\
mic.com: The actors on HBO’s Insecure are hotter than you. They’re hotter than your friends, they’re hotter than me and they’re even hotter than the ex the show won’t let you forget about. Co-created by writer and star Issa Rae (along with Larry Wilmore), the series gives viewers a window into black life as a late 20-/early 30-something in Los Angeles — the hookups and personal hang-ups, the office politics and friendship dynamics. But whether you’re #TeamIssa or #TeamLawrence, you have to admit the people who portray the show’s female and male leads — Rae and actor Jay Ellis — pop on screen, as do everyone else. This isn’t an accident.
7 comments:
This is a really interesting article to me. The school I went to had a primarily blk student population so when I transitioned into lighting the shows rather than being in them, the technical teacher at my school told me lots of tips for lighting blk people. But a lot of the tips were kind of unhelpful. I understood that certain colors did not balance well but I also knew that there are a lot more undertones that might need those colors to balance them out. This article taught me a lot of stuff that I'm really happy to learn. Blk entertainers and artists never cease to amaze me with their innovation towards things that aid the creation of blk art.
I love what HBO is doing with this show and getting a look into its technical aspect is very interesting. It has only been recently that film and television even started to put people of color on screen and even more recently with a push for it. The fact that HBO is putting people of color and even an entire show requiring that push is really nice and hopefully will drive the industry to create better representation not only for jobs and such but also for all those people watching these shows who can then better relate and become more invested. The technical aspect is phenomenal, I love that they brought someone in who is purposefully using techniques and making them pop more, plus the style it creates as shown with the photos is quite beautiful. I don't think I have ever seen People of color this way in entertainment ever and it's wonderful.
This was a fantastic article. I don't know a lot about lighting but the author describes the processes well enough that it was evident how much has to shift both in equipment and design to facilitate actors of color. The photos in the article detailed beautifully how well the processes they are instituting in Insecure are working as well. I thought it was also incredibly interesting how this is something that needs multiple departments involved to make it successful. Not only is it just the lighting design, but also the camera resolution as well as the makeup department that converge to make the lighting work as it needs to. It's also interesting that the shift from film to digital cameras was also what helped give the design a push in the right direction. The fact that this still isn't common practice is depressing, but hopefully these techniques will be adopted across the board as parity in representation on screen grows.
I’ve heard about the problem with Shirley cards before, so the issue of improper lighting and recording of black skin tones has been a problem for as long as the film and TV industries have existed. I think part of the reason why it may have stuck around this long is that people are uncomfortable talking about/ thinking about race, and so the predominantly white industry doesn’t like considering how they need to think about filmography different for either a mostly/ entire black cast or a cast with a wide range of skintones. I’d heard about the issue of lighting discussed before, mostly in terms of what colors of light look good on what skin tones. It is very interesting to hear about the many ways lighting dark skin has to be thought about in order to produce an effective result. The photos in this article really make the point, and I also like that Harding included suggestions for effective lighting in everyday photos people take themselves.
This is so cool!! The technique and level of thoughtfulness that went into this show's lighting shows just how powerful lighting can be. Besides that positive point, I also find it ridiculous how deep racism travels that they would just overlook lighting people of color in school. Either way, this woman, Ava, is doing something wonderful for both technical production and racial equality. And she's doing it beautifully. Each photo in the article is exactly what she wanted, a piece of art.
I'm really impressed with the efforts made to further the portrayal of people of color in the entertainment. It's always been known that lighter skin is easier to light, there aren't too many unwanted shadows and any lighting designer can count on white skin to glow. This extra effort has caused the industry to significantly sway in favor of African-American skin. The article mentions how black faces were originally depicted on screen as blackface, and its truly amazing how far we've come and this cinematographer continues to push the boundaries of what it means to be a person of color on and off camera.
I've recently started to become more and more interested in lighting and the technicalities of different lighting scenarios because this semester I am taking my first proper lighting class and learning to program for the first time. This article explains very well the different approach a designer has to take to light dark-skinned performers, but it doesn't seem to me that lighting black faces is inherently more difficult, it just requires a different approach. A different approach that professionals are not well-versed in because the entire entertainment industry was build up around the baseline assumption of having white people as the stars. The story of the Shirley cards and the furniture manufacturers show how deeply this is engrained. It took an entirely different industry to even begin to consider how to light deeper, darker tones of brown. The images the article provides from Insecure are beautiful, like individual paintings, and in addition to being very impressed, I am glad that there are artists like this working bit by bit to dismantle the ingrained inequality in our industry.
Post a Comment