (more technical), the costumes and lastly just what is involved like if the leading role is a women etc • Overall, I learnt that the item number is a huge part of any “Bollywood” film and takes place all the time within the films, they sometimes fit the storyline or are just put in to fill the time and space within the film • The first literature review I carried out was a Practitioners report about the biggest “Bollywood” leading female actor’s of all time called ‘Sri Devi’ • I looked at her role in the industry including her films from when she first started her career, her family, her last film before her death, and generally how she was as an actor and becoming the iconic star she was • This was written as a literature review but with the information I got it seemed very much like an autobiography. You could easily read it as finding out the life of ‘Sri Devi’ • I discovered four main sources (as shown in my main portfolio) in various forms reading and watching them depending on the form and taking down significant notes – in my portfolio I have mentioned what form each source is • Overall I found that ‘Sri Devi’ began her career at such a young age which suggested that her experience was found for and gave her the confidence to hand her legacy to her children. But also that all her films were known for her iconic acting rather than beauty which she had anyway • The second literature review which I had written up was about the Historical Development of “Bollywood” which focused me to look at how the portrayal of women developed from the past to the present films of 2019 • Again, with this review I found three sources in different forms which I read and took notes on then summarised in the review what I learnt from each source as stated in my main portfolio – in my portfolio I have mentioned what form each source is • I looked at sources sources (as shown in my main portfolio) which stated the different decades so I could summarise how this change of women shown in the films has changed using the decades and film examples to support my thoughts • Therefore, from what I found out, the sources well presented me with the right information as to how women were shown on screen in the older films the woman was the role model for the audience, covering herself whereas now you would often see a women wearing minimal clothing and expecting the non stereotypical Indian working class female

8. My Experimentation (Classics, 2016) • With in terms of the research plan, I had produced three literature reviews as stated but I had also said I wanted to carry out an experimentation specifically of something iconic from my chosen practitioner (‘Sri Devi’) • Since my chosen practitioner was ‘Sri Devi’ and numbers and songs are huge in the “Bollywood” film industry I chose to look at one iconic song from one of her films called ‘HawaHawai’ which was a huge song and even now they recreated this old song because it was highly iconic to remember ‘Sri Devi’ and the work she put into making this song • I went through the song and captured the shots involving camera movement which I liked the most of and recreated them using a teddy bear as my subject which obviously couldn’t move to recreate the dancing which ‘Sri Devi’ did but this wasn’t the main focus as the camera work was to showcase the skill I had chosen for my discipline • The main purpose of this experiment which I carried out myself was to see how the use of camera movement made such an iconic person like ‘Sri Devi’ stand out with only using the ‘Camera’ and how it directly moves to capture the subject • Once I had the footage and recreated the shots I put together the footage together in ‘Avid’ and wrote up a short report with what I found out in regards to my recreations and the original and how I found that the use of the camera movement I copied made my teddy bear stand out through just the use of the camera work • The research question for this experiment was: ‘How has the use of ‘Camera’ (discipline) movement made “Sri Devi’s” dancing stand out in her item songs?’ • I did upload my experimentation video onto my YouTube channel but here is the link for the reader to view: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mnWIYWWqUvA (Ameera T, 2019)

9. Week 5: Evaluation/Week 6: Presentation Week five was evaluation week which involved me to refine my ideas gathered to critically evaluate and state what I rejected and are benefit to me as well as what I was trying to find out with each piece of research. I answered a series of questions for each piece of research in depth as shown in my main portfolio (word document). However with the way I worded the answers it doesn’t sound like it was a question I was answering. This was also where I placed my actual research pieces with what I found out (reviews/reports) as I thought it would be suitable to place here as well for the reader to follow along. This was what week five involved me to complete. Week six was a more relaxed week which involved me to make sure that my work was well presented and overall just up to the standard I wanted it to be. Since the requirement to design and use my own chosen relevant method of presentations for this project that I produced I wanted to ensure that I had used multiple methods for example I used this Power Point for an overview of my work, used separate other Power Point documents for writing up some of the tasks and obviously the main method was designing my own portfolio. I made sure that I had opening paragraphs and closing paragraphs, a table of figures, a contents page, a bibliography and some other aspects including a personal image for the front cover to make the portfolio just very personal to me and relating it back to my specialist subject and discipline. (Zone, unknown) (Worldartsme, unknown)

10. Conclusion In conclusion, this project allowed me to choose anything I wish to in terms of the subject and discipline which I felt very open to. My main title research question which I had mentioned at the beginning of this project and had wanted to explore in this project through my research was: ‘How are women represented and shown visually (through camera movement and framing) in “item numbers/songs” within the “Bollywood” Film industry?’. From reflecting and reviewing my research and the knowledge I have now compared to starting this project I feel that I am an expert in “Bollywood” and what it entails in terms of answering this main research question and I can definitely answer and tell someone the answer to this question. Since this document doesn’t contain the information for my literature reviews and exactly my overall detailed research it gave you as the reader a great over view of what I did each week which can lead you, the reader onto the work in my main word portfolio document. The main portfolio contains the work in greater detail. I also completed a progress tracker each week which helped me to gain feedback and for me to reflect and think back on the overview of each week. This project has given me the chance to be as creative as I can in terms of both choosing my subject and discipline to focus on which has given me the choice but also that I could be as creative whilst designing my presentation for my work which gave me as much freedom to branch out with my artistic skills. This has probably been my favourite project from the two years so far as it has allowed me to be highly creative with choosing something I have a great deal of interest in and can fully focus on since they are my passions. (Iconfinder, unknown)

11. Bibliography • All the images used in this Power Point document have been correctly Harvard referenced if they don’t belong to me and placed into my bibliography in my main portfolio • I have also screenshot each of these slides and placed it into my main portfolio just in case this separate document which I have uploaded onto my blog doesn’t open then you can find each slide in there. Each slide in the portfolio would also be in the table of figures and in the contents page at the start of my portfolio • I have also made it clear on my blog title that that it is my completed Power Point document, progress tracker and portfolio