Women In Film

Rachel Morrison on the set of the film “Mudbound.” STEVE DIETL/ NETFLIX/ AP

Historically, there have been positions on-set strictly for women. One such job was scripty, previously "script-girl," which ensured continuity on-screen. The initial process of editing was considered menial, so this was reserved for women as well. The film industry has always been male-dominated. Of the top-grossing 1,200 films from 2007-2018, only 4.3% of all directors were women. Only one woman has ever won the Academy Award for Best Director – Kathryn Bigelow for The Hurt Locker (2009). However, there's been a myriad of talented women filmmakers making names for themselves, dating back to Claudia Weill and Shirley MacLaine's Oscar-nominated documentary, The Other Half of the Sky: A China Memoir (1975). 

Rachel Morrison, DP of Black Panther (2018), was the first and only woman to be nominated for the Academy Award for Best Cinematography for Mudbound (2017). "CINEMATOGRAPHER," a compelling eleven-minute documentary on Vimeo, follows six up-and-coming women DPs. In an inspiring montage, DP Autumn Eaton describes her experience, "I think the biggest hurdle is probably being given the opportunity."

Laura Kenmotsu pictured during a workshop at American Film Institute

Assistant Camera (AC) is a technical job that mostly men fill. Laura Kenmotsu, native to the Bay Area, is an AC and aspiring DP. She describes her role as pulling focus, building the camera, and generally taking care of the DP. She got into filmmaking with a love for still-photography, began on set as a PA, then AC'd for free. Now, she makes a living doing commercial work for San Francisco startups and doing passion projects like documentaries and low-budget indie features. Laura muses on the process of working on documentaries and piecing together stories- she AC'd on the Netflix documentary, Q Ball (2019), which follows the basketball team at San Quentin Prison. She reflects on the condescension women face on-set, thinking back, "it used to bother me a lot when I was first starting out… that mentality eats away at you when people question if you can do it, so then you question yourself, and it's like this vicious cycle." Laura is accomplished in her craft, "I like to prove people wrong; I'm like an inherent contrarian." She explains emphatically, "I think we have a hard time with visibility because even though there are many of us, we are still constantly outnumbered by men."

Alek Sieger

Of the top 300 films between 2016-2018, not one woman worked the 281 gaffer positions. Aleksandra Seiger, of the Bay Area, started as a grip and now is a gaffer. In her commercial work, she always tries to make the light more interesting. "I try to put some interest back into the lighting… I'm a perfectionist, so I want to make every shot look beautiful." She explains a pressure put on by herself "to represent our entire gender.” Alek asserts, "I perceive that I have so much responsibility to prove I'm capable of these things and that women are capable of these things." She was gaffer and best boy on Reelz TV specials on Jeffrey Dahmer and John Wayne Gacy, shaping the dramatic cinematic lighting of the reenactments of the serial killers. She also lit Kehlani's iconic music video, "Butterfly," with striking blue lights that highlight the dancing bodies.

Alba Roland-Mejia

Alba Roland-Mejia, a Bay Area filmmaker, writes and directs her own short films. She is working as a grip on Netflix's feature film, All Day and a Night, which comes out May 1st. Speaking from her experience as a woman, she says even when she holds a key position, instruction from overhead will go to the first male in-sight rather than her. Alba says that having to prove her worth adds an unnecessary stress on-set. She advocates the necessity of calling out this behavior out when it happens. After the quarantine, she plans to invest her time into her writing career. She says, with which we can all agree, "We need to get more women on set!"

There are a ton of bad-ass women behind-the-scenes of our favorite TV shows, movies, and music videos. The ever-increasing number of women that are excelling at their craft encourages women everywhere to elevate themselves in their own field. What we can do is to continue to recognize their works and give them these opportunities. Hopefully, the film industry will be more inclusive to not only women, but also to queer, non-binary, and POC in general.