John Williams

John Williams is an American composer, conductor and pianist who has written some of the best and most widely known film scores in history. In his early life he studied closely with Italian composer Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco. In 1955, after serving time in the US Air Force he moved to New York and worked as a jazz pianist. After moving to Los Angeles he begun working as a session musician, most notably with Henry Mancini, who helped him with his first big TV score, Peter Gunn. Some of his best works include:

• Star Wars

• Jaws

• Indiana Jones

• Jurassic Park

• ET

• Schindler's List

(All but one are Steven Spielberg films, Williams has scored all of Spielburg's films up until his most recent film 'Bridge of Spies)

Influential Women in Cinema

Kathleen Kennedy


Kennedy began her Hollywood career as an assistant and then secretary with terrible typing skills but great ideas about production. Steven Spielberg wisely promoted her, and she produced most of his films for the next three decades, while occasionally collaborating with the other big directors in town: Scorsese, Zemeckis, Eastwood. Known as a story-focused producer, Kennedy took charge of Lucasfilm in 2012, giving her the keys to one of Hollywood’s most important kingdoms, the Star Wars universe. If The Force Awakens breaks boxoffice records this Christmas, as expected, it will be thanks to Kennedy’s careful shepherding. 

Jennifer Lawrence


She’s already the youngest person ever to be nominated for three Oscars, and the most popular actress on Earth. But this winter Jennifer Lawrence will also likely become the first billion-dollar action movie female lead, with the climax to The Hunger Games saga (Daisy Ridley should follow her in December with Star Wars: The Force Awakens). She’s also changing the rules for young stars in Hollywood, making a virtue of extreme self-deprecation and goofiness while claiming, “They want me to be likeable all the time, and I’m just not”. Her utter condemnation of those who stole and leaked nude photos of her, and her negotiation of a $20m payday following the Sony hack revelations that she’d previously earned less than her male stars, suggest that she’s formidable enough to make it to even greater heights.

Reese Witherspoon


She’s one of the bigger stars of the last 20 years, but Reese Witherspoon has recently taken a turn towards activism. In 2012, she asked all the major studios what they were developing for women. As she recalls, “literally one studio had a project for a woman over 30,” so Witherspoon began optioning and developing projects for herself and – more revolutionary – for others. The first results included Wild and Gone Girl, both Oscar nominees, and Witherspoon followed up with her “#AskHerMore” awards season push to pressure newspapers to ask actresses about something other than her dress. Maybe she’s more Legally Blonde than we ever realised. 

Potential Films to look at:

• Star Wars VII - The Force Awakens
• The Hunger Games
• Gone Girl

All information found at http://www.telegraph.co.uk/film/what-to-watch/most-influential-powerful-women/

Another Idea

Another idea I had is music used in movies as many popular songs and soundtracks can be linked back to a movie such as big instrumental songs, most commonly John Williams' big orchestral songs such as Star Wars:

And Jurassic Park:

And singles written for a film such as all James Bond themes:

To songs already made but a movie bring it back to the spotlight such as Blue Swede's Hooked on a Feeling used in Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy:

Film Ideas

If I want to do discrimination then a good first film to focus on is Suffragettes due to the message of the film and also the controversy surrounding the premier of the film.

My initial idea

My main focus for my research is to do with actors in some form. I found an interesting article about the Oscars and the lack of diversity. Discrimination has always been around in Hollywood in some form and the subject interests me as I wonder how it is still such a big thing and why there has been little to do to stop it! http://variety.com/2016/biz/news/oscar-nominations-2016-diversity-white-1201674903/

First Post

First Post