Shooting Women

Julia Stein, Alexis Krasilovsky, Harriet Margolis

Description

Shooting Women takes readers around the world to explore the lives of camerawomen working in features, TV news, and documentaries. From pioneers like African American camerawoman Jessie Maple Patton who got her job only after suing the union – to China’s first camerawomen – who travelled with Mao – to rural India where women in poverty have learned camerawork as a means of empowerment, Shooting Women reveals a world of women working with courage and skill in what has long been seen as a male field.

Acknowledgements



Prefaces

From Alexis Karsilovsky

From Harriet Margolis



List of abbreviations



Job titles and some useful definitions



Chapter 1: How do women become camerawomen?

Learning on the job

Still Photography

Film School

Training Programs

Two Examples of Feminist Groups: Women in Film and Behind the Lens

Women-Supportive Workshops and Production Groups

Filming in the Service of Social Activism: Video SEWA and Aina

Collectives

Rental Houses



Chapter 2: How hard can it be?

Gender Discrimination

Unions and Guilds

When Cameras Were Heavy

Helpful Men

Ssh! (Secret Sexual Harassment)

Sabotage

Getting Paid Jobs

Breaking Out of Isolation

Rising through the Ranks

Budgets and Glass Ceiling



Chapter 3: Documentary: A good and satisfying career choice that is statistically friendlier to women that feature fiction filmmaking

Filming History Being Made in China

Documentary: Historical and Personal



Chapter 4: Hollywood, Bollywood, independents, and short forms

Hollywood

Indian Cinema

The Freedom of Independent Films

Music Videos

Commercials and Such

Experimental / Avant-Garde Films and Video

Art Films and Videos

Shooting Special Material: Birth



Chapter 5: Special skills and creativity

Handheld Camerawork

Cranes

Underwater

Helicopters

Special Effects

Lighting as a Cinematographer’s Dream Job

Digital Technology

Style



Chapter 6: Shooting around the world

Erika Addis on Beginning her Career

Arlene Burns on Filming in the Kuril Islands

Yong-Joo Byun on Filming Comfort Women in Korea

Nancy Durham on Filming the Balkan War

Jolanta Dylewska on Filming in Kazakhstan

Sabeena Gadihoke on Filming Three Women and a Camera

Rozette Ghadery on Filming in Kurdistan

Sue Gibson on Filming in Jordan

Joan Giummo on Filming Homeless Women in New York

Agnès Godard Pays Homage to Beauty

Marina Goldovaskaya on Filming History Being Made in Russia

Ellen Kuras on Pivotal Moments in Shooting

Heather Mackenzie on Filming Romanian Orphans

Sandi Sissel on Filming Salaam Bombay!

Agnès Varda on Filming the Human Body

Liz Ziegler on Filming Eyes Wide Shut (1999) for Stanley Kubrick



Chapter 7: Can camerawomen also be women?

Parents

Fathers

Mothers

Friends and Extended Family

Husbands

A Happy Marriage

Pregnancy

Children and Childcare

Daughters



Chapter 8: What’s it really like?

A Typical Day

Where Do Camerawomen Go?

What Do Camerawomen Wear?

Working with the Crew

Working with Directors and Procedures

Acting Like men to Fit In

The Advantages of Being Female



Chapter 9: Magic moments, worst moments

Satisfactions

Worst Moments, Dangers, and Risking One’s Life

Chapter 10: What do Camerawomen see?

Representation and Gender

Ethics

Camerawomen Teaching

“Just Do It”

Aspirations for the Future



List of camerawomen whose interviews are included in this book



Bibliography



Index

Sujets

• HISTORY
• Histoire
• Women
• Cinematography
• Woman
• Television
• The Women
• Radio
• Film

Informations

• Publié par: Intellect Books
• Date de parution: 01 octobre 2015
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781783205080
• Langue: English

Extrait

First published in the USA in 2015 by Intellect, The Mill, Parnall Road, Fishponds, Bristol, BS16 3JG, UK
First published in the USA in 2015 by Intellect, The University of Chicago Press, 1427 E. 60th Street, Chicago, IL 60637, USA
Copyright © 2015 Intellect Ltd.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Copy-editor: Megan Jones
Cover designer: Holly Rose
Production managers: Heather Gibson and Steve Harries
Typesetting: Contentra Technologies
Print ISBN: 978-1-78320-506-6
ePDF ISBN: 978-1-78320-507-3
ePub ISBN: 978-1-78320-508-0
Printed and bound by Short Run Press Ltd, UK
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments
Prefaces
From Alexis Krasilovsky
From Harriet Margolis
List of abbreviations
Job titles and some useful definitions
Chapter 1 : How do women become camerawomen?
Learning on the Job
Still Photography
Film School
Training Programs
Two Examples of Feminist Groups: Women in Film and Behind the Lens
Women-Supportive Workshops and Production Groups
Filming in the Service of Social Activism: Video SEWA and Aina
Collectives
Rental Houses
Chapter 2: How hard can it be?
Gender Discrimination
Unions and Guilds
When Cameras Were Heavy
Helpful Men
Ssh! (Secret Sexual Harassment)
Sabotage
Getting Paid Jobs
Breaking Out of Isolation
Rising through the Ranks
Budgets and Glass Ceilings
Chapter 3: Documentary: A good and satisfying career choice that is statistically friendlier to women than feature fiction filmmaking
Filming History Being Made in China
Documentary: Historical and Personal
Chapter 4: Hollywood, Bollywood, independents, and short forms
Hollywood
Indian Cinema
The Freedom of Independent Films
Music Videos
Commercials and Such
Experimental/Avant-Garde Films and Videos
Art Films and Videos
Shooting Special Material: Birth
Chapter 5: Special skills and creativity
Handheld Camerawork
Cranes
Underwater
Helicopters
Special Effects
Lighting as a Cinematographer’s Dream Job
Digital Technology
Style
Chapter 6: Shooting around the world
Erika Addis on Beginning her Career
Arlene Burns on Filming in the Kuril Islands
Young-Joo Byun on Filming Comfort Women in Korea
Nancy Durham on Filming the Balkan War
Jolanta Dylewska on Filming in Kazakhstan
Sabeena Gadihoke on Filming Three Women and a Camera
Rozette Ghadery on Filming in Kurdistan
Sue Gibson on Filming in Jordan
Joan Giummo on Filming Homeless Women in New York
Agnès Godard Pays Homage to Beauty
Marina Goldovskaya on Filming History Being Made in Russia
Ellen Kuras on Pivotal Moments in Shooting
Heather MacKenzie on Filming Romanian Orphans
Sandi Sissel on Filming Salaam Bombay!
Agnès Varda on Filming the Human Body
Liz Ziegler on Filming Eyes Wide Shut (1999) for Stanley Kubrick
Chapter 7: Can camerawomen also be women?
Parents
Fathers
Mothers
Friends and Extended Family
Husbands
A Happy Marriage
Pregnancy
Children and Childcare
Daughters
Chapter 8 : What’s it really like?
A Typical Day
Where Do Camerawomen Go?
What Do Camerawomen Wear?
Working with the Crew
Working with Directors and Producers
Acting Like Men to Fit In
The Advantages of Being Female
Chapter 9: Magic moments, worst moments
Satisfactions
Worst Moments, Dangers, and Risking One’s Life
Chapter 10: What do camerawomen see?
Representation and Gender
Ethics
Camerawomen Teaching
“Just Do It”
Aspirations for the Future
List of camerawomen whose interviews are included in this book
Bibliography
Index
Acknowledgments
We thank all the women and men from around the world who have contributed in so many ways to this book—above all, to the camerawomen who have given their interviews, with special thanks to Kristin Glover for information about how unions really work and to Jendra Jarnagin for current information about digital camera technology and its implications for future camerawomen.
Our thanks go to those whose support was fundamental to the making of the global documentary film Women Behind the Camera : our Executive Producer and Associate Producer, Vanessa H. Smith; Associate Producer, Reseda Mickey; Editor, Katey Bright; Carole Dean, President of From the Heart Productions, Inc.; Diana Barrett for The Fledgling Fund; California NOW Foundation; the Roy W. Dean Video Award; Walden Trust; the Women in Film Foundation Film Finishing Fund; and the Office of Research and Sponsored Projects, California State University, Northridge.
We also thank all the unit producers, unit directors, cinematographers, and sound personnel who have helped to capture these interviews, as well as all the people who have helped to make these interviews possible, including those who have answered questions, technical and personal, to make the interviews mean just that bit more.
We thank all the people who have worked with these interviews over the years, researching, recording, transcribing, translating, and editing them. We are grateful to the Mike Curb College of Arts, Media and Communication, California State University, Northridge, as well as to Nancy Hendrickson, screenwriter/actor/director/teacher, for their financial support at a late stage of preparing the manuscript for publication.
We also acknowledge all those who offered childcare and other sustaining help that made our work possible. We are immensely grateful to everyone who helped bring this global project to fruition.
Authors’ note: Unless otherwise indicated, quotations from camerawomen come from the interviews conducted for Women Behind the Camera and more recently for this book. Longer quotations from those interviews appear in italics. For production details of those interviews, see pages 297–314.
Prefaces
From Alexis Krasilovsky
I was excited by the prospect of being a pioneer in pursuing a feminist vision when I managed to become a camerawoman in the NABET (National Association of Broadcast Employees and Technicians) union locals of New York and Los Angeles, but I lacked the perseverance to fight for that career. When, in the mid-1980s, I joined Behind the Lens: An Association of Professional Camerawomen (BTL), I was amazed at the tenacity and courage as well as talent of those camerawomen who were succeeding. I decided their stories had to be told.
That led to Women Behind the Camera: Conversations with Camerawomen (Praeger: Westport, 1997), a book focused on the challenges of camerawomen in Hollywood, New York, and San Francisco. There you can find chapters on Liz Bailey, Sandy Butler, Jo Carson, Kristin Glover, Amy Halpern, Leslie Hill, Judy Irola, ASC, Estelle Kirsh, Laurel Klick, Geraldine Kudaka, Madelyn Most, Brianne Murphy, ASC, Emiko Omori, Nancy Schreiber, ASC, Alicia Sehring, Lisa Seidenberg, Sabrina Simmons, Sandi Sissel, ASC, Dyanna Taylor, Susan Walsh, and Juliana Wang.
Through BTL I had heard stories that maybe camerawomen in Paris were having an easier time of it. I kept hearing new names, increasingly from different countries. One book was clearly not enough. When it came time to make the film version of Women Behind the Camera , also entitled Women Behind the Camera , 1 I decided to go international. By emphasizing the extraordinary achievements of camerawomen around the world and, for example, comparing the experiences of camerawomen in the film industries of India and France, I thought we could pressure Hollywood to change its patterns of discrimination for the better.
I went to India for an interview with B. R. Vijayalakshmi, who had already shot twenty feature films as Asia’s first female Director of Photography (DP) for feature films. Going to India revolutionized my concept for the film. In Ahmedabad, Unit Director Tavishi Alagh introduced me to Ela Bhatt, the director of SEWA (Self-Employed Women’s Association)—a large nongovernmental organization that works on behalf of women laborers in India, 94% of whom have toiled as part of an unorganized labor force. SEWA has its own media group, Video SEWA, with its own training program. Video SEWA camerawomen were able to help the rural Indian villages of Kutch “survive an earthquake that killed 20,000, followed by an extreme drought, by influencing policymakers with their digital video footage” (Williams 27).
That is when I realized that this project was much bigger than me. Beyond directing a documentary, I was serving as a facilitator across boundaries for women—and filmmakers—to connect globally. My Associate Producers, Unit Producers, Unit Directors, and I soon found ourselves with historic footage by China’s first camerawomen of Mao’s travels throughout China, a camerawoman’s footage of the fall of the Soviet Union, and an interview with Rozette Ghadery, Iran’s first female DP. 2
With grants from the Office of Research and Sponsored Projects at California State University, Northridge, the Women in Film Finishing Fund, and the Fledgling Fund, along with a generous contribution from Executive Producer Vanessa Smith, a Roy W. Dean Award, and whatever I could spare out of my teaching salary, we were able to complete the film in 2007—seven years after starting production and 25 years after I first became passionate about the idea of getting camerawomen’s stories and visions out into the world.
But the inquiries and interviews kept coming, introducing additional camerawomen from Australia, Indonesia, New Zealand, Poland, and Africa. The film version of Women Behind the Camera covers more and different material from that found in the book version of Women Behind the Camera , and we have approached this second book, Shooting Women , with a different objective yet again. While the words of our interviewees are at the forefront