2016
canVus
Welcome to canVus Magazine
From the Arts Captain... This year, the visual arts has flourished. We started a school photography club and the visual arts is now being recognised as a part of the Chilton Arts Awards. Students have excelled in photography, painting, sculpture, materials technology and digital technology, ranging from Year 7 to Year 13. This variety of work is displayed in the following pages of canVus Magazine. Ol i v ia J or da n , Yea r 13
From the Editor... The name canVus comes from the idea of a blank artists canvas, and is a metaphor for your life - you are creating the content for your own canvas every day through your experiences in and out of school. Why is it spelt differently? You CAN be anything you want to be. You are not alone on your journey, you have all of US in the Chilton community beside you. Whatever you do, always follow your own creative path. As Lily Andrew talks about in her article on ‘girls in gaming’, we need more women in all technology areas, from playing games, to creating games. Be open to non-traditional careers and as they say, if you do what you love you will never work a day in your life. Ja n ie T ito, D ig it a l Te c h nolog y Teac her
The Artists: Year 7: Angelina Hutchins Ashley Griffen Yuxin (Amy) Li Melitta Lukovszki Leah Collard Year 8: Aranya Beck Bhakti Patel Aysha Jay Charlie Rowan Rachel Chiu Lucy Silver Elizabeth Hewitt Melana Janis Izabella Zurek Yasmin Chan Merryn Plowman Sophie Blackmore Mackenzie Tuffin Emma Wilson Katelyn Clark Erika Cui Paris Spencer Ainsley Burr Abby Draper
Year 9: Caitlin Holmes Michelle Huang Dianne Taylor Sophie Wei Nicole Maddigan Yuhan Wang Hollie Anderson Jess Woodrow Year 10: Charlotte Crampton Anna Robertshawe Harriet Clark Kendall Scott Yutian Fu Chelsey Edwards Zara Henley Emilia Greve Maddie Griffiths Marissa Ferrero Rosabelle MacManus Olivia McAlister Adelin Xie Year 11: Megan Reid Sochetha Meng Zoe Keane Vicki Huang Josephine Reeves Azmarah Maniparathy
Year 12: Jade Bennett Jaime Hartley Jessie Howes Natasha Ryan McKenzie Skelton Rene Conradie Shannon Reid Molly Rogers Zoe Cain Maddie Coad Abby Frickleton Georgia Russell Alana Strawbridge Year 13: Georgia Hurley Lily Andrew Lauren Reid Vida Quivooy Olivia Jordan
Taking Control
By Lily Andrew,Year 13
Isn’t it interesting that when we are first introduced to the world we are instantly hounded by stereotypes. You are either given blue or pink outfits to show whether you are a boy or a girl. Again these stereotypes are pushed into your teenage years; it is more accepted for boys to play games while girls are generally expected to become more academic. What does this mean for the girls that do stray from the usual path and journey into the make believe world of gaming? Why are girls so questioned when it comes to taking control, being who they are and doing what they want regardless of their gender. It is time to examine the beast no one has battled. What is stopping women and young girls from being interested in games or the industry? Why are women so important to the gaming stereotype? What makes them different? We need to examine the themes in games, the whole cliche of the “girl-gamer”
In a day and age where women should be accepted no matter what they do there is still a battle to fight - women in the gaming world are being disadvantaged because of their gender. I take a look at this problem and try to get to grips as to why it is abnormal for a woman to pick up a game controller. Because, why should boys have all the fun?
and what makes women important and necessary in games development. The problem is the clear division women face when they are known as ‘gamers’. They are instantly thought of as being incapable when playing and then are not counted as valuable team members or online players. If more women were to be involved further in the development of games, more females would be introduced into the world of gaming, helping to smooth the gender stereotypes out in gaming culture. During the early stages of game production and release, according to Variety magazine, in 1989, women made up only 3% of the gaming industry. It is easy to see that because of this initial lack of female input, games have had snowball effect of being created with more male themes. Studies have shown that males prefer more ‘shoot em up’ style games, whereas the majority of females enjoyed
more communicative games. Lindsey Crummett does sculpting of characters for movies. She strives to create new and exciting characters that give the girls who aren’t into dolls a new range of characters to follow. I asked her if she agreed that there is a lack of female input into gaming. She said yes - even though there are more females coming into the industry there are still “pockets or areas of expertise that are most definitely male dominated.” Crummett also agreed that if more women were involved in the production of games more females would be playing. “It’s the only way to make gaming and film more accessible to women and girls”. Crummett also made the very valuable point that “in any creative endeavour men and women both have their strengths, such as how men and women approach a creative brief. How to tell a story. How to design a character. What makes a strong female lead. There
is no right and wrong way, but to never get a female perspective on those parts of the process is to shut out so many other possibilities”.
“I love my job because I get to be creative every day. I have to constantly challenge myself to grow as an artist” Crummett also thought that the lack of women was certainly down to the industry starting off predominantly male, but she also added that “I do think there are fewer women who have interest in video games, whether it’s because of lack of passion for it, or because they’ve been raised with the idea that ‘video games are for boys’”. On the topic of what got her into gaming she remembered idolising characters like Red Sonja, Sarah Connor from Terminator, and her biggest hero - Ellen Ripley from Aliens. “Those characters contributed to why I got into the film industry in the first
place!”. What really grabbed Crummett was that these characters were strong and weren’t immediately sexualised; they were first and foremost heroines. Upon thinking about more sexualised heroines Crummett commented that characters such as Lara Croft started off as ‘sexy badasses’. “It always seemed unrealistic to me…but some girls love it.” Crummett describes her work as creative, exciting and challenging and to her, challenges are the best part. “I love my job because I get to be creative every day. I have to constantly challenge myself to grow as an artist, and my job helps me to do that. I love striving to solve design briefs, and sculpting awesome characters that I would have loved when I was a kid.” In an attempt to empower the female gaming community the term ‘Girl Gamer’ was born. One of the biggest problems for females in the gaming community is identity. Many prefer to remain anonymous because of expected abuse from male players. On first hearing it, the term doesn’t seem problematic. It was unusual at the time the phrase started, to find females that liked shooting and playing hero but did we really need to give ourselves a name to do something we love? Do you ever hear of a woman in engineering call herself a ‘Girl Engineer’? A survey of a local private girls school revealed that 92% of the girls believed that gaming was not only for boys. This information led me to dive deeper into
why ‘girl gamer’ is still used by female gamers. The term was established to alert men that “hey we can and want to play too”. However, it had a reverse effect in the gaming community. Many men and many females too, agreed that the term was doing women who love gaming a disservice. The so called ‘girl gamers’ were teased and belittled in online games. However, there is another side to the term. For many, yes, the term was a form of pushing equality, but for other women it became known as quite the opposite. Soon a ‘girl gamer’ was a girl who didn’t play. Many girls who claimed to be ‘girl gamers’ were looking for male attention. In a way, this phenomenon is similar to the people who wear sports gear but don’t do exercise. The major problem with this term is that it only promotes the idea that things like gaming are only for boys. I was lucky enough to sit down in a heavily decorated trophy room with the like-minded and extremely successful, Sir
Richard Taylor. He is Creative Director and Head of film prop and special effects company, Weta Workshop. “Like all things it is highly beneficial in my opinion, that there is equally a ‘male and female’ perspective in any creative or technical endeavour in life”. He told me the story of the creation of Jane and The Dragon, a children’s cartoon. Taylor explained how when they had first set out to make the cartoon, he had hired men to work on it. Taylor looked at the work and decided there was something missing. Jane was this heavy, brutish sort of girl that lacked emotion. Soon enough he had employed a young woman instead to create Jane and the Dragon.
“It just makes sense that you can’t possibly connect with the whole of the world’s audience if it is only men that are speaking to both genders” Taylor said that women have this special part to them that men do not possess. He continued to say that because of their nature they breathe life and emotion into a character. Taylor is passionate about helping women get into the industry because to him it makes so much sense. Upon asking Taylor about why women are important to the gaming and film industry he replied “The film and gaming industry can specifically benefit from the equal involvement of women in our field. The great and obvious value is the feminine perspective and touch that a woman can bring to the conceptual design and
creation of these properties. It just makes sense that you can’t possibly connect with the whole of the world’s audience if it is only men that are speaking to both genders”. In speaking about his workplace environment, “You are just as likely to see a young woman as a master welder or carpenter as a young man”.
“In the US, the median salary for men working in software development is $84,027, compared with $69,716 for women.” What I believe to be a solution to the gender gap, is to normalise gaming. Not classing ourselves and others as ‘girl gamers’, rather just ‘gamer’, is certainly a way to start. Teaching girls from a young age to be proud of being a female and letting them explore things they haven’t before because of gender stereotypes is so important for the future of the entertainment industry. An article by Simoney Kyriakou says that “In the US, the median salary for men working in software development is $84,027, compared with $69,716 for women.” We can clearly tell that women in most game development companies are being thrown in with the other ‘nonplayable characters’. Sadly, there are so many things to blame for this inequality. As a child I was encouraged to play, the same cannot be said for other girls. The stereotypes are what stopped some girls surveyed. 60% of girls surveyed had been told they couldn’t play because of their gender. I even had a comment from a
young girl saying “Girls who play video games are often immediately labelled as geeky or as gamers. Although these labels don’t always have negative connotations, they still categorise girls based solely on their interests.” She concluded with “For myself, personally, this was definitely a contributing factor in why I never really got into gaming”. I would be quite remiss if the content of games these days was not discussed. Many people have addressed the way women are under-represented in games like Grand Theft Auto. Often the female characters are just ‘used’ to progress within the game.Women in Grand Theft Auto are found in strip clubs, walking the streets where your character can beat up the woman and take her money or behind clothing shop counters. What makes it worse is that once you are ‘done’ with the woman and she has been killed, she fades away. Now this is standard in many games, however, for such a graphic game this is harsh and degrading. Grand Theft Auto sits at a pretty low grading as a game for girls - another game still rivals the place for ‘most degrading’. BorderLands, gaming modes became infamous because of the unofficial nickname male gamers had given the ‘easy’ mode. It had been changed to ‘Girlfriend mode’ prompting many women and men to speak out. Because of these themes and the utter lack of women in heroic roles in games so many girls are not trying new games or are not wanting to pick up the controller. In
a
survey
conducted
this
year,
are helping to make places of employment more equal. Also, places like Weta Workshop and other creative industries are in desperate need of women who have a passion for creating.
“There is an understandable sensitivity to women’s entertainment needs by women that a male technician may never have”
88.6% of girls surveyed said they wanted to see more female protagonists that weren’t sexualised. One girl commented on Borderlands saying that “the female Borderlands protagonist is an optional choice out of her and 3 male protagonists so the equality isn’t there”. Another young girl said “It’s good for girls to see the woman as strong and capable. More relatable for girls too.” It is so clear that a whole generation of girls are waiting to see themselves in a strong female heroine. Gaming may be a small area of entertainment for many. However, there are so many valuable and incredible jobs in the business that girls could easily do and be good at. They would be pioneers in their own right. They would and do inspire people but also have the knowledge they
If more girls of this generation were accepted in the gaming world and hailed for doing so, women could explore work in the games industry. We could build a new expectation for women characters who are strong, brave and kick-ass. With women slowly making their way into male roles, there is hope we start to see a change in themes in games but also how girls are treated when it comes to gaming. Sir Richard Taylor believes that “there is an understandable sensitivity to women’s entertainment needs by women that a male technician may never have (for all the obvious reasons)”. It’s about time employers found out that you can, and sometimes should, send a woman to do a man’s job.
Angelina Hutchins, Year 7
In Year 7 Art, students made portraits by ripping up magazines and creating a montage of colour.
Yuxin Li, Year 7
Ashley Griffen, Year 7
Melitta Lukovszki, Year 7
Leah Collard, Year 7
Aranya Beck, Year 8
Aysha Jay, Year 8
Bhakti Patel, Year 8
In Year 8 Art. students did cake paintings using textured modelling compound in the style of Wayne Thiebaud.
Charlie Rowan, Year 8
Rachel Chiu, Year 8
The sculptures are based on a theme of ‘moving still life’ inspired by contemporary installation sculpture by artists such as Christopher Jobson, Cornelia Parker and Nike Savass.
Halloween: Bhakti Patel, Emma Wilson, Aysha Jay, Katelyn Clark, Erika Cui, Year 8
Beach: Lucy Silver, Elizabeth Hewitt, Melana Janis, Izabella Zurek, Year 8
Breakfast: Yasmin Chan, Merryn Plowman, Sophie Blackmore, Mackenzie Tuffin, Year 8
Popcorn: Paris Spencer, Aranya Beck, Ainsley Burr, Abby Draper, Year 8
Caitlin Holmes, Year 9
Dianne Taylor, Year 9
Sophie Wei, Year 9
Nicole Maddigan, Year 9
Michelle Huang, Year 9
The Year 9 students did an exercise painting black and white self-portraits. This lead to using stencils and spray paints. The students separated the works into three tones of grey and observed the geometric shapes in their faces and bodies.
rt
be
Al n tei
ns
Ei
Yuhan Wang, Year 9
Sophie Wei, Year 9
Digital technology students designed 3D objects using the online platform ‘Tinkercad’ and printed them out on the 3D printer. Hollie Anderson, Year 9
Jess Woodrow, Year 9
Chelsey Edwards and other digital technology students, created movies using stopmotion and video editing techniques. The topics were around a variety of issues in society such as health, cybersafety and bullying. Watch the videos here: Bullying by Olivia and Rosabelle: https://youtu.be/3IgmZhm9lQQ Baking by Zara, Marissa, Emilia and Maddie: https://youtu.be/ jRxAIXNqO80
Olivia McAlister and Rosabelle MacManus, Year 10 created a stopmotion video about bullying.
Zara Henley, Emilia Greve, Maddie Griffiths and Marissa Ferrero, Year 10 made a video about cooking.
Charlotte Crampton, Year 10
Anna Robertshawe, Year 10 Kendall Scott, Year 10
Yutian Fu, Year 10
On the previous page, Year 10 students have created abstract animal paintings. These were inspired by Franz Marc and other pre-Cubists. The students have been visually studying a single animal for a project, and have applied their chosen animal to a range of mediums, approaches and artist models.
Harriet Clark, Year 10
Megan Reid, Year 11
Sochetha Meng, Year 11
Vicki Huang, Year 11
Zoe Keane, Year 11
Josephine Reeves, Year 11
Azmarah Maniparathy, Year 11
Jade Bennett, Year 12
Adelin Xie, Year 10
Jaime Hartley, Year 12
Jessie Howes, Year 12
Jade Bennett, Year 12
Natasha Ryan, Year 12
“In these shots I have tried to pull-apart a childhood icon, Barbie, by putting her in front of imagery that represents real life. I used three lights to create shadow and depth. I also projected images onto a background.� McKenzie Skelton, Year 12
Rene Conradie, Year 12
Shannon Reid, Year 12 In these images Shannon was experimenting with body painting and geometric shapes. The models used in the shoot are Kate Meads, Erica Wang and Tina Ho.
Alana Strawbridge, Year 12
The Year 12 Dance students created a video for the Roxy Film Competition. The first thing that inspired their idea was the concept of Wellington city being such a diverse landscape. The second thing was a poem written by Patricia Grace. “I love this city, the hills, the harbour, the wind that blasts through it. I love the life and pulse and activity, and the warm decrepitude ... there’s always an edge here that one must walk which is sharp and precarious, requiring vigilance.”
Dancers: Molly Rogers Zoe Cain Maddie Coad Abby Frickleton Georgia Russell
Georgia Hurley, Year 13
Lily Andrew, Year 13
Refined Ideas Concepts
Lauren Reid, Year 13
Final Product
Lily Andrew, Year 13
Vida Quivooy, Year 13
“This year I wanted to focus on the process in which women go through with their natural beauty. The natural elements and plants symbolise how women use makeup to cover up and fit with society’s expectations. My main inspiration was Rocio Montoya.” Olivia Jordan, Year 13