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Today, I am disappointed in the cinematography world. A thread:
On Facebook, I shared this video from Vox:
I'm part of various cinematography Facebook groups and shared the video with them in light of recent events. Within a small window of time (I think maybe two hours?) one of the groups had to remove the post.
The admins originally approved the post and appreciated the topic, but they had to remove the post AND ban several members who had egregious responses. At the end, they added that they can hopefully return to this topic when the group is ready for a reasonable discussion.
I am in no way condemning the admins. It's their private group for discussion and respect their decision. Here's a photo of their message to me:
I am disappointed in my a few fellow cinematographers who took offense to an actual conversation that furthers our craft.
I'd like to further this conversation publicly with some additional resources:
I'd like to further this conversation publicly with some additional resources:
@NPR: https://www.npr.org/2014/11/13/363517842/for-decades-kodak-s-shirley-cards-set-photography-s-skin-tone-standard
NPR:
About Jim Lyon of Kodak:
In the 1970s, photographer Jim Lyon joined Kodak's first photo tech division and research laboratories. He says the company recognized there was a problem with the all-white Shirley cards.
(cont'd):
About Jim Lyon of Kodak:
In the 1970s, photographer Jim Lyon joined Kodak's first photo tech division and research laboratories. He says the company recognized there was a problem with the all-white Shirley cards.
(cont'd):
"I started incorporating black models pretty heavily in our testing, and it caught on very quickly," he says. "It wasn't a big deal, it just seemed like this is the right thing to do. I wasn't attempting to be politically correct...(cont'd):
...correct. I was just trying to give us a chance of making a better film, one that reproduced everybody's skin tone in an appropriate way."
Also @NPR:
According to [Lorna Roth, a media professor at Canada's Concordia University who has researched the history of Kodak's Shirley cards], the dynamic range of the film â both still photo stock and motion picture â was biased toward white skin. (cont'd):
According to [Lorna Roth, a media professor at Canada's Concordia University who has researched the history of Kodak's Shirley cards], the dynamic range of the film â both still photo stock and motion picture â was biased toward white skin. (cont'd):
In 1978, the filmmaker Jean-Luc Godard famously refused to use Kodak film to shoot in Mozambique because he declared the film was racist. People also complained that photos of blacks and whites in the same shot would turn out partially under- or over-exposed.
@nytimes:
Earl Kage, Kodakâs former manager of research and the head of Color Photo Studios, received complaints during this time from chocolate companies saying that they âwerenât getting the right brown tones on the chocolatesâ in the photographs. (cont'd):
Earl Kage, Kodakâs former manager of research and the head of Color Photo Studios, received complaints during this time from chocolate companies saying that they âwerenât getting the right brown tones on the chocolatesâ in the photographs. (cont'd):
Furniture companies also were not getting enough variation between the different color woods in their advertisements. Concordia University professor Rothâs research shows that Kage had also received complaints before from parents about the quality of graduation photographs -
â the color contrast made it nearly impossible to capture a diverse group â but it was the chocolate and furniture companies that forced Kodakâs hand. Kage admitted, âIt was never black flesh that was addressed as a serious problem at the time.â
From @reetamac:
Most photographers â my parents, the Olan Mills studio â didn't have control. Unless you were doing your own processing, you took your film to a lab where the technician worked off a reference card with a perfectly balanced portrait of a pale-skinned woman.
Most photographers â my parents, the Olan Mills studio â didn't have control. Unless you were doing your own processing, you took your film to a lab where the technician worked off a reference card with a perfectly balanced portrait of a pale-skinned woman.
( @reetamac I had to slim the quote down to fit in the tweet; hope that's ok!)
And because I can't quite possibly fit it all into tweets that will make sense, @ABerkofsky's brilliant interview with @Mic shows how difficult it still is today: https://www.mic.com/articles/184244/keeping-insecure-lit-hbo-cinematographer-ava-berkofsky-on-properly-lighting-black-faces
Links to what I referenced:
https://www.npr.org/2014/11/13/363517842/for-decades-kodak-s-shirley-cards-set-photography-s-skin-tone-standard
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/25/lens/sarah-lewis-racial-bias-photography.html https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/syreetamcfadden/teaching-the-camera-to-see-my-skin
https://www.npr.org/2014/11/13/363517842/for-decades-kodak-s-shirley-cards-set-photography-s-skin-tone-standard
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/25/lens/sarah-lewis-racial-bias-photography.html https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/syreetamcfadden/teaching-the-camera-to-see-my-skin
As cinematographers, we can do better. No one is being called a racist, we're simply recognizing design flaws in the technology we use.
If we push for better resolution and bit depth, then we can push for better skin tone representation, for all skin tones.
If we push for better resolution and bit depth, then we can push for better skin tone representation, for all skin tones.
Neill R Bell-Shaw on the other facebook groups recommended some excellent articles on this topic:
https://www.indiewire.com/2016/10/moonlight-cinematography-color-barry-jenkins-james-laxton-alex-bickel-1201740402/ https://www.theguardian.com/film/2017/sep/21/its-lit-how-film-finally-learned-how-to-light-black-skin#:~:text=After%20all%2C%20the%20original%20title,Moonlight%20Black%20Boys%20Appear%20Blue.&text=But%20the%20DOP%20on%20everyone's,nominated%20for%20a%20cinematography%20Oscar
https://www.indiewire.com/2016/10/moonlight-cinematography-color-barry-jenkins-james-laxton-alex-bickel-1201740402/ https://www.theguardian.com/film/2017/sep/21/its-lit-how-film-finally-learned-how-to-light-black-skin#:~:text=After%20all%2C%20the%20original%20title,Moonlight%20Black%20Boys%20Appear%20Blue.&text=But%20the%20DOP%20on%20everyone's,nominated%20for%20a%20cinematography%20Oscar
Another article showcasing bias in the design of technology: https://www.vice.com/amp/en_us/article/7kpxyy/this-image-of-a-white-barack-obama-is-ais-racial-bias-problem-in-a-nutshell
Dynamic range in cinema cameras are no longer an issue, but we never learned to correct our bias.
Dynamic range in cinema cameras are no longer an issue, but we never learned to correct our bias.
