Advances In Cinema Tech Overcoming a Strange Racial Divide

barlevg writes "Since the birth of film, shooting subjects of darker complexion has been a technical challenge: light meters, film emulsions, tone and color models, and the dynamic range of the film itself were all calibrated for light skin, resulting in dark skin appearing ashy and washed-out. Historically, filmmakers have used workarounds involving "a variety of gels, scrims and filters." But now we live in the age of digital filmmaking, and as film critic Ann Hornaday describes in the Washington Post, and as is showcased in recent films such as "12 Years a Slave," "Mother of George" and "Black Nativity," a collection of innovators have set to work developing techniques in lighting, shooting and post-processing designed to counteract century-old technological biases as old as the medium itself."

Comments

Nonsense

[msobkow]

Film is not "biased" towards people with "light skin." Quite frankly, I don't see how any visual medium that's designed to capture an accurate colour spectrum could be racially biased.

I think this whole article is a trollish attempt to inject a "racial issue" where there is none.

Re:Nonsense

[janimal]

Agreed. Implying a racial bias here is a crock. If film is racially biased, so are our eyes. Specifically, when I'm driving at night in a certain predominantly indian country, the poor bastards on the side of the road wearing black with dark skin are friggn hard to see. Clearly this has to do with my eyes being biased against dark clothed and skinned poor people.

If you want to solve the dark skin problem in shooting pictures, you have to develop some fantastic dynamic range on your capture device. Modern DSLRs are better than film ever was, but you still should do a bit of post processing to bring out the shadows. Perhaps NOW is the time to "racially tune" photography, since it became at all possible.

Re:Nonsense

[Samantha Wright]

Gamma. The difference between a light object in full light and a light object in shadow is greater than the difference between a dark object in light and a dark object in shadow. Human eyes adjust automatically across the range and trick you into thinking the shading difference is more normal, but the gamma curve on a camera exacerbates the difference. This is why totally black fabric appears to be slimming; your eyes can't pick out the shape as well and you're left with just the silhouette. It's more or less the same phenomenon as in HDR photography.

Re:For real?

[gl4ss]

But isn't this technique just another "how things should look on film" approach? I mean, often the white skintones aren't natural either on purpose. leading to the difference in police lockup photos of celebs vs. what they look on film(and makeup too but that's part of the workflow).

I didn't know this "divide" was there and I've known some dark, dark skinned people and seen photos and film of them.. so this new-old divide seems like a marketing ploy to me, "see blacks the way they really are! first time on film!"

Re:hilarious

[Mitchell314]

A bit off topic, but it's a shame that show was cancelled.

Re:For real?

[PopeRatzo]

Bingo. The racial divide in Indian culture is not significantly less than in the United States.