She's a Looker

The above image is a still from Drew Goter's groundbreaking directorial debut, She's a Looker (2015). She's a Looker is a taut psychological drama that follows Audrey Albrecht (Taylor Bosworth), a functioning paranoid schizophrenic whose symptoms worsen after she starts receiving attention from her male peers. Audrey combats this anxiety by planting surveillance cameras around her college campus and spending her nights observing the very people that she fears being observed by. She's a Looker engages Linda Williams's theory of the female gaze by likening the female voyeur to the monster and by depicting Audrey's gaze as an act of self-punishment. However, the film also challenges both Williams's and Laura Mulvey's theory of visual pleasure in cinema by presenting a female who is quite capable of obtaining sadistic pleasure - albeit non-sexual pleasure - from voyeurism.

On The Rocks

    Here we have some guy(Alex Tuck) at a bar trying to hit on the girl(Whitney VanBaale) next to him. Judging by the salt shaker, he's not doing to well. I wanted to convey 'drunk' through the camera, so the blurry sense of motion is intentional. I was trying to use 'the gaze' in a subjective way. Through the beer's color and clarity and the man's drunken aggression, my goal was to put the focus on the female subject and depict her in a fetishistic and voyeuristic way, simultaneously. The drunken nature of the picture was also used to remove the man's control (castration), but maintain his perspective of the woman and the situation.

Mirror Image

The image represents a young girl (Caylie) obsessed with the way she looks.  She can't even be in nature without bringing her makeup and mirror and doing touch ups. I wanted to capture just the image of her face in the mirror to show how controlled she is by an image. 

First Kiss

This is a film still of Briana and Maria. They are best friends but have been forced to suppress their love for one another because of society's stance on gay love. This is their first kiss. I chose to focus on objects of desire and the suppression of emotions present in "My Own Private Idaho," particualrly in Mike's unreturned love for Scott who chooses to take the path of the successful heterosexual male.

Rebellion

A young man trying to rebel against the norms of society in an attempt to fit in with his peers. I think displaying the character performing an action (smoking) in an area where that action is prohibited (a non-smoking area) symbolizes his rebellious and care-free attitude. I used the concepts of the close-up and melodrama to explain how this shot conveys the characters attitude in a way that is easy for viewers to understand.

The Voyeurs

She's being watched and she can feel it. She doesn't know who or why but there is a slow creep that makes its way up her spine when ever she is alone. In this particular shot, a dream sequence manifest her fears of being watched. This shot's roots drip in the concepts of scopophilia, as well as the voyeuristic gaze, and its powerful hold over the subject. However the voyeurism is challenged here because the subject is confronting her watchers, and in doing so, leaves the audience to take her place as the voyeuristic 'object'. The gazers are depicted in animal masks to portray the metaphor of the primal love of "looking".

The Woman

Chris Hunter thinks he remembers her perfectly.