ASC and Diversity

[Tom Chase]

I keep seeing the reference back to the number of female film students is a great relative number that the 4% ASC females. But, and I'm playing devlis advocate, how many of those female students are going into the camera department once they leave film school - It seems to me that those numbers are the ones that we need to follow. I have many friends who graduated a 4 year film school program and found Art Direction or Makeup or producing was more their calling than working as Cam Op or even going into Direction.

The numbers we should be comparing is the number of working females who are local 600 DP's vs their male counterparts. I agree that is would be great to see more minority or female ASC's but from what limited knowledge I have about the ASC selection process you can't make a quota system with out degrading the integrity of society.

Ok my random two cents

 

[Rachel Han Xu]

Thanks for the excellent points and the deep understanding. This was thought provoking and made me want to share a bit of my experience as a female film school (USC) cinematography emphasis grad.

First of all, I did feel a decrease in the interest in the cinematography subject among female students as class level went up. For example, when I took intermediate cinematography class which was still pretty basic, there were about 35-45% women in class. But as I took advanced cine. class, it dropped to 10%-15% as the in-class photo below shows. I was one of the two women in the class. (The beautiful lady in white was the talent.) Regardless of the gender ratio, this was one of my favorite class at USC. In the picture it was my set. Everyone worked hard to help me achieve the vision and we had a blast.

I have considered pursing cinematography but didn't do so after graduation because of the following:

1) I like exploring the beauty of cinematography and discussing the history and future of it, but don't LOVE it enough to make a career out of it. Other than good cinematography, a good concept, acting, pacing, editing, etc are just as important to me, which lead me to what I'm doing mostly now- commercial directing.

2) Physical limitation as a woman. It's not sexist, it's reality. I'm just not strong enough to carry a 45 lbs camera for a long time, and I can only carry 2 sandbags at a time. Also as we know, DP doesn't get to take breaks on set, which made it very hard sometimes because women have period, and when women have period, women need to make frequent runs to bathroom (Lol, sorry not sorry!). And imagine if we are shooting in the desert or a woods where the bathroom is miles way or none at all.

The above two are the main reasons why I shifted focus, and those are basically INTERNAL, meaning it's based on my personal interest and condition, not forced by the external environment. However the EXTERNALS did play an interesting role from time to time. But that was more subtle and on a sub-conscious level, which would be too complicated to elaborate here. Quick examples would be: When I arrived on set, people sometimes just conveniently assumed that I was the MUA/wardrobe/talent instead of someone in camera. Also sometimes when I was the only female in the department, guys just kinda forgot I was there and started talking about something not too women-friendly, which alienated me more of course.

Then again this is not something that only exists in cine. department or film industry obviously. it's societal and universal. Like earlier I was just chatting with a friend who was the only female in her law office. The whole day she was listening to her male collegues talking about their past weekend Vegas strip club fun times and she had to be like "Great, totally normal conversation!" Love it or hate it. We just have to deal with it.

Cheers,

-Rachel

Chris, it's a bit too dismissive of a real industry problem to say that the demographics for women and minority representation are just simply due to a lack of interest on their parts. Sure, it would be unrealistic to expect 50% of working cinematographers to be women when you don't see 50% of the cinematography students in film schools are currently women, but on the other hand, there are more than the 1% that get to shoot major features, or even the 4% that are in the ASC. Someone at AFI told me that about a third of the cinematography students were women, but even if it were only 25%, that's more than the percentage that ends up in the union and then later in the ASC, so clearly there are trends to discourage their advancement.

My point was just that given the average age of the ASC members, and the track record that they have to accumulate, it's not going to match the demographics of film schools today or even the union today, it's going to reflect a time several years earlier and it also reflects the end result of opportunities given to working cinematographers over decades. In other words, it would be far more practical to look at the problem of gender and minority representation at the other end of the career ladder to see where the problems might be.

I think there is a real problem if it's only 25% being filtered down to 4% and then to 1% -- it doesn't take a genius to see that that would be disheartening and discouraging to an up-and-comer looking for female role models. I just think it is wrong to look at the ASC as being part of the problem; at the level of professionals that they are selecting from, there are currently fewer women who have been working as cinematographers for more than a decade, as opposed to entering the workforce now. In other words, it will rise to more than 4% but the question really is how to we make sure that there are no roadblocks for the women who do want to advance, but it doesn't help to suggest that the lack of advancement of women is entirely their own fault due to lack of interest or lack of drive.

 

[ericyoung]

Thanks for your thoughtful first post to Reduser, Rachel!

Some of the "externals" will hopefully change with a greater proportion of women in a job - but it's a chicken/egg situation.

 

[Christopher Probst]

Rachel, thanks for taking the time and sharing your experience. Having an interest and an eye toward cinematography certainly will be a great benefit to you in directing as well, so your schooling was not time wasted. Please do feel free to stick around and contribute to these boards, you're very articulate and certainly could add perspective to this bowl of Testosterone...

 

[Rachel Han Xu]

Thank you for the response, Eric! It is indeed a chicken/egg problem. Let's hope both parties will keep making conscious effort to better the situation.

 

[Rachel Han Xu]

Thanks for the kind words, Chris. It is precious and inspiring to have people like you in the industry who don't just focus on perfecting their own work, but also take chunks of your time teaching and sharing your knowledge with others, and making the community prosperous as a whole. A tip of the hat to you, sir.

 

[Benjamin Cabral]

Is good to see your thoughts Rachel.
Here in Mexico I've met some women DP but I think the numbers must to be something like 95% men and 5% women. It is a very sexist industry. But I do not think the period is a real problem, come on! They don't have the period every day. I've never seen anyone worry about a woman on the crew having her period... Everyone has the right to go to the bathroom… some people took more time than others inside (men and woman) ;-)
The cameras today are very light and if you think that you can't hold it, always you can get a strong camera assistant.
The women DP that I have seen have strong character and they are very determined. I think if you are passionate about something, even if you are man or woman, you must fight for it.
What is sad is if a person passionate and good at his craft cannot get in on an industry because of their gender.

Sorry for my bad English ... I'm getting better every day

 

[David Mullen ASC]

Older male DP's can also have reasons to pee more often than a younger person...

 

[Julio Quintana]

Older male DP's can also have reasons to pee more often than a younger person...

Ha! Awesome.

 

[Christoffer Glans]

1) I like exploring the beauty of cinematography and discussing the history and future of it, but don't LOVE it enough to make a career out of it. Other than good cinematography, a good concept, acting, pacing, editing, etc are just as important to me, which lead me to what I'm doing mostly now- commercial directing.

2) Physical limitation as a woman. It's not sexist, it's reality. I'm just not strong enough to carry a 45 lbs camera for a long time, and I can only carry 2 sandbags at a time. Also as we know, DP doesn't get to take breaks on set, which made it very hard sometimes because women have period, and when women have period, women need to make frequent runs to bathroom (Lol, sorry not sorry!). And imagine if we are shooting in the desert or a woods where the bathroom is miles way or none at all.

Cheers,

-Rachel

I do see your viewpoints here, but I have to say that that while the first one is a change in interest, the second one is not a problem. As David said, older cinematographers definetely need to pee more than young people and they might not be able to carry around the camera either. I have not encountered these issues among female cinematographers in Sweden. I think there seem to be a strange demand on you that makes you think that there are limitations because you are a woman. The only limitation should be your eyes.

I know a cinematographer here who is in a wheelchair. He might not get the mountain climbing jobs, but studio shoots and such is no problem for him. He was nominated for our national price in cinematography a few years back for a feature film he DP:d. So if he can do it, why do you think it's impossible for women to do cinematography based on them being women? I know a lot of women who DP:d in jungles, in deserts in remote places without a problem and most of them can carry a camera, if not, they have an operator. I don't hire DPs based on their physical attributes or how often they go to the bathroom, I hire them because of their eye in photography.

Now, you said that you lost interest in being a DP, so that's not something I could argue with, but I think there's definetely a male mentality towords the profession that subconsciously have put you in a mindset that being a woman has it's limitations for it. There's a lot of arguments about women dropping out of interest and feeling they can't handle the job etc. but as I see it, it may very well be because this job has an overdose of masculinity that is hard to break through mentally.

I often hear that the problems with diversity is that women, in most male dominant professions, just don't have an interest in the job. But this is because we grew up with ideas about what is male and what is female. Professions that we have male mental images for will often end up being male dominant. Cinematography is a very male dominant mental image. It's technical, it's physical and every master in the profession seem to be male... no wonder women feel they have no place there, consciously or subconsciously.

I just don't buy it when men and for that matter even worse, women keep saying women have limitations for the job. As long as you're not blind there's no real limitation and I rather have a woman with a good eye in cinematography and who goes to the bathroom a lot, than a man with descent skills but physical stength..

 

[Michael Tiemann]

I don't get the physical limitation thing. First, J.L. Fisher dollies take 100% of the weight off the operator, and are equally usable by women and men. Second,

If it's really about strength, women can do it.

 

[Benjamin Cabral]

I often hear that the problems with diversity is that women, in most male dominant professions, just don't have an interest in the job. But this is because we grew up with ideas about what is male and what is female. Professions that we have male mental images for will often end up being male dominant. Cinematography is a very male dominant mental image. It's technical, it's physical and every master in the profession seem to be male... no wonder women feel they have no place there, consciously or subconsciously.

It is true, we grow up with ideas of what a boy and a girl must to do or not.I have a 4 year old daughter and I and I tell her that boys and girls can do the same things. On her birthday she asked for a car with remote control and I buy it.
I think we can learn a lot from this guy who is also filmaker:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K7rujK0iOJU

 

[Julio Quintana]

It's kind of funny. A woman finally comes on here and articulates the reasons why she CHOSE not to pursue cinematography, and several well-intentioned men jump in and say, "It is right for you! You just don't know any better!".

Every DP I know (including myself) has had to operate heavy cameras at the beginning of their careers when budgets are too low for additional cam ops and Chapman dollies. It took several years of reel building for me to start getting commercial work where I'm paid for only my "eyes".

But Sweden sounds great. And I agree that you don't need to have physical strength to DP a Roy Andersson film

 

[David Mullen ASC]

I've worked with plenty of female camera assistants and operators over the years, they haven't had any problems carrying camera gear.

 

[C. Miersch]

I dont like explanations where somehow an ill will is assumed. Gender-dependent employment differences alone is no evidence whatsoever. And the first mistake is to try to defend oneself against such an empty accusation. There needs to pe PROOF about inequality, not empty words. So there is no case.

Woman are even more equal than men in many regards.

Its been somewhat of a fashion lately to urge about woman rights.

Gender-dependent underemployment does not automatically mean inequality.

It actually means a difference in interest between the different genders.

 

[Julio Quintana]

Here is an interesting doc about how men and women sometimes choose "gender specific" occupations in countries with the most social equality. I'm pretty sure this doc was posted on Reduser the last time someone started a thread complaining about sexist marketing at NAB. Can't seem to find that thread right now:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p5LRdW8xw70

 

[David Mullen ASC]

I dont like explanations where somehow an ill will is assumed. Gender-dependent employment differences alone is no evidence whatsoever. And the first mistake is to try to defend oneself against such an empty accusation. There needs to pe PROOF about inequality, not empty words. So there is no case.

Woman are even more equal than men in many regards.

Its been somewhat of a fashion lately to urge about woman rights.

Gender-dependent underemployment does not automatically mean inequality.

It actually means a difference in interest between the different genders.

Sorry but you can't have it both ways, say that you can't look at gender representations in industry and argue against one explanation (sexism)... and then turn right around and tell us the "real" explanation, that women don't succeed in many careers over men simply because they lack the interest to. So women are "more equal" than men in many regards? So they deliberately choose to earn less than men in the workforce on average?

 

[PatrickFaith]

There's a couple of things in cinematography that I think women do better then men, but the traditional path doesn't value much. One thing is the ability to listen while focusing, normally on set these are totally different jobs so the cinematographer "tends" to focus on the look rather then the conversation. Another thing is skin tone, but the way color spaces and makeup work today that extra ability on noticing subtle differences in skin tone I don't think matter much. But in the future, I could see where a cinematographer is over the conversation and the look could be a great advantage, I see the RED RAVEN as something as an example in that. Also the ability to get emotion off of skin color changes I think should be possible with RED's new color science and EVF. If anything, I think this new technology is a good avenue for women, in that if one comes at it from a different approach, can create a more personal and compelling story. So rather then focus on huge camera's and uber gear for women cinematography classes, I think a better approach could be having women cinamatographers classes use a few Ravens and see how they could capture a conversation better( I think this would be much more compelling class for the women).

 

[Julio Quintana]

There's a couple of things in cinematography that I think women do better then men, but the traditional path doesn't value much. One thing is the ability to listen while focusing, normally on set these are totally different jobs so the cinematographer "tends" to focus on the look rather then the conversation. Another thing is skin tone, but the way color spaces and makeup work today that extra ability on noticing subtle differences in skin tone I don't think matter much. But in the future, I could see where a cinematographer is over the conversation and the look could be a great advantage, I see the RED RAVEN as something as an example in that. Also the ability to get emotion off of skin color changes I think should be possible with RED's new color science and EVF. If anything, I think this new technology is a good avenue for women, in that if one comes at it from a different approach, can create a more personal and compelling story. So rather then focus on huge camera's and uber gear for women cinematography classes, I think a better approach could be having women cinamatographers classes use a few Ravens and see how they could capture a conversation better( I think this would be much more compelling class for the women).

Just to be clear, is this your line of reasoning?:

1. Women are better than men at listening to conversations and judging skin tones.
2. The Red Raven is light-weight, with a good color science and electronic view finder.
3. Therefore the Red Raven will increase the number of female cinematographers.

 

[PatrickFaith]

Just to be clear, is this your line of reasoning?:

1. Women are better than men at listening to conversations and judging skin tones.
2. The Red Raven is light-weight, with a good color science and electronic view finder.
3. Therefore the Red Raven will increase the number of female cinematographers.

Pretty much, but i'd say it differently. Current systems are optimized for what men are good at, while often ignoring or having very little design input from women. systems like the Raven, basically smaller systems with better color science, allow cinematography that can be more immersive within a conversational story.