Lighting and Photographing Skin Tones
Ever since the birth of cinema, artists and scientists have strived toward the representation reality and toward real stakes in their art. Many filmmakers have treated the projected image as if it were a window into the tactile world around us; harnessed film to push us, through sensory experience, beyond our status quo. Film theaters allow the viewer to suspend disbelief and encounter extraordinary people, distant historical periods and faraway locations. Diverse content begets diverse storytelling.
The tools of filmic storytelling — and, therefore, our filmic experience — are ever-evolving. Editing, sound, color, visual effects: from their early incarnations to the present day all have approached a level where constructed reality is near indistinguishable from our objective reality. But whereas today we can manipulate gradients and exposure both in-camera and in post, such fine tuning wasn’t always possible. To be blunt, we’ve not always been able to airbrush over the Eurocentric origins of cinema.
Early film stocks were not sensitive to the accurate reproduction of color. And when it came to the development of film technology that was faithful to black and darker skin tones, cinematographic advance was, let’s say, not advanced.
From the first color negative films in the 1950s until the late 1970s cinematographers were limited in what locations and dynamic lighting scenarios black actors could be photographed against, both individually and alongside white actors, because of the physical limits film emulsions had at the time in comparison to modern technology, such as reduced dynamic range, film latitude and color reproduction.
Oftentimes cinematographers were forced to use additional lighting to lift black actors out of the toe of a film stock’s exposure curve to best capture the nuances of darker skin. Without additional lighting the qualities of their skin tones would fall into extreme underexposure with no possibility of recovering information; colors would be distorted and textural detail would disappear under film grain.
Incremental advancements in film emulsions during the 1980s allowed manufacturers such as Kodak and Fuji to improve their film stocks’ sensitivity to lower exposures and capture an expanded contrast range. The ability to capture darker skin tones in more varied lighting conditions, while still compromised, had improved considerably and enabled cinematographers to photograph black actors in more dynamic and natural scenes.
Coinciding with the advent of improved film technology came new filmmakers with the opportunity to tell stories from a unique cultural perspective. The cinematography in films such as Ernest Dickerson’s collaborations with Spike Lee and Arthur Jafa’s work with Julie Dash on Daughters of the Dust in 1991 marked a change in the mainstream representation and depiction of the African-American community in American filmmaking.
In the late 1980s and throughout the 1990s, with the foundation of film stocks that could capture scenes with greater fidelity, experimentation by directors and cinematographers became more widespread. Modeling light for the contours of actors faces and capturing the specular qualities of black skin made for more natural, verite-style photography that wasn’t a creative consideration before; films such as John Singleton’s Boyz n the Hood featured extensive nighttime exteriors made possible by the photography of Charles Mills and his use of higher sensitivity film stock.
In the early years of the 21st century, cinematography underwent another revolution; the the maturing of digital technology for motion picture film production. Digital post production had already taken dominance in film sound and visual effects, but it wasn’t until the advent of the digital intermediate (commonly condensed to DI) that the possibilities available to filmmakers for the image control of entire films was realized. Commercials and music videos as early as the 1980s would undergo a telecine and color grade in the digital realm at standard definition, but the demands of motion picture films required higher resolution, improvements in digital color space and improved data storage for larger digital files. Film scanning at 1080p and 2K resolutions were considered the minimum for capturing the detail found in motion picture film stock, while color information needed to be greater than the 8-bit color depth found in television production.
In 2000, digital technology also came to film production with the first high definition cameras to capture footage in the industry standard 24fps, first seen in the work of cinematographer M. David Mullen, ASC in the low budget comedy-drama Jackpot and select shots in Michael Mann’s Ali, lensed by Emmanuel Lubezki, ASC, AMC. Most significantly digital cameras were adopted by George Lucas for David Tattersall, BSC to shoot Star Wars: Episode II — Attack of the Clones as part of Lucas’ push for an all-digital filmmaking future.
After five decades improving film stocks to produce accurate color, higher resolution and greater latitude the first digital cinema cameras, such as the Sony F900 and Thompson Viper, would be a step backwards. Filmmakers were once again compromised by the limitations of technology in their ability to photograph darker skin tones; films using these early digital cinema cameras were subject to reduced latitude, poor color reproduction and loss of textural detail — a recurring criticism was that actors appeared to have plastic skin tones. In Michael Mann’s 2004 film Collateral, shot by Dion Beebe, ASC and Paul Cameron, ASC, the contrast between the 35mm-originated material for interiors versus the digital capture of night exteriors is striking; because of Mann’s experimentation with available light photography the disadvantages of digital cinematography at this time were made apparent with regard to actors with dark skin. Thankfully the advancements in digital cinema cameras came at a much faster rate unlike the decades long improvements seen in motion picture film stocks; only several years after the first attempts by the electronics industry to repurpose ENG-style camcorders as cine cameras Panavision introduced the Genesis with a 35mm-sized sensor — better suited to the demanding quality and ergonomics cinematographers were used to with 35mm celluloid film.
Shortly after, camera offerings from companies such as Red, Sony and Arri would come to prominence in the film industry offering Raw and lossless compression to capture the maximum output from their sensors; this has yielded great flexibility to filmmakers both during photography and later in the digital intermediate phase in post production. The current tools available today allow filmmakers to capture the diversity of people found throughout the world better than in the whole history of motion pictures previously.
In the last five years, whether originating on celluloid film or a digital sensor, films telling stories from the black perspective by American filmmakers have seen an expanded recognition and demand from audiences. The refinement of camera technology and digital post production has allowed a new wave of cinematographers to capture the detail, depth and nuances of color in dark skin tones with greater expression and creative freedom.
For many emerging directors the leading figure in African-American storytelling in recent times has been Bradford Young, ASC.
Bradford Young has served as cinematographer to Dee Rees’ debut film Pariah, Andrew Dosumnu on Restless City and Mother of George, and is perhaps most recognized for his work with Ava DuVernay on Middle of Nowhere and the Martin Luther King, Jr. drama Selma.
Throughout his collaboration with these directors, Bradford Young has displayed a sensitivity to how black actors are photographed to best serve the dramatic qualities of a story; he also takes full advantage of the creative possibilities modern cinematography allows filmmakers to achieve with little compromise. As much as possible Young seeks to maximize image quality for post production, opting to shoot in Raw or with minimal compression, and best realize the vision of his directors. He cites the approach and techniques for lighting black skin by cinematographers Arthur Jafa and Malik Sayeed in the ‘90s, saying his own work “is on the continuum of what they have been developing for years.”
I pay special attention to Bradford Young’s photography on Mother of George as evidence of the medium’s evolution over decades. All of the principal cast are black actors who Young is unafraid to photograph in strong shadows and bold colors, utilizing the qualities of the Red Epic camera in conjunction with the DI to “bury these skin tone values in darkness.” Taking his work on Pariah, shot in 35mm, another step further Young has the freedom modern cinematography gives to tell the stories of long under-represented peoples and cultures. It is doubtful that a Nigerian immigrant story with such an extreme style could have been made before the advent of digital post production and without the increased demand from audiences for films about black characters made by black filmmakers.
Conclusion
This piece is not an accusation of active prejudice in the film technology of the 20th century; my intention is to highlight the struggles that black actors and filmmakers have experienced not only socially but also through the limitations of film technology in an ever evolving medium. In an industry that has regularly been challenged about white privilege the tools of cinematography have reached a zenith for filmmakers to equally represent people of all skin tones and ethnicities — the science of motion pictures has reached an equilibrium with the creative visions of its artists. It is the responsibility of the artists, the scientists and the businessmen to tell the stories of all cultures and ethnicities with respect, equality and truth — art is for all people.
Contemporary artists for consideration
Rachel Morrison, cinematographer for Ryan Coogler’s Fruitvale Station in Super 16 and Rick Famuyiwa’s Dope shooting digital anamorphic.
Cary Joji Fukunaga’s direction and cinematography for the child soldier drama Beasts of No Nation.
Matthew Libatique, ASC, cinematographer for F. Gary Gray’s Straight Outta Compton and Spike Lee’s Chi-Raq.
Special mention
Director Tony Scott’s collaborations with Denzel Washington on Crimson Tide, Man On Fire, Deja Vu, The Taking of Pelham 123 and Unstoppable.
Sources
American Cinematographer — April 2011, “Sundance 2011: Spirited Images”
American Cinematographer — November 2012, “A Sundance Standout”
American Cinematographer — April 2013, “6 Sundance Standouts”
American Cinematographer — February 2015, “Times of Strife”
The Washington Post — October 17th 2013, “12 Years a Slave’, ‘Mother of George’, and the Aesthetic Politics of Filming Black Skin”
Buzzfeed — November 21st 2013, “Ava DuVernay’s Episode Of “Scandal” Starts Off With A Scream”
Buzzfeed — April 3rd 2014, “Teaching the Camera to See My Skin”
Priceonomics — April 24th 2015, “How Photography Was Optimized for White Skin Color”
Note: This is only a partial list — additional information was obtained from further books, documentaries and articles but these details weren’t available at the time of writing.
