Girls on (and behind) Film | Claire on women of the film industry

Hello, all!

Something exciting happened today, and I have a lot to say.

Rose Byrne is basically one of my favourite women/people in the world, and this morning I found out through DailyLife (my everything) that herself, fellow Australian actress, Gracie Otto, and three other Australian women (Director Shannon Murphy, Producer/Publicist Jessica Carrera and writer/actress Krew Boylan) have founded and started an all-female production company in Sydney called The Dollhouse Collective. Basically, I just about shut down when I read the news, and I have been freaking out about it all day.

The Dollhouse Collective, from their website

For those of you who don’t know, I am a journalism and cinema studies student, and a big feminist. I want to work towards increasing the representation of and celebrating all-women in all aspects of the film industry (Whether it be in journalism/critiquing, acting, directing, producing, working in the film crew, writers, editors etc etc). 

This is because there is a distinct disparity between female representation and that of males, which is for no reason other than the fact that females have been oppressed for far too long. In fact, when Hollywood was created back in the beginning of the film industry, women played an important role in directing, producing and other behind-the-scenes work. In particular,  Mary Pickford was one of the most famous women in the world during the 1920s, as an actress, director and film producer, and co-founded United Artists and The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (aka The academy aka The Oscars). So why did the men take charge and push women out of these roles? The potential was there! (But you know, women weren't “supposed” to work back then and there has been inequality in the work place ever since).

And let me tell you, majority of the students in my cinema studies class are girls, including our tutor, but yet all the readings are written by men, and all the films we are studying are male dominated. Literally, all the films we are watching are sausage fests. There are so many girls out there who love to talk about and read about film, but it’s all from a male’s voice. And I’m tired of it, to be honest.

I adore Reese Witherspoon, and her all-female production company Pacific Standard (Gone Girl, Wild), and I also adore Rose Byrne, so hearing that she and others have created an all-female production company in Australia, a film industry that is often overlooked, (also the country in which I live) obviously makes me freak out. I am so ecstatic about this and joined the mailing list as soon as I could. 

The Dollhouse Collective in the May 2015 issue of Vogue Australia

The Dollhouse Collective’s mission statement reads, “Five filmmakers committed to exploring the creative boundaries of film, TV and theatre. We champion change, we value relationships, we advocate artistic collaborations. We are risk takers, friends and passionate storytellers.” 

The production company, according to DailyLife  and the group’s launch-interview in May’s issue of Vogue Australia (what a perfect way to announce the company, I am in awe/framing the article as we speak/read), is dedicated to producing and supporting film, television and theatre productions that feature strong female roles, as well as encouraging and assisting with each other’s projects. It is literally, as Amy Poehler’s Smart Girls would say, ladies celebrating and helping ladies. And that’s something that we all must do. How To Succeed in Business Without Really Trying may boast about the greatness of the “Brotherhood of Man” but watch-out bros, the Sisterhood is here.

Reese Witherspoon and Pacific Standard co-founder, Austrlian, Bruna Papandrea (left) for Vanity Fair, 2014

There has been quite a dialogue about actresses speaking up about the lack of, and wanting strong female lead roles, and the film industry’s treatment of females in the media lately (including Meryl Streep and Cate Blanchette), which is where such production companies like Pacific Standard and The Dollhouse emerge from. However, while there is a lack of “strong” female leading roles for white women, there are even less leading roles and roles in general for ladies (or any gender) of different races and ethnicity, as evident in this years Oscars , which is also something that should be remembered. This is a good step forward, though. And I am so gosh-darn excited.

All in all, I am very passionate about the cause, and I just had to share it with you all. Ladies, y’all are amazing, beautiful and strong as hell, and I love you dearly.

Now to figure out how to get The Dollhouse to hire me after Uni...

Extra Resources:

Ava Duvernay, director of Selma
Why Representation Matters
Gina Rodriguez Golden Globe acceptance Speech
"This award is so much more than myself. It represents a culture that want's to see themselves as heroes."
Women Directors Twitter
#MakeItFair (points out the gender-gap in the film industry)

And there are so much more, but I can't find them at the moment.

Stay amazing!

 Claire. x

Football Sunday

Hello Poppets! 

(Flashback to Year 9 where that was how we always greeted people)

Today we acknowledge a special and significant moment in Claire's life. Yes, we are talking about HER VERY FIRST AFL GAME! How Claire managed to get away with calling herself a Victorian for so long without actually attending an AFL match is truly amazing. I, however, attended my first AFL game some time in the period between Prep-Grade 2 with one of our uncles, back when I was exclusively a Western Bulldogs supporter.

Yes, we do enjoy the sports ball. It is no secret that we are fans of sports movies (mainly football related, but Moneyball is also a fave), and I was hooked on the AFL reality tv show, The Recruit, on Fox8 last year. We have also attended many country football games in our day, watching our older brother play throughout the years. Local football has a real sense of community, and it is one of the few things we miss about the country (sometimes). Except we are not the kind of fans that follow a team, or care about stats etc. We just enjoy the game (and you cannot really complain about those uniforms, really).

Us with our brother, James, at the local footy Grand Final 2014

There is nothing more Melbournian than descending on The G (That's the MCG for you non-Melbourne folk) or Etihad Stadium, eating a meat pie and watching a good old game of footy. However, we did not have the opportunity to attend the game until our brother asked if we would like to join him to the Essendon (his team) vs. Hawthorn twilight match. We said yes, and so we borrowed a couple of scarves, and joined our brother for a Sunday afternoon at the MCG. 

We shuffled out of Richmond station with the crowd, surrounded by avid football fans, and eventually made it to our seats. Since we had lunch at TGIFriday's beforehand (because why not?), so no meat pie for us, but we did have an expensive cup of cider ($8?!). We were ready. 

Two out of three of our Instagram posts made it on the big screen during the pre-game and half-time (We're practically famous). The game is the same, but the experience of being around so many people, and the sheer scale of it all... It was quite exciting, especially if the team you are going for wins (after the most intense last 2 minutes ever).

Claire's verdict: 10/10 would go again. If you have the opportunity to attend, go for it. Thank you so much to our brother for taking us. We love you, bro. 

Stay gold,
Grace x

A Day In The Life: Essay Writing

Hello all!

It's the middle of semester at Uni and for us Arts students, this means essays on essays on ESSAYS. Also means that there will hardly ever be a break between essays until the semester ends. Hooray! 

We are currently at the end of our mid-sem/Easter break. Which isn't really a break, but more like a "non-teaching period". Especially since Claire has had three essays to do/due in the past week. Killing it. 

And since this blog is about our life, our experiences, we figured why not make a post about our essay writing days for you all. So, buckle-up, friends, and feel the relate-ability. 

ALSO, stick to end, where we'll give some essay-writing tips!

On a typical day that we spend essay writing, we start with lying in bed, buried under our doonas and blankets in our respective rooms, denying the fact that we have to get up.
It's the hollidaaaaaaays. We don't have class, whhhhhhyyyyy do we need to get up?

And then one of us get's out of bed, and you can hear the floorboards creaking as they walk around the apartment. This guilts the other into getting up because HEY LOOK, I DID IT, YOU LAZY PERSON. (This is what being a twin is like. Constant competition. No joke)

And so we roll out of bed, put a jumper on (Claire has been wearing our hometown footy team hoodie and Grace has commandeered Claire's college jumper), get a cup of tea, eat breakfast, brush teeth and then sit at our desks. 

This is when we think, "Oh, I'll just check Facebook/Twitter/Instagram/Tumblr/YouTube, it won't take long." 
This takes about an hour. 

Long story short, it takes a while for us to actually start writing something. Sometimes we when we are motivated we start writing at like, 10am. (edit from Grace: Speak for yourself, I start writing at 9am thank-youverymuch)

And so, we have started writing (somewhat). 

THEN, the procrasta-tweeting starts. 

Honestly.

Why do we do this?

Maybe we should write a 2, 000 word essay entirely in 140 character increments/tweets

Procrasta-tweets turns into procrasta-watching

And then the singing starts.

We like listening to music while we write. Since it's autumn, Claire has been listening to Vance Joy's album on repeat (he's just got the vibe). Grace is always listening to wedding mixes on 8tracks. Or Broadway. Because Broadway time is ALL the time. 

Sometimes for essay writing days we go to the library (even during the Uni break). Which works for a while...

But then we just hit a wall and go loopy.

(WHY IS GRACE ON WIKIPEDIA?! NEVER REFERENCE WIKI.)
(Update: She was using it for background knowledge, not research)

All in all, essay writing get's a bit tough, and it will take over your life and make you feel like everything you're writing is awful, and you just don't care anymore.

Don't worry, we understand.

But here is the thing: keep pushing through! You can do it! Just keep writing and before you know it, you are over the +/- 10% minimum of the word count. Hooray!

But here are some tips that we have picked up over the past year for you:

1. Use actual books from the library. E-books and journal articles are great, but if you look for a book in the library catalogue and go find the book on the shelf, you will find other books in the same section that could be helpful and relevant. You could end up going in looking for one book and walking out with three. Also, it demonstrates breadth of research, so it's always a good thing that your tutors will appreciate.

2. Another good thing about using books is that most come with a Reference list. Look through what references the author used, find them, and use them yourself. Stacking up the number of references you use. (Because let's be real, who hasn't struggled to find "10-15 sources" for an essay?)

3. Start writing your essay a couple of days before your essay is due, and set word targets. For example, this is a tip we picked up from our friend Marissa, and we set 500 word targets for the day across a varying number of days, depending how long the essay is. This means that there is less stress on you while you're writing, you can take more breaks or get finished early and have the night off. Breaks are important.
However, if you have reached the 500 words but feel like you could do more, go for it. It makes you feel more accomplished and you might surprise yourself. Claire set herself a word target the other day and she ended up writing the whole essay. 

However, we know that everyone has different methods for what works for them, and that's cool. If it works for you, go with it. This is just what works for us :)

In conclusion, (we can never escape it!) essay writing is a unique and strange experience. But we get the job done! We cannot stress this enough: We do get our essays done on time. Procrastination and all.

(Edit from Grace: I think the fact that we leave a whole week usually just to write an essay allows us to procrastinate as much as we do but still manage to finish our assignments the day before their due.)

So good luck, fellow students! We believe in you, and hey, maybe send us some of your procrastination tweets to us at @graceful_claire. We'd love to hear them.

And whatever you do, please stay away from the Buzzfeed Quizzes.

Stay Gold!

Claire. 

Where have we been?

Hi guys!

What's hip-hop-happening? We know we haven't been around for a while. To put it simply, that's because a. A lot has been going on in our lives and b. we have been struggling with ideas for posts. What exactly is a "student lifestyle blog" and what kind of content are we supposed to be posting?

When we started this blog, our ideas drew inspiration from our favourite Beauty Youtubers and style bloggers. But we aren't that great at makeup, and we are too busy with uni to take photos of our outfits everyday (those of you who do, you're absolute goddesses). So what should become of this blog? Because we do still want to do this. After a lot of thinking, this is what our blog will be: a place for us to document our lives. We'll be posting life updates, what we've been doing, what we've been studying, places we've been, what's on our minds.
This way, there is a lot less pressure on us regarding content and we get practice in blogging. Just a bit of fun and hopefully we keep you all interested. Because honestly, when you have as many thoughts and opinions as us, what else can you do but write about it?

And because it has been so long, here' a bit of an update on what has been happening in the past month:

We started our second year of University! Getting back into the swing of things at Uni has taken some time, especially since Claire has to adjust to the "day student" life, and Grace's transfer making her practically a new student. There were a lot of things we had to figure out: Where are our classes? How can we make our timetable better? What shall we do during our breaks? Are we happy with these subjects? When will we do our readings and in what order? What time should we leave home in order to get on campus on time?
But, as it is mid-sem break right now, we can safely say that we have it down-pat. 
Breaks are for grabbing coffee with friends/studying! 
Probably leave 45 minutes for travel time as those trams are pesky things! Do your readings in order of your tutorials! See? We're killing it. 

Claire officially moved in! Now, we know what you're thinking: "What do you mean Claire didn't actually live with Grace? Was the summer a lie?!" And no, it wasn't a lie. Claire lived on campus last year and when the school year ended she moved into Grace's apartment, which she shared with a flatmate, and slept in the living room. It was a fun time!
But now, Grace's flatmate moved out and Claire moved in. Same apartment, but now it is 100% ours. This also means redecorating! Let us know if you want us to make a post about our apartment decor. (Our aesthetic is The Look For Less)

Housewarming
A couple of weekends ago we had our housewarming and decorated the place with streamers and balloons (because, duh. How else do you decorate for two 19-year olds apartment/housewarming?) Check out the pictures below! 
There aren't many photos because we didn't want to use photos that had our friends faces in them, out of respect to them, who may not want their faces on our blog. (Love you, guys!)

(Werk it, Grace)

Easter!
We went back to our hometown and visited the parents for Easter, which was lovely. The weekend was spent looking at old photographs of our childhood, as well as watching home videos. AND GUYS, WE WERE SO CUTE AS CHILDREN. Also, 100% identical (funny that, being identical twins and all...)

We are now on mid-semester break, which isn't so much a break, as more of a "non-teaching period" since we have essays to work on. Hooray! But we are going to try and get this whole "blog" thing happening again. You can count on us.

So if you're still with us, you're the best. We hope you stick around! 

Stay Gold,

Claire and Grace.