Yet again, I have fallen behind on my blogging duties so this one will be short and sweet. I too was a part of the movie screenings two weeks back and even though I was in several of these short films; I too recognized that there was an all too familiar theme to these movies. That of gun violence and female characters being portrayed as lynch pins in order for the male protagonists to undergo a significant character arch. I think the exception to this rule came with Heavy Eyes in which the female protagonist was the main character and she was put forth in order to progress the story. Yet even still the character was basically a pawn in which the male characters used in order to undergo a significant change. I think part of this is because the filmmakers we have in our department are mostly male, for the most part. However, I have been present in Josh's digital post production class and I have seen many wonderful films that these students produced as an assignment. The class is pretty evenly split in terms of gender and both the male and female students have put forth some wonderful films that have had both female and male protagonists that don't rely on violence or other negative stereotypical tropes to move the story forward. My conclusion is, that when the student film maker feels they have to make a poignant serious film they need strong images of violence, alcohol abuse etc in order to get the point across. Yet, when they feel there is less on the line in terms of what's expected of them I think they tend to make more lighthearted films or at least less violent or depressing films. Anyway, I too have been very impressed with the young filmmakers I've come to know and proudly worked with over the last two years and I hope to see more of their work on the big screen in the future.