Research “Expanding Opportunities for Women in Cinema”

 

Valarmathi Subramaniam

 

ABSTRACT:

The Cinema and Television industry is always dominated by men. Since the technology involved in making movie was complicated and requires hard physical skill men were dominated in the industry. So even the characterizations of women is projected through men perception only. This scenario is still being seen in movies ever since Lumiere Brother invented Camera. Developments in Information and Communication Technology is slowly changing this by opening up the opportune for women from production to exhibition through websites such as  “VIMEO”,  “DAILYMOTION”, “TWITCH”, “LIVELEAK”, “VEOH”, “BREAK”, “METACAFE”, and the most used “YOUTUBE”. This paper would speak about the changes in film making technology in which it has expanded opportunity for women to work in. How ICT has has changed the technology of film making paving way for women to contribute more in this men dominated media. The digital media has encouraged participation of women in all stages of film making.

 

 

 

INTRODUCTION:

The history of women in film is as long as film production started. Women have been involved with films from the beginning (1896). Before American filmmakers like D.W. Griffith had even touched a motion picture camera, this Paris-born pioneer Alice Guy was laying the groundwork for narrative film's visual language, and inspiring future auteur Alfred Hitchcock. After witnessing the Lumière brothers' demonstration of their cinematograph, Alice Guy Blache produced "The Cabbage Fairy" in 1896 one of the first narrative films ever made, and followed with 5 films the next year, including "The Bewitched Fiancé" and "He."

 

She was one of the first to employ ground-breaking techniques like the split screen, double exposure, and film tied to sound. She's also been credited with inventing the close-up (an honour popularly but mistakenly bestowed to Griffith). And after moving to New York, she started her own company, Solax, the biggest pre-Hollywood studio in America. Because of the hands-on nature of film editing, early Hollywood considered it women's work, like sewing. "Cutters" were often working-class women willing to take low pay to be a part of filmmaking. But despite the sexism surrounding them, this position allowed these female film lovers a unique place to make critical choices about a film's final cut. Margaret Booth the first film editor was not only one of the earliest pioneers of the craft, but also the one for whom the term "film editor" was coined.   Fatima Begum the first Indian Women film director with her film Bulbul-e-Paristan, began her career on the stage, and then transferred to the silver screen as silent films overtook India. She not only became one of India's biggest silent film stars, but was also the mother to three more: Zubeida, Sultana and Shehzadi.

 

Katherin Bigelow is the first woman to receive the Oscar honor, for her movie, “The Hurt Locker (2008),” beaten the famous director James Cameron by receiving 6 awards for her film.

 

 

Cinema A Celluloid Ceiling:

There is no one who would not like to watch cinema on big screen with other audiences. It all started when Lumier brothers succeeded in capturing moving images on the celluloid film. There are events recorded of people ran out of theatre on seeing a train approaching a station feeling as if the train may run on them. That was the effect of cinema the big silver screen. The technology used for image processing is very complicated with lot of process. One has to wait to see the image been exposed in camera till it comes back from the processing lab. The film which was made with celluloid base of silver coats is very sensitive to light, dust, rays and temperature. So it should be handled with intense care like a patient admitted in ICU. The technology itself demanded skilled talents with good physical strength. Just for a comparison, a movie of 3 hrs. running length in a theatre would have 12 to 15 canes of film weighing nearly 100 Kg which is now stored in a palm size hard disk weighing less than 500 grams. Until digital technology entered film industry, it was great difficult for women to enter this movie industry. It is not only because of male dominant, but also because of the equipment that were used in film industry was huge. Women were only utilized for on screen appearance. Very few Women were noted in the film industry that too on creative side and not in technical side. T.P.Rajalakshmi was the first woman who appeared on screen and also directed two films titled - Thukku Thukki and Miss Kamala. She is headlined in The Hindu Newspaper on June 22, 2011 as “The Rani of Cinema”. Following her few female directors like P. Bhanumathi, Vijayanirmala, Jayachithra, Sripriya, Suhasini, Revathy, Jayadevi, B.R.Vijayalakshmi, V. Priya has recorded their name on celluloid. But the ratio has not even crossed 1%. Though women has been on screen equivalent to men they were not recognized for off screen roles. Before I quote Women participation in off-screen, let me elaborate the key roles required in film making. For better understanding let me explain the roles in three different stages of film making. As we all know the film making happens through three stages as Pre-Productiom, Production and Post-Production. Each of these stage involves many skilled people who work.

 

The Pre-Production stage is a paper work of scripting and planning. Mostly people who involve in next two stages gather to do the Pre-Production work. The second stage which is the execution of written words to visuals many skilled people are involved in this. In this stage we can classify the working skills into five kinds as On-Screen talents, Creative Talents, Technical Talents, Management talents and Labour group. Since women play role as characters in film we can find many on-screen talents in film industry. The creative talents involve, Direction, Director of Photography, Dance Master, Set Artists, Make-up artists, Costume designer, Hair Stylists and Asst. Directors etc. Camera man, Clap Boy, Sync Sound Recordists, Camera Assistants, Camera man Assistants comes under Technical talents. Management talents are those who involve in production arrangement and costing of film making. Light men, Electrician, Set assistants, Floor Cleaner, Artist's assistants and  Production boys comes under working labours. Except, few female labours who assist female artists all other working labours are only men. As an out sider it would seem as a male dominated industry, but the fact is, film making technology involves handling huge equipment and un-predictable working hours. As a spectator of this industry for more than 15 years I found that the working culture and the technology is the major reason for very few women who lead their career in this film industry. When we consider in management level, a vast amount of co-ordination and time-less communication is involved in this sector. Even if one person fails in his job the entire crew will get screwed up. A large pool of contacts is required for being in management part in this industry. Since it requires more of Un-formal communication and the communication does not fall in chain of network and different method of dealing different talents is required women find it difficult to meet the requirements. For example, communication with an artist who is very well established and who is not established has to be handled differently. Sometimes rough handling might require making the work go smooth.

 

In the production stage of film making it involves operating huge equipment with large number of crew. The Camera alone weighs more than 20Kg which sometimes may have to be kept on shoulder for several hours. The Stand, Crane, Lights etc. are all huge in size and weighs more than 10Kg. For so many years no woman entered in technical side of film making process. The film media which is been dominated by men had kept woman too far off form its reach. BR Vijayalakshmi daughter of BR Bandhulu who was a leading director in Tamil film industry. Passion for cinema was in her blood, since her childwood, she accompanied her father on shoots and developed interest in the film industry. She joined with Ashok Kumar the then leading cinematographer and worked in few films as assistant cinematographer before she handled on her own. She has worked has cinematographer in more than 20 films and holds the credit of first canemar person of Asia. She says, she made her entry in film industry only because of her father, otherwise it wouldn't been possible to made her entry. Next to BR Vijaya Lakshmi, Suhasini entered film industry as camera person after her formal education at Tamilnadu Film Institute. She also from a well-known cinema family. Kamalahasan is her uncle and her father Saruhasan also a well-established actor in Tamil film industry. Initially those who had film background entered film industry with their family support. Since female find it difficult in handling huge equipments and cope with men dominated area, very few women like B.R.Vijayalakshmi, Fowzia Fatima, Anjuli Sukhla have printed their footsteps in film industry as camera woman. Less than 1% of woman had contributed in the history of hundred years of film industry.

 

Sound recording is another area where huge boom pool, heavy audio mixer and recorder were used. Meenakshi, wife of Narayanan – who established the first major distribution and exhibition network, was the first woman film technician of India who succeeded stepping in film industry.  After her no woman succeeded in stepping in live sound recording untill the development of ICT in Film making. Since direction involved aesthetic inputs with managing crew members, many woman came up in direction field with good creative talents, first Woman film director of Tamil Cinema-T.P.Rajalakshmi directed her debut film Miss kamala in 1927 itself. She managed adding two more films titled “Madurai Veeran”, “Indhiya thayi” to her career as producer and director. She also hold the credit of being first woman editor of Tamil cinema for the contribution she made in her own film “Madurai Veeran” as editor. As we all know there are many women who succeeded in acting talents and captured the hearts of public on-screen. Very well-known example is the present chief minister Miss. J.Jayalalitha who started her career as an actress. Likewise the third stage of film making where editing ans Post sound work demanded handling huge equipment. So just one or two women made their steps in the career. Ever since the advent of film women made rare appearance in off-screen role and hence it had become men dominated sector. I would conclude this chapter as “The working demand for celluloid film had created ceiling to women who had the eager to enter film industry”.

 

Celluloid to Silicon:

Filming and movie production industry is a special industry that we come across and has some influences on our daily life, includes both old fashion from old times and innovative elements from modern world. As a media that reflect the real life and futuristic imaginations, directly onto audiences and makes impact in all the aspects of our life, this century old media is now in the face of changes influenced by rapid developments in ICT sector. We all know that film and movie have information about science, arts, technology, religion, humanity and even behaviour. So ICT is inseparably connected with filming and movie production industry. As internet becoming more and more popular, film and movie information like their contents, promotion, analysis and so on appear extensively on the internet which has large scale accesses. Therefore, internet is now playing the role of media that bridges the film industry with their audiences. The film industry has been shaped and adopted to a particular working style with technological improvements without changing the basic functional system and a chain of exhibition model throughout world. It took more than 100 years for the film industry to shift to completely to digital medium from analogue system. In the history of mass communication, Radio was invented next to print media. Since then the aural communication technology has been growing and keeping updated with the current technological growth. Development of FM after AM to Community Radio with short coverage distance the aural communication has been morphing to the needs of the society. Rapid development takes place in aural media than visual media. In cinema also ICT development took place in audio since 1970s. The digital tone generators, digital sound manipulation, enabled music industry to experiment lots of new sounding in their creation. The tape was replaced by CDs and DVDs. The MP3 format taken audio field a step further by enabling large amount of storage. In a CD where we could store 8 songs in audio format, more than 100 songs were able to be stored in the same CD in MP3 Format. The audio work was executed on digital but it was converted back to analogue for film projection system.

 

The growth of Television challenged film industry to attract audiences to theatre. Surround sound technology was invented and audiences were given crystal clear sound experience using digital sound technologies. The standalone theatre system was tied up with digital technology for sound work from production to exhibition. The first digital experience was given by Dolby technologies by way of audio burned on CD with syncing pulse that synchronizes sound with picture through coding system that was printed on film. Changing the conventional sound system to the digital theatre sound system itself took more than 15 years of time. And even now few theatres in rural area have only the conventional sound system. Because, Film making technology is practiced in a unique way throughout the world any change in chain of technology takes long time to get implemented unless other mass media where changes takes place immediately. The inherited complexity now meets the complexity of a changing infrastructure. Hollywood plays a central role in incorporating new technologies in film making and stand out as pioneer in film industry. Hollywood directors like, George Lucas, Steven Spielberg and James Cameron contributed to digital shift through their films. Any change in technology has to be incorporated globally. There are instances of installing DTS system in more than 1000 theatre at a time before the release of Jurassic Park film. The director demanded that those who want to exhibit his film should get DTS installed in the theatre. So any technical change in film making, unless the change happens globally exhibition becomes difficult. Though audio rapidly changed to new developments, visual medium took long time to change to digital.

 

The next change that took place in cinema is Non-Linear editing method. In this method the film rushes are converted to off-line / low resolution digital footages for working. After completion of editing, Edit Data List shortly called as EDL is taken out as reference for cutting negative directly. The computer based editing reduced physical handling of film. Many variations of the original source files can exist without needing to store many different copies, allowing for very flexible editing. It also makes it easy to change cuts and undo previous decisions simply by editing the edit decision list without having to have the actual film data duplicated. The freedom to access any frame, and use a cut-and-paste method, similar to the ease of cutting and pasting text in a word processor, allows editor to easily include fades, transitions, and other effects that cannot be achieved with conventional film editing. The table top tools were replaced by computer which does the function of make tools like Moviola visual preview and marking, Edit table with footage counter, Splicer, Scissor etc.

 

In broadcast industry SD video either in PAL or NTSC format were used un till CRT was replaced by LCD TV system. Standalone TV sets were used for PAL and NTSC. Later the ICT development enabled using both format on same TV. Later when HD (High Definition) was launched the broadcast media the TV again challenged cinema. Due to storage limitation it was not adopted in film making which required huge amount of footage to be stored in the hard disk. Picture is made up of pixels. A single image may have more than one lakh pixel which require 1KB space per one pixel to store the information. 24 such images runs in one second. Since the picture demanded huge storage capacity the cinema waited till the developments took place in large storage capacity hard disk. In last decade the storage technology in ICT boomed and now a palm size hard disk can store up to 2 TB of information in it. The compression techniques and the development in digital imaging process techniques in ICT made it possible to change the visual medium from celluloid to silicon. The ICT development in visual technology enabled high quality images. This development in video technology was motivated to go for Digital imaging in cinema also. The animation industry influenced further growth in digital cameras resulting in high end 2K and now 4K cameras. One can expect a futuristic growth of shooting high quality images equivalent to film quality on mobile phones itself. The challenge for ICT is to bring consistency and stability to the entire digital workflow, which will positively impact cinematographers, VFX supervisors and content distributors among others. The Red One was arguably the first affordable camera that provided filmmakers customizable features and out-of-the-box functionality with the "feature film quality" known to much more expensive 35mm film cameras. In 2009, Red released Redcine-X, a post-production workflow for both motion and stills, the R3D Software Development Kit, and introduced the world to the concept of "DSMC" (Digital Stills and Motion Camera). Though the development in image processing attained cinema quality in digital technology, the coarse and soft effect that was seen in film couldn't be achieved in digital. But now digital convergence become vital due to its flexibility in using. Coming years could expect more research, more development, more testing in bringing a unique work flow like the conventional film making technology.

 

ICT has done tremendous changes in mass communication media like Print media, Radio, and Television. The technology involved in these media was rapidly changed with the developments in ICT. But film media took very long time to adopt itself to the new digital technology. The only link the film had with Changing ICT was through internet. In India still the complete adoption to new technology is not made possible. The leading film lab Prasad had shut down its film processing wing 3 years back. So it has become mandatory for the industry to adopt to the digital technology. The digital technology has invaded huge investments that were invested in analogue technology from production to distribution. But the paradigm shift from analogy to digital is deep and fundamental. It is not a shift from one slow-changing system to another, it is a shift from a predictable world to a non-predictable world. The online world is not a world but a state, an unstable state which constantly creates possibilities, while killing others. The movie industry is not stabilized in the digital shift. The shift from stable analogue to Unstable digital has become necessary for the film industry due enormous developments in ICT sector. I strongly believe that filming and movie production industry has a strong connection with ICT influences. Cinema is in face for improvement to compete with the ubiquitous mobile devices that are the content distribution platforms of choice for the younger demographic.

 

Welcome Woman:

The development in ICT had shrunk the world into a global village. ICT enabled storage of vast pool of information in an inch of device. High quality digital projection system replaced huge film projectors. Since the complete equipment used for film making is now digital the size and weight becomes 1/50th of conventional film making process. ICT opened up opportunity for easy and effective communication options. So the hard work ship which was involved in conventional film making process is not required in digital film making. The camera size and weight is very small to a size that even kids can handle. The reduced size in camera is a good opportunity for woman to enter film industry. The digital camera requires minimum lights than the film camera. Hence the light requirements also reduced to great extent when compared to shooting on celluloid. As we discussed earlier many woman had already stepped in creative part of film making. But the number was less than 1 % during celluloid time. Now more woman have been proving in film making as director. I would like to quote the recent released Tamil movie “IRITHU SUTRU” directed by Sudha Kongara which had hit silver screen last in the beginning of 2016. I had met Lakshmi one of my own film school colleague last week. Lat 15 years she struggled entering film industry and now she is doing spot editing using her own lap top. She had done more than 20 films to her credit. Like Lakshmi there many girls who are now getting chances in film industry as Editor, Sound Recordists and colorists. Dr.Chakravarthy director of LVP film and TV Academy says, “The celluloid ceiling is broken by the silicon. Now cinema is open for everyone. More girls are joining our academy nowadays which is a good sign of woman liberation”. Exhibition option is now open for all. Websites such as “VIMEO”, “DAILYMOTION”, “TWITCH”, “LIVELEAK”, “VEOH”, “BREAK”, “METACAFE”, and the most used “YOUTUBE” are expanding the opportunity for new comers in film industry.

 

Individuals are now exhibiting their work through their own websites. The internet has opened up the communication stream through social network and other communication devices. Now one can get appointment of director Manirathnam from a corner village. Manirathanam can see her/his work by sitting in any corner of the world. ICT growth enabled cinema to go for complete digital. The limitations faced in film are eradicated by digital. There is big opportunity for women to emerge in film industry. Why? Because women have 3 essential characteristics which make them great leaders: 1. Sense 2. Long term vision – the idea that you can get results and also gain social benefits and 3. Networking skills. These characteristics mean that women don’t always need to be in the spotlight; they are more likely to listen to other opinions and be open minded in order to make better decisions; they are more likely to risk their egos and experiment. This means that women can create real social responsible movies. Gowthan Vasudev Menon credits his films by appointing more women as assistant director for the last three films.  Hypothetically though, there has never been a better time to tip Gender equality scales. Leveraging the change in the way cinema is now done, the importance of understanding audience expectation and providing appealing response that is repeatedly desired – time is now ripe for women to make their mark and presence felt in the world of digital cinema.

 

CONCLUSION:

I conclude this paper by saying that the ICT developments opening up opportunity for woman in a man dominated stereotypic industry where the doors were kept hard to open for women. The digital technology has invaded all the limitations that was challenged for woman to work in this industry.

 

REFERENCES:

·      http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/ict

·      https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/ICT_in_Education/Definition_of_Terms

·      http://searchcio.techtarget.com/definition/ICT-information-and-communications-technology-or-technologies

·      https://www.techopedia.com/definition/24152/information-and-communications-technology-ict

·      http://www.iflickz.com/movies-tamil/iruthi-sutru

·      Madras Rediscovered – A Historical guide to looking around, supplemented with tales of Once Upon a City, S. Muthiah, East West Publication, ISBN: 978-93-85724-77-0

·      Pride of Tamil Cinema 1931 to 2013 – Tamil Films that have earned National and International Recognition, G.Dhananjayan, Blue Ocean Piblishers, ISBN NO.978-93-84301-05-7

 

 

 

 

 

 

Received on 24.10.2017       Modified on 11.12.2017

Accepted on 22.01.2018      ©A&V Publications All right reserved