Storytelling: Figuring out adulthood in “The Female Gaze”

“The Female Gaze,” a web series created by Shefali Vasudevan, is a twist on the classic romantic comedy genre that has always favored a man’s point of view. Produced and written by Vasudevan, an Emerson College graduate, “The Female Gaze” is directed by women and features a female-majority cast. It is her hope and wish that this series resonates with young women who are trying to figure out adulthood. 

Shefali Vasudevan

During a recent interview with Vasudevan and series co-star Camra Godwin, I was interested to learn about what inspired the creation of “The Female Gaze” and how it grew into a web series. The first season, which aired earlier this year via YouTube in seven weekly installments, is available for streaming. A successful Indiegogo campaign recently wrapped up to help provide backing for a second season that’s already in the works.

“A lot of the film and television I saw growing up was very male-centric,” says Vasudevan. “When I went to film school and realized how heavily male the industry was, I knew I really wanted to create something of my own to combat it. 

“The term ‘The Female Gaze’ is a twist on the term ‘Male Gaze,’ where everything in art, entertainment and news has been told strictly from the male perspective up until recent years. We wanted to flip that and make the narrative about women and how they view the world.”

Vasudevan approached Godwin, her Emerson classmate with whom she shared an improv class, with her idea of telling their stories in a unique way and she was instantly on board. “I had worked with Shefali before, and have always respected and trusted her vision,” says Godwin. “I was also excited about being involved with a web series that honestly portrayed a variety of stories about men and women that I could relate to.”

Camra Godwin 

Asked if it’s easy to relate to the situations her character, Jen, has found herself in, Godwin said that while her character “is not directly based on myself, she is in a lot of situations that I’ve also found myself in.

“For example, figuring out where she stands in a relationship versus being single and navigating jobs. I feel like I’ve been able to relate to every part of Jen, even if I haven’t been in her exact scenario. I still feel the same emotions and make the same discoveries that she does.

“For me, it was pretty easy to get inside Jen’s head, as a lot of what she experiences is similar to what I’ve gone through as I navigate my 20s. It’s a release for me to be able to bring my current awareness from personal situations and go back into that situation as Jen who’s experiencing it for the first time.

“Shefali has a really great honest writing style, but she also loves when actors make the role their own. During the rehearsals she encouraged us to improvise, which we sometimes added lines from, and tweak the dialogue to sound a little more like how our character would say it. It’s such a great experience to work with Shefali, because she puts so much into her work and then opens it up for collaboration to make the best product possible. That’s the ultimate dream!”

When Vasudevan started creating “The Female Gaze,” she was writing from her own perspective and personal experiences as a 24-year-old (she just turned 25 this month) and with an 18-to-30-year-old audience in mind. She said, “I think a lot of the themes are universal. 

“The characters deal with love and find themselves, and I don’t think anyone ever stops learning about themselves!”

Godwin, 25, agrees, saying “I think a lot of people 18-30 would relate directly to what each character is going through, but the emotions that our characters feel transcend age groups.

“Everyone has an idea of what heartbreak, excitement, love and confusion (to name a few) feels like!”

In developing “The Female Gaze,” Vasudevan, who earned a BFA in Film Production from Emerson College in Boston, originally hoped to learn more about filmmaking. She also became a central character in her own web series. The first series run of seven episodes included titles such as “First Time,” “F**kboy,” “Damsel,” and “Best Friends.”

In the fourth episode, “Damsel,” Vasudevan’s character, Priya, shares an intimate on-the-mouth kiss with her friend, Silvia (played by Avery Richardson). When asked if there was any sense of awkwardness, or if it was about Priya’s empowerment, acting upon her desires – perhaps figuring out her sexuality – she expressed, “I was writing this scene based on the experience of some of my friends and myself. What a lot of people today don’t really understand is that sexuality can be a little more complicated to navigate and not all black and white. It can also be something that is repressed in a lot of us because for so long in our lives we were told we had to think a certain way. Older generations tend to think that you can only like men or you can only like women. But I think for some people the attraction is based on person to person and relationship to relationship.”

Vasudevan suggested that Priya’s character “has entertained the thought of being with a girl, but until this moment in her life she has never met a girl in real life that she was attracted to. So, in the previous episode, she was with a man she felt attracted to,” but then “she feels so strongly toward Silvia that she has to act on it! I think by the end of the series, Priya realizes she has to explore this about herself before she can be in an open and honest relationship with either a man or a woman.”

While the final product of each six-to-seven minute episode comes off as a very smooth viewing experience, there’s plenty that goes into the creation and production. “We shot everything episode to episode,” said Vasudevan. The music heard in each episode comes from a variety of Emerson alumni (GUPPY, Pool Boys, Love Under the Sun) and Vasudevan said each were kind and gracious about contributing their music to the series.

“Learning how to self-produce my own work outside of college was difficult,” Vasudevan admits, “but I started to form a community and creat a good work flow this project.”

Road trippin’ with “The Female Gaze.” 

Within this community, which includes some of her former Emerson classmates and other Emerson alumnae residing in the Los Angeles area, Vasudevan decided to use an all female production crew for “The Female Gaze.” She said that most of the crews she’s work with have been majority male. “I would hear from the crew members things like, ‘Oh well, no women came out for the job,’ or ‘We’ve worked with this guy forever so we trust him.’ I thought this was insane because I know so many female crew members in different departments (such as lighting, camera team, production design) who are constantly not getting work. So, I wanted this set to be an opportunity for some of these female crew members.”

Indeed, Vasudevan changed the dynamic, and in doing so, she confesses that having a majority female crew also brings a different energy to the set. “There is a lot less ego involved – and a lot of creativity,” she said. “I have been on some really great male-run sets, but in general, on female-run sets everyone is just there to work and do a good job.”

When she was asked if there have been an production obstacles, Vasudevan said, “PLENTY! But I love it. My background from school is directing and writing, but more recently I decided to learn more about producing and acting.

“Producing has been such a fun way to use my problem solving skills. For the cafe episode (shot in a Le Pain Quotidien in Studio City), I actually talked to a few different cafes and Le Pain Quotidien was just the most responsive, affordable and flexible to work with! Lunch was also included in our space rental fee, which was incredible. I’m still dreaming about their chocolate hazelnut spread.

“The biggest obstacle was definitely the final episode of the first season and coordinating everyone on that set. I had a lot of help from my good friend and co-director on that episode, Caroline Ullman. The main issues came with coordinating actors and making sure we got through all of the scenes we needed to film in such a short amount of time. But the team of filmmakers we worked with were so incredible and patient with us! We ended up eating everything we needed and then some.”

Asked what the reaction from friends and family has been, Vasudevan said her family has been extremely supportive of the entire process. “I told my mom about what the story was going to be about a long time ago,” she recalled, “and when I started making the project I felt so insecure about it.

“There was one day when I was on the phone with her talking about how nervous I was, and she told me, ‘This is so incredible what you’re doing. You’re creating a body of work for yourself, of what you’re like right now, of what your friends are like, of what you’re experiencing, and you’re always going to remember it because you have this series.’ And that made me really happy and more confident about the project because yeah, maybe not a lot of people will see it, but it is such a truly vulnerable expression of my life right now and I’m excited to have that.” 

Godwin added, “When we first put it out, there’s always a sense of anxiousness because you want people to be able to connect with it like you did, and all that anxiousness has melted away for me now!”

With “The Female Gaze,” Vasudevan is emphasizing storytelling from a woman’s perspective. “I want people to see that women are messy and complicated and annoying and beautiful and weird, and that’s okay!

“I also hope that the stories resonate with people. Getting responses from people telling me that they related to the characters was incredible and more than what I thought I would get out of this experience initially.”

Find “The Female Gaze” on social media:
On Facebook @ https://www.facebook.com/thefemalegazeseries/
On Twitter @TFGSeries
On Instagram @thefemalegazeseries

Credits: “The Female Gaze” videos, courtesy of YouTube. Individual photos of Shefali Vasudevan and Camra Godwin by Lauren Cabanas. Cover photo and Road Trip episode photos by Zachary Shea Mills. Behind the Scenes of the final episode “This Is Not A Party” photo by Ariel Skovera.

What makes a good city great?

Dining out in Zürich

No matter where in the world, our cities are designed for living, working, cultural entertainment and late nights. Some times, they are even designed for fresh starts.

While some cities have it figured out, some don’t. From transportation and green spaces to retail possibilities and residential settlements, what makes a good city a great place to live?

Every summer, Monocle, the London-based global magazine that’s always been a must-read for me for its coverage of international affairs, business, culture and design, presents a special quality of life rankings with a top of the world list of the 25 best global cities. Most years, the list is heavy in cities located in Europe and the Asia Pacific. Not surprisingly, North American cities – especially in the United States – rank low or out of the running. (This year is no different as the only city to rank in the Top 25 was Vancouver, B.C., Canada.)

As the magazine suggests, “places grow and change and so do our ideas of how we want our cities to be.”

In his editor’s letter in the July/August issue, Monocle’s editor-in-chief Tyler Brûlé wrote: “When we look at a city we’re constantly asking if the infrastructure is in place to allow residents and visitors to be as productive as possible while also having a pleasant experience navigating the place.”

While I’ve written about Monocle’s Quality of Life rankings before, it’s always an interesting subject to study and dissect. In looking over this year’s list of the Top 25 cities in the world, it makes me pine for world travel.

Here’s Monocle’s Top 25 places in the world to live:

1. Zürich

2. Tokyo

3. Munich

4. Copenhagen

5. Vienna

6. Helsinki

7. Hamburg

8. Madrid

9. Berlin

10. Lisbon

11. Melbourne

12. Stockholm

13. Sydney

14. Amsterdam

15. Vancouver

16. Hong Kong

17. Kyoto

18. Barcelona

19. Paris

20. Düsseldorf

21. Auckland 

22. Fukuoka

23. Brisbane

24. Oslo

25. Singapore

In describing Zurich, the magazine writes: “Zürich is a city that gives you the feeling that all is right with the world. It starts at the airport, where you’ll encounter few queues at customs and a punctual train that delivers you from arrivals to the city Centre in minutes. You’ll step out onto nearly swept streets lined with well-appointed shops – and in the distance catch a glimpse of the snow-capped Alps beyond the turquoise blue of Lake Zürich. 

In commenting about this year’s No. 1 city, Zürich, Brûlé wrote, “Zurich has become something of a global master at making travel a joy. Add global connectivity to the mix via its airport and railway stations, high-quality housing and an ever-improving restaurant-and-retail scene and you'll know why we often refer to it as Berlin for people over 40 (or who know better.).

“While Zürich still has many areas that could be improved (more-daring architecture, more relaxed retail trading hours, more mature trees planted by developers and more incentives to make balconies greener) it’s got most things right. And it’s for this reason that it’s vaulted a few positions this year to take the top spot – yet again. Indeed, this is the second time that Zürich has clinched the highest position on the winners’ podium.”

Photos: Courtesy of Monocle.com.

Here are 25 cities you may wish to call home

Some random thoughts while drinking coffee and enjoying a “snow day” at home ...

Our cities are designed for living, working, cultural entertainment and late nights. Even fresh starts, like I experienced when I moved to Washington, D.C. in 2017, after spending 21-plus years living in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Some cities have it figured out, some don’t.

From transportation to green space, retail possibilities and residential settlements, it’s always interesting to find out what makes a good city a great place to live.

Every summer, Monocle, the London-based global magazine that’s always been a must-read for me, for its coverage of international affairs, business, culture and design, presents a special quality of life rankings with a top of the world list of the 25 best global cities.

Although I’ve written about Monocle’s Quality of Life rankings before, it’s been a few years – and, somehow, I haven’t visited the subject since 2016. So, as snow begins to blanket the Beltway, I’ve decided to take a look back at what Monocle had to say about last year’s quality of life rankings.

Here’s Monocle’s Top 25 cities in the world:

 1. Munich
 2. Tokyo
 3. Vienna
 4. Zurich
 5. Copenhagen
 6. Berlin
 7. Madrid
 8. Hamburg
 9. Melbourne
10. Helsinki
11. Stockholm
12. Lisbon
13. Sydney
14. Hong Kong
15. Vancouver
16. Amsterdam
17. Kyoto
18. Düsseldorf
19. Barcelona
20. Paris
21. Singapore
22. Fukuoka
23. Auckland
24. Brisbane
25. Oslo

“Cities are the future,” writes Monocle in discussing its 12th annual Quality of Life survey about the Top 25 global cities. You’ll notice the list is heavy on European and Pacific Asian cities, but it doesn’t include London, Paris or Rome. Only one North American city – Vancouver – made this year’s list. “You want a city that’s well run, delivers on life’s essentials and is fun, too.”

According to Monocle, “By 2030 urban areas are projected to house 60 percent of the global population. But while city halls need to prepare for that future – think grand infrastructure projects and investments in housing – they need to offer their residents a decent quality of life in the present. The best cities manage to find a healthy balance between planning for tomorrow and managing today.”

It makes us ask: What’s my city doing to change? Is it reviving former industrial neighborhoods for more housing stock and new cultures space? Is it expanding its airport or adding new routes to its train network? How well does my city do in putting on a welcoming face to outside businesses, newcomers and tourists?

Monocle suggests that getting it all right is “a challenge but some cities are getting it right.

“Take for instance, our winning city this year, which returned to the top spot: Munich. Safe and efficient with plenty of green space and good restaurants, the German city is thriving and more cosmopolitan than ever. Not only is Munich drawing an increasing number of students (it’s home to 18 universities) and entrepreneurs (its mobility, tech and IT sectors are booming), it’s been managing an influx of refugees and their integration.”

Looking ahead, as cities continue to expand, it seems that maintaining a great quality of life that gets recognized will be a challenge – even for the most forward thinking of cities. Monocle concludes, “Those that will prosper will be open and secure, ambitious and practical, with an eye on the future and a respect for the past.”

Photos and illustrations courtesy of Monocle/Monocle.com.

Thoughts on TV: NBA's LeBron James is unfiltered on HBO’s The Shop – In the barbershop you can’t lie.

Imagine watching an unfiltered conversation and debate featuring four-time NBA most valuable player LeBron James and other big names from sports and entertainment.

It’s all happening down at The Shop, which debuted as a periodic series this summer on HBO. James’s latest off-the-court vehicle gives viewers a “one-of-a-kind barbershop experience, which for many provides a sanctuary for free-flowing and spirited discussions.” It’s really good TV, folks. What’s not to like about seeing James and his friends sipping on some wine and dropping a few swear words while offering viewers a side of themselves that we rarely get to see?

The idea behind this open-forum series, a collaboration between James and Maverick Carter’s digital media company, Uninterrupted, is to visit barbershops around the country and gather groups of distinguished individuals – athletes who want to be entertainers and entertainers who envy athletes – who are free to speak honestly on sports, music, pop culture, race, current events, business and other “culturally relevant” topics. The half-hour program is unscripted and features a no holds barred attitude. Sure, there's the upfront adult language disclaimer at the start of each episode. Yet, it’s not as if we’ve never heard an occasional F-bomb dropped in the course of mature and frank conversation between mature adults.

Episode 2 of The Shop premiered last Friday night on HBO, and among those joining James were the hip-hop artist Drake, who opened up about the struggle to retire gracefully, the rules of hip-hop, and his on-going feud with Kanye West.

“I think maybe one of my biggest concerns in my career is just to figure out how to exit gracefully,” Drake admits during the broadcast. “I’ve watched people overstay their welcome, and I just don’t ever want to be that guy that’s addicted to the feeling of victory, addicted to the emotion of people digesting something that they love, and get to the point I’m just feeding them something and they’re just like, ‘Yeah.’”

Says James: “I’d rather fail being who I am than fail being somebody they want me to be.”

At The Shop / 
(L-R) Maverick Carter, LeBron James, Drake.

Both Drake and James shared thoughts about their evolving approaches to fatherhood and how each were influenced by their relationships with their parents. Joining in the conversation were pro basketball stars Ben Simmons of the Philadelphia 76ers, WNBA All-Star Elena Della Donne of the Washington Mystics, Indiana Pacers guard Victor Oladipo and NBA rookie Mo Bamba of the Orlando Magic, who spoke about their “rapidly evolving” careers.

The current episode follows up on last month’s candidly raw Episode 1, which established the show’s parameters, and featured former Daily Show host and Emmy and Peabody Award-winner Jon Stewart, rap icon Snoop Dogg, New York Giants wide receiver Odell Beckham Jr., Golden State Warriors star Draymond Green and WNBA most valuable player Candace Parker "deconstructing their success," as one critic wrote.

“Anyone who has been in a real barbershop, like the ones where I grew up, knows why this show can be so incredible,” said James, 33, a native of Akron, Ohio. “The Shop is exactly why we created Uninterrupted. I’m really excited HBO believed our idea and is helping us create something special.”

Photos: Courtesy of HBO Sports.

Videos: Courtesy of YouTube.com.

SIFF: Fostering community through cinema

The Seattle International Film Festival / A chance to see the world
from a different perspective.

The Seattle International Film Festival's mission is a simple but meaningful one: Create experiences that bring together people to discover extraordinary films from around the world. It is through the art of cinema, it believes, that we foster a community, one that is more informed, aware and alive.

The best of Sweden / A Man Called Ove

It is said that a great film is more than entertainment. It's a chance for moviegoers to see the world from a different perspective.

While in Seattle over the long holiday weekend visiting longtime friends, my wife and I and our friends experienced four extraordinary films from four different countries – Australia, Germany, Sweden and the U.S. – that were most enjoyable.

On Friday afternoon, we began with the 2015 Australian documentary film Women He's Undressed, in which Director Gillian Armstrong pays tribute to Academy Award-winning costume designer Orry-Kelly, a little-celebrated Australian hero of Hollywood's golden age who adorned the stars in such classics as Some Like It Hot, Casablanca, and An American in Paris, and was scandalously linked to Cary Grant as his former lover.

On Friday evening, we turned to the 2014 Austrian film Therapy for a Vampire for laughs. It's a dramatic comedy in which one night Sigmund Freud discovers a new patient on his couch, a mysterious count who has entered therapy because he can no longer bear his "eternally long" relationship with his wife, in this humorous mashup of vampire legend and neurotic obsessions. It was presented in German with English subtitles.

On Sunday afternoon, we sat front and center in the balcony of venerable Egyptian Theater on Capitol Hill, a classic movie house, where we saw Sweden's biggest hit of 2015, an endearing and crowd-pleasing dramatic comedy, En Man Som Heter Ove (A Man Called Ove). Rolf Lassgård stars as Ove, a grumpy, curmudgeonly old man, who finds his caustic view of the world put to the test when a new family moves in next door. The Swedish movie with English subtitles, which was adapted from the best-selling novel by Fredrik Backman, moved me to tears, and played upon the themes of unexpected friendship and love.

An intriguing spy thriller / Our Kind of Traitor

"A Swedish film in an Egyptian theater in America," a Tunisian Facebook friend messaged me on Sunday afternoon. "I like that," she wrote. I liked that, too.

Finally, on Sunday night, we were riveted by the spy thriller Our Kind of Traitor, based on the novel by bestselling author John Le Carré, starring Ewan McGregor and Naomie Harris as a couple who wind up as international pawns in a chess game between the Russian Mafia and the British Secret Service. It also stars Stellan Skarsgård and Damian Lewis, and it is due for a summer release here in the U.S. I highly recommend it.

Each film we attended drew capacity audiences of well-informed and educated film goers – the first at Pacific Place, a modern cineplex in downtown Seattle, and the other three at the Egyptian in the city's Capitol Hill neighborhood, and tickets were reasonably priced at $13 for each film.

This year's festival, which continues through June 12, will present over 400 features, short films and documentaries gathered from more than 80 countries.

Looking back, for the duration of each film we saw, there was a fostering of community. Together, we laughed, we cried, we felt excited, we applauded. Attending the country's largest film festival – with more than 150,000 people attending over the 25-day event – was both special exciting, and I look forward to returning again.

Toy Story at Twenty: To infinity and beyond!

Toy Story / A great story with great characters.

With the release of The Good Dinosaur over Thanksgiving weekend, it's hard to believe that it's been 20 years since the debut of Toy Story, the memorable tale of a group of toys that come to life which was the first feature-length computer-animated film and the first theatrical film produced by Pixar.

At San Francisco International Airport, I recently happened upon SFO Museum's newest curated exhibition, "Toy Story at Twenty," which tells the story behind the story of this wonderful buddy-comedy adventure film through a variety of artifacts -- early sketches, toys and sculptures of the unforgettable characters Woody, a pull-string cowboy doll, and Buzz Lightyear, an astronaut figure -- as well as sharing backstories from many of the principals at Pixar such as director John Lasseter, producer Ralph Guggenheim, and story co-creator Andrew Stanton, who were involved in the production that forever changed the landscape of feature animation.

Toy Story / A buddy movie where the buddies are toys.

"It'll be a buddy movie: a banter-laden tale of a bitter alliance blossoming into a true friendship," said Toy Story director John Lasseter, as quoted in the exhibition. "It'll have a few unusual twists. First, the buddies will be toys. And second, it will be the first time an entire movie will have been created using computer animation."

According to Toy Story producer Ralph Guggenheim, "Nobody knew what skills we'd need when we started. It was a completely new series of combinations that had to add up to more than the sum of its parts." Added story supervisor Joe Ranft, "If the story isn't there, all the breakthrough computer graphics in the world piled onto it won't matter. You'll have made a piece of passing fashion."

Fortunately, the vivid, entertaining and moving story was there and it resonated with its audience. The iconic and timeless Toy Story had its theatrical debut on November 22, 1995, and went on to earn over $361 million worldwide.

Toy Story / An early sketch image of Woody.

The voices Woody and Buzz Lightyear are familiar ones belonging to actors Tom Hanks and Tim Allen.

"Getting a line reading from Tom Hanks is like getting this big, incredibly wet sponge," remembered animator Glenn McQueen. "It's overflowing with different possibilities for you to wring out." Meanwhile, as John Lasseter described it, "Casting Tim Allen to voice Buzz gave us that quality we wanted of a macho guy with a soft underbelly. Tim's perfect at doing an everyday guy."

Toy Story story co-creator Andrew Stanton said: "We never thought Woody and Buzz's repartee would hold the spotlight in and of itself. But once they were animated, suddenly the chemistry between them was the highlight of the movie."

Toy Story / A prototype of Buzz Lightyear.

The film received three Academy Award nominations, including Best Original Screenplay, Best Original Score, and Best Original Song for "You've Got a Friend in Me" written and performed by Randy Newman. It won a Special Achievement Academy Award.

"Randy (Newman) turned out to be a great help to us when we needed a lot of emotion told to the audience, and accepted by the audience in a short amount of time," said Andrew Stanton.

"'You've Got a Friend in Me' speaks volumes about the love between Andy and Woody, better than we ever could tell it in dialogue. The way you feel it at the end of the song, we would have needed two more sequences without a song to get that point across."

Peter Schneider, president of Walt Disney Feature Animation, summed it up best: "At the end of the day, it's not the technique that the audience cares about; it's a great story, a visual feast, and great characters. They want to be taken on an emotional journey they've never been on before."

"Toy Story at Twenty" opened last week and it's on continuous display daily through May 22, 2016, for free, pre-security, in the SFO International Terminal main hall departures lobby. It is accessible to all airport visitors, and I highly recommend it.

To infinity and beyond!

Images: Courtesy of Pixar and Toy Story at Twenty.