Where Are All the Female Cinematographers?
As I have already written in my blog entry 'Presentations: How Not to Bore People to Death', I got really invested in the situation of female cinematographers in the industry, especially with the overall gender gap. Since I have decided to focus becoming a cinematographer, I am naturally interested in how this branch of the industry will look like for me as a woman.
So much so, that I finally decided to write my industry report on this wider topic. And since we are supposed to present our topic in a Pecha Kucha-like, aka condensed, style, I started researching.
So let’s get started by looking at some numbers internationally.
Looking at the American Society of Cinematographers, we can note that this invite-only society has gathered about 800 members since its foundation in 1919. It was first in 1979 that the first female cinematographer was invited to join the society and since then, only about 20 female members have been invited so far. This makes for staggering 2,5% of females only.
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With the British Society of Cinematographers, I went through the member’s list myself. Out of 95 members, how many women do you expect to find there?
It’s only four. Which makes 4,21% of female cinematographers...
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The numbers look slightly better with the International Cinematographer’s Guild. Here, women account for a total of 15%. The only issue is, you might ask? Despite the guild’s name, these 15% do not entail cinematographers alone, but encompass every camera-related job, out of which cinematography occupies only a minor percentage.EndFragment
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But the issue goes even further. Out of all the 631 Oscar nominations for cinematography until 2014, not a single one has been put forward for a woman. A study from 2015 took the 250 top rated films at that time and accounted that only 6% of them have been filmed by a female cinematographer. Talk about gender inequality. Luckily, the same study also showed that, between 2006 and 2015, the numbers tripled from 2% to said 6%.
So what’s the reason? Why are women so crucially underrepresented in cinematography? These are grave numbers even in regard of the general gender gap in the film industry. So why is it? Is it the mysogynistic structure of the industry where men only promote men? Do women promote other women – or themselves – less than their male counterparts? Is it a lack of self-promotion or a lack of female role models that discourages female talent from the get-go?
Which is why I looked out for female role models and found this society that takes on female cinematographers with a certain amount of experience under their belt. So far, the society counts 80 members and is still expanding. One of the next steps in my project plan is to contact these and other societies promoting female cinematographers and ask them about about their objectives, reports they may have conducted and issues or causes that have been reported by its members as to why these numbers stand as they currently are.
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For my film industry report, I intend to look at the numbers in more detail. I want to contemplate different approaches for explanation. I will look at different reports and I will conduct a qualitative survey to map out the perception of female cinematographers. I want to know what the opportunities for female cinematographers are and will thus look at different projects, associations and scholarships to understand how this inequality has been adressed and if improvements have been made.
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Looking at the approach of my project, I need to be careful to avoid certain issues and pitfalls that could lead to circular reasoning and render my report biased. I most certainly don’t want to start this report on the presumption that these numbers are solely a result of male domination. For the first, this premise would make for a very short report, and for the second, it would cloud my investigation for any other reason that might cause or influence this imbalance. I also need to be careful to measure quantifiable pieces of information rather than soft, subjective impressions or anecdotal cases.EndFragment
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While this is off to a good start, I will ensure that I find a couple of various sources, especially German ones, on the numbers of women in cinematography. I would like to gather a random selection of numbers to see how widespread this phenomenon is and whether other nations or cinemas do struggle even worse or, on the contrary, have even improved upon the situation.
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And what shall I say? Without further ado, this is my Pecha Kucha-style presentation so far:
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References:
The British Society of Cinematographers (n.d.) BSC Member Roster – Full Accredited [online] https://bscine.com/bsc-members [Accessed on 1o January 2018]
Cinematographers XX (n.d.) Cinematographers XX (CXX) [online] https://www.cinematographersxx.com [Accessed on 10 January 2018]
First Page of Member’s Roster (2018) [online] Image taken as available from: https://bscine.com/bsc-members [Accessed on 10 January 2018]
Homepage of Cinematographer XX (2018) [online] Image taken as available from: https://www.cinematographersxx.com [Accessed on 10 January 2018]
Homepage of The International Guild of Cinematography (2018) [online] Image taken as available from: https://www.icg600.com [Accessed on 10 January 2018]
Homepage of NuWAVE of Cinematographer XX (2018) [online] Image taken as available from: http://bit.ly/2EIVpv4 [Accessed on 10 January 2018]
Jones, N. (2015) The Gender Gap for Cinematographers Is Even Worse Than It Is for Writers and Directors [online] http://bit.ly/1NRZ35Z [Accessed on 10 January 2018]
Kang, I. (2014) The Oscars’ Giant Gender Gap Isn’t Closing [online] http://bit.ly/2AYU5Sk [Accessed on 10 January 2018]
Lauzen, M. (2016) The Celluloid Ceiling: Behind-the-Scenes Employment of Women on the Top 100, 250, and 500 Films of 2015 [online] http://bit.ly/1PJemRW [Accessed on 10 January 2018]
New York Film Academy (2018) [online] Image taken as available from: http://bit.ly/1bdH3QA [Accessed on 10 January 2018]
Pasquine, F. (2013) New York Film Academy Blog: Gender Inequality in Film [online] http://bit.ly/1bdH3QA [Accessed on 10 January 2018]
Quyen Tran (2017) [online] Image taken as available from: https://ascmag.com/articles/rising-stars-of-cinematography [Accessed on 10 January 2018]