1. Mind the Gap: Half of all females fall through
AUDIO IMAGE NOTES
Are you a young smart and ambitious female? Think you have what it takes to School corridor (history) Need to design timeline
make it to the top in filmmaking? You may have the talent, but after getting Medium close up of female student. in PhotoShop.
your foot in the door, there‟s a 50% chance you will have dropped out of the Zooms out to reveal further 3 students, 2 male, 2 female. All start walking
running by the age of 35.There‟sa 93% chance you‟ll never make it to the towards camera.
director‟s chair on a mainstream film. Not because you‟re not good enough
but because you‟re a girl.
So where are all the female directors? Is it a role that females have never Imdb search footage – entering „female directors…‟
been interested in? Or is it the case that women have been sidelined in
cinema history? A quick search through the imdb website reveals there were
many women directing films in the early 1900s.
Credit for the first film has been given to the Lumiere brothers but there is Lumiere brothers first film footage (youtube – invention of cinema.
evidence to suggest that a woman was actually the first director of a
narrative film. Alice Guy directed thousands of films and her first may have Photo of Alice Guy
been made as early as 1896. But you‟ll not find her in many accounts of
cinema history. List of films directed by her moving in the background/images of films
rotating
Bump her to the side/fade her out
Photo of Dorothy Arzner
Hollywood director Dorothy Arzner is also ignored in most film histories yet
her work was innovative in many areas. She directed Paramount‟s first talkie List of films directed by her moving in the background/ images of films

2. in 1929 and invented the first boom mike during that shoot. rotating
Guy and Arzner are only two examples of talented and ground breaking
female directors who have been side-lined in the recording of film history
and the development of film theory.
The theory informing the study of film tends to focus on the director as male Key theories in film held up on card by female student. Stops on Auteur
and directing as a male pursuit. Even feminist film theory has traditionally theory.
focused on a male director.
Auteur theory in particular seems to have sidelined the female director by
setting standards for greatness that were only achievable by men.
Image of Clooney as director
In the 1950s, French film critics sought tomove the film director to the status
of individual artist and author of film but they didn‟t consider the work of Picture of Jacques Rivette with caption
female directors in their articles. Jacques Rivette named four male film-
makers when he announced the arrival of “the age of the auteurs” in 1955. Image for Movie Journal with scrolling text: great, brilliant etc
The British film journal Movie published “The Talent Histogram” in 1962 and
only two women are on the list Also in 1962, American film critic Andrew Picture of Shirley Clarke
Sarris first employed the use of the term Auteur Theory and in 1968 he Picture of Muriel Box
published Directors and Directions. In this book he has 11 different categories
for 200 film directors and there are only 2 women mentioned in this guide.
Ida Lupino appeared in category VIII. Oddities, One-Shots, and Newcomers. Picture of Andrew Sarris
Mae West appeared in category X. Make Way for the Clowns.
Scrolling text

3. Picture of Ida lupino
Picture of Mae West
Sarris top category is titled Pantheon Directors and here it seems he has Image of page
exalted the exclusively male list of directors to god-like status. He refers to
the lack of female directors in his entry for Ida Lupino by writing that the
actress and one time director Lillian Gish said directing was no job for a lady.
Imbd of female directors
Well that was in the 60s you might think, there‟s bound to have been loads of
female directors in Hollywood since who would deserve credit in an updated Oscars list on imdb?
guide to „the greatest‟ directors.
Picture of Bigelow with Oscar
Kathryn Bigelow is now the female director many people can refer to
because she made global headlines in 2010 for her „Best Director‟ Oscar. She
is only the fourth female to have ever been nominated in that category even
though there is a large selection of quality films directed by women to
choose from. Imdb search
Bigelow is one of the few current female film makers who would be eligible Picture of bigelow (on different film sets if possible)
for the application of auteur – she produced a body of work within a single
production context, she has worked in the universal „action‟ genre and she Film clips
has a visual style.

4. It could be argued that the only reason Bigelow has not been sidelined is Youtube of Bigelow giving advice
because her films fit with a male dominated industry‟s idea of what is
significant. It could be argued that Bigelow has sold out because she
distances herself from feminine content and feminism. Or we could just
celebrate the fact that a woman has held her own in a male dominated
industry and in doing so has prompted fresh debate on the gender gap issue,
in the media and in the classroom.
Now you know the gap exists, maybe you can do something about it? Her advice – youtube when asked if she has any, then round table when she
gives example.