YouTube: Yes I'm A Woman... And I Also Direct // Join Amy Lyndon on a walk through her directing career. Visit different sets of the projects she has developed over the years and learn the ropes. She'll explain the difference between types of directors and what they're looking for in an actor.
5 comments:
I loved this video. It was fresh, honest, and I think it showed the reality of being a director, but also doing more than one job for an entertainment production. Amy Lyndon was not only finding locations, but also directing a multitude of actors and basically being a production manager as well. It’s obvious to me that the lines of “director” were very blurred. Also the moment in the video where Lyndon talks about not going to film school and just doing it and calling it “crazy” is somewhat ironic because she is definitely not the first self taught director. Lyndon also had a good way of elaborating technical director for film vs actor director for film. The moment in the video clip where she talks about being a writer and separating oneself as a writer vs a director is a piece of advice I don’t necessarily find relevant currently, but I have found that a few shows last semester may have benefited from this type of advice.
This was such a fun video! Amy Lyndon was able to go through multiple parts of the process that she goes through as a director, letting viewers see what it is like for a director to find filming locations, casting actors, and actually work with actors on sets. It does seem like Lyndon has had a lot of experience in smaller Los Angeles based movies, and that she seems to have given herself a lot of that experience. I think that that is a good lesson to have-- that it is up to you to go out there and tell stories that people will listen to, and not to just wait around for opportunities in the entertainment industry to come to you. In general, Amy Lyndon does give herself more roles in the production of one movie than most directors, but it seems to have worked for her, and that was another cool aspect of a director's life to look at. Overall, Amy Lyndon is right; women directors have always been around, and now that they are getting more publicized, I really hope that they don't go away.
I am truly fascinated by Amy Lyndon’s story and discussion of how she is a director (more specifically “an actor’s director”) and I find her perspectives very interesting. I think at some points, the way she is portrayed in this short film diminishes the amount of professionalism she truly has, and casts a light that may make people believe that female directors are unprofessional, scattered, and flighty. To me this is very disheartening because there are so many incredible, professional, strong female directors that deserve to be recognized in a positive light. I understand her perspective in saying she would like to be viewed as just a director, rather than a female director but I do not completely agree with it. I think it is very hard for anyone to just be a director, no matter your gender, race, sexuality, ethnicity, or any combination of, because the view you have coming from your background shapes the lens in which you capture what you create for the world to see. The current talk about the need for female directors in the industry is so incredibly important because of the lack of them in space. While it may seem like “the flavor of the month”, as she puts it, female directors are so incredibly important in this space, and I don’t think the desire for them is something that is going to vanish overnight. Time is up, because the time is now.
I was really looking forward to hearing from the perspective of a female director and what she does differently from men, if anything, or the trials she has gone through as a woman working in a primarily male dominant world; however, I have to say I am a bit disappointed by this youtube video. I felt that Amy mainly focused on location scouting, which in itself can be an interesting topic; however, then I think she mistitled her video. I also didn’t hear much of experience from her years directing, all I saw and heard were locations and clips of some films she directed in those locations. I felt like how she carried herself and what she focused on in this video clip was highly unprofessional and hard to take seriously. She barely touched on the fact that she is a female director until the very end of the video. And when she did acknowledge that it is tough to be a woman in this industry, she seems to still conform to the social construction that women are unique, rare, “hot”. I find this highly ironic, that she can argue that woman directors should be taken seriously when she doesn’t even seem to be taking female directors seriously. She does seem to have a positive attitude towards her profession which is admirable.
This was not exactly what I expected it to be. I, similarly to Lily, was looking forward to hearing stories of Amy Lyndon’s journey and challenges in being a female director. I feel as though, if you’re going to give something with such a charged title, you kind of have a responsibility to follow up. I think that she needs to do more in acknowledging the female directors who have been working for years towards not needing to be defined as a “female” director. I want to hear more about how she contributed to making an equal place in an incredible profession for women, so one day we don’t have to see a title where any woman is a sort of anomaly for being a “woman [insert job title here]”. I wanted to hear about how she wasn’t the stereotype that people reject, but she is the serious, professional director that we want leading human expression through film. I am quite disappointed that she didn’t seem to take her opportunity to normalize women being an any field that they work their hardest to be in. To be quite honest, she seemed to like that she was considered a special exception, instead of wanting other women to experience also being in the job of their dreams.
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