Digital Video - January 2008 - (Page 27) Opposite, Krasilovsky and three of her subjects (from top), Ellen Kuras, ASC; Mariana Goldovskaya and Michelle Crenshaw. In the midst of planning her trip to Lödz, Krasilovsky took time our to answer DV’s questions about her project and its long production path. DV: As opposed to the narrative feature world, the documentary realm has long been more inclusive of women as storytellers. Why is that? ALEXIS KRASILOVSKY: When only seven percent of directors working on the 250 top-grossing mainstream films are women, what are all the other women directors supposed to do? Many film schools have film production classes that are 50 percent or more female. If they want to direct films, they have to go where the work is. Not everyone can afford to take the risk that they’ll be among that small percentage of women and minorities who make it in a white male-dominated field. Increasing numbers of women and minorities make documentaries because it’s an exciting and meaningful field — usually far more meaningful in terms of social consciousness than mainstream movies can be. So often it’s a conscious and positive, self-actualizing choice. Given the increasing number of women working on the set — including in the camera crews — when will we begin to see numeric parity between them and men? Actually, the numbers of women working on the set as camera assistants may have significantly increased, but the numbers of women working as camera operators and directors of photography are still small. The percentage of women working as directors of photography on the 250 top-grossing films actually decreased from five percent to two percent over the past few years. To achieve numeric parity between women and men working on the set, we will need more producers to agree to look at camerawomen’s reels, and hire more women based on talent and ability rather than on whether they’ve been buddies or recommended by guys who only think of guys for hiring lists. The International Cinematographers Guild can help by commissioning a similar study of employment patterns for women and minorities that the Writers Guild commissioned. If the Writers Guild can call for proactive measures to increase the numbers of women and minorities working in the film and television industry, such as timetables, mentorship programs, etcetera, surely the International Cinematographers Guild can do the same! What is the greatest misperception about why there are not more women working behind the camera? I’ve seen several articles over the past decade or so that make it seem like because the select few camerawomen that these articles focus on are happily working, there are no problems like discrimination anymore. The problems continue to exist, but because of backlash against the feminist movement and a more conservative media, most people aren’t aware of these problems or invested in trying to solve them. The biggest problem used to be the weight issue: that women couldn’t carry heavy cameras. Actually, most cameras weigh www.dv.com considerably less than a sleeping child that most mothers still have to lift and carry upstairs after a long day at school or work. Not only that, but in the past decade, it’s become fashionable for women to lift weights. Cameramen have just as many back problems as women, if they don’t handle equipment wisely. Has new technology been even more beneficial to women in developing countries, such as India or China? The camerawomen of Video SEWA (Self-Employed Women’s Association), were able to help their rural Indian villages survive an earthquake that killed 20,000, followed by an extreme drought, by influencing policymakers with their digital video footage. This is the kind of thing that can happen all over the world. Women’s stories urgently need to be told. On the other hand, it’s not without risks. Mary Ayubi, one of the two camerawomen whom we interviewed in Afghanistan, recently had to flee for her life because of the Taliban’s reaction to her digital video production about the plight of women and children in Afghanistan. They stoned her the very day her work was shown in Kabul. Nevertheless, Mary’s work is alerting the world at large to the problems of women in Afghanistan. Without the new technology, it would have been close to impossible to carry out this kind of production. THE BIGGEST PROBLEM USED TO BE THE WEIGHT ISSUE: THAT WOMEN COULDN’T CARRY HEAVY CAMERAS. Describe the production tools — cameras, sound recording, etc. — and methodology you used to make your film. Were you often a one-woman band? A wide variety of equipment and production methods was utilized for the 70 interviews that were shot over six years’ of production, including Betacam, DVCAM and MiniDV equipment. But mostly we used a MiniDV camera and two lavalieres. Through Fred Ginsberg’s company, Equipment Emporium — thanks to a sound equipment grant from California State University, Northridge, where I teach — we got four Sony ECM 44Bs, radio mikes, and an Audio Technica 835B. Most of the time, we only needed the lavalieres, which we plugged into a Sign Video XLRPro, which screwed into the base of our camera, so that we could hear both the interviewer and the interviewee equally. “We” sometimes meant only me, but I tried to work with women behind the camera from each of the countries where there were camerawomen we wanted to interview. I was definitely inspired by Spike Lee’s efforts to hire as many African-Americans on his crews as possible; given the subject matter of my documentary, it made sense to do my share to increase the numbers of women working behind the camera whenever possible. As far as methodology goes, since I teach screenwriting, I took the approach of having transcriptions for each interview — over (continued on page 54) dv january 2008 27 http://www.dv.com
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