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Ava DuVernay on Directing Queen Sugar, Properly Lighting Actors of Color, and Why She Used to Be More Brave

poc-creators:

One thing I’ve noticed on a lot of shows that are directed or produced by white filmmakers is a lot of times the actors of color are not properly lit. What do you do to make sure that doesn’t happen?
This is a historical thing. Usually, you have two people in a scene, and in the history of cinema the hero is most likely going to be the white guy. And the other guy is his friend who is carrying the bag or whatever, and you’re not going to light for that guy. Historically, you’ve had really muddy, unforgiving, unintentional images of black people. So I learned a lot from Bradford Young and Arthur Jafa and Malik Sayeed and the great black cinematographers about how to actually light our skin in a way that’s intentional — anyone can do it if you are favoring the darker skin tone. But that doesn’t happen. Only because of the context by which most of these scenes in films have happened for so long. The black character, the character of color, is usually the lesser of the two characters in terms of prominence.

What sort of things as a filmmaker can you do with production design and costumes that will make actors of color pop more?
Gosh, there are lots of tricks. The main thing with lighting characters of color is there’s just such a variance of tints in skin tone. There are characters we shot in Queen Sugar where their skin looks like yours, and then you see Rutina Wesley or Kofi Siriboe — Nigerian! You know? It’s like, whoa, these are two characters I need to favor both, how do I light for both? And you do exactly that, you light each one as if they’re the hero of the story, and it takes a little bit longer and everyone doesn’t know how to do it — it’s not just putting light on — but it’s not impossible for people to learn. Our Latino cinematographer Antonio Calvache was really extraordinary — he shot Todd Field’s films Little Children and In the Bedroom. I wanted to have a cinematographer who’d never shot television, who had more a cinematic eye. He agreed, and he was very intentional with the brown skin tones.

How much leeway do the actors have to move about in the frame when they’re acting in a scene? Do you block them out like, You go here, and You say this, or You go there and say that, or do they have the freedom to move in some unexpected way?
Wow. This is really great — this is a directing conversation!

I told you!
How cool. Being a black woman director I very rarely, I can count on one hand and it wouldn’t be a full hand the conversations that I’ve had about craft. Because it’s always about diversity, about the first this, the first that. No one is asking me about blocking scenes. Or rehearsal. So I really appreciate that.

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(via directors-gone-wild)

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