Research&Planning:Voyeurism.

In class we started looking at the use of voyeurism in music videos, how this is achieved and what effect it creates on an audience. We started the discussion by watching a current music video to Heat Wave by Wiley.

We then wrote our initial reactions to the video on the board to collect everyone's thoughts and feelings to it.




We made many interesting points about the music video, especially on representation. For example we realised that there were only white girls in the music video and so race was not being portrayed
in a fair way. We also thought that the representation of women in general was quite demeaning and linked it to Laura Mulvey's male gaze theory.

Then we looked at wikipedia's definition of voyeurism:

Voyeurism is the sexual interest in or practise of spying on people engaged in intimate behaviours, such as undressing, sexual activity, or other actions usually considered to be of a private nature.^[1]

However, in today's society the concept of voyeurism has evolved, especially in popular culture. Non-pornographic reality television programs such as Survivor and The Real World, are prime examples of voyeurism, where viewers (the voyeur) are granted an intimate interaction with a subject group or individual. Although not necessarily "voyeurism" in its original definition, as individuals in these given situations are aware of their audience, the concept behind "reality TV" is to allow unscripted social interaction with limited outside interference or influence. As such, the term still maintains its sexual connotations.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voyeurism

We then simplified this and made our own definitions:

Voyeurism is the act of looking in at someone, similar to spying, whilst they are engaging in acts of a private nature, eg. undressing. However in today's society it can also be the idea of having a glimpse into someones life, mostly seen in reality TV shows, eg. Big Brother.

We also briefly looked at a quote:
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'There is frequently reference to the notion of looking (mirrors, screens within screens, stages etc.) and particularly voyeuristic treatment of the female body'- Andrew Goodwin-Dancing in the Distraction Factory (1992).

Even though this was expressed in 1992 it is still relevant today and it is incredible that the same things are expressed today as they were 10 years ago.

Lastly we thought about how we could recapture some voyeuristic shots our self and came up with a list of some voyeuristic shots we would like to try and capture

• Tilt up the body from the feet
• Panning across the midrift area
• Close-Ups
• Peeking shots
• POV shots.