The HBO show ‘Insecure’, which has a 100% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, is about two best friends who deal with their everyday insecurities in work, love, family, and friendship. Issa Rae, creator, and main actress helps showcase a lot of the modern-day struggles of black women and how we all have flaws that need to be addressed one way or another.
In a recent Facebook video titled “How ‘Insecure’ Lights Its Actors So Well”, Mic.com showcases how black features pop on screen and why this is important. Mic’s video presents a flaw that a lot of Hollywood does not quite address, and that’s the features of black people on camera. The narrator of the video, an African-American man states how “cameras don’t always show brown people in our best light. And we live in a world where light skin and long hair is prioritized over dark skin and curly hair.” He then explains why on the show they look so good and gives thanks to their director of photography, Ava Berkofsky.
“The way I approach dark skin tone technically is all about the skin is reflective.”
She then breaks down the three ways she works with dark skin to make it look its best on camera, using makeup, reflective lighting and a polarizing filter. According to Ava, in film school, students are taught to just throw blue and amber light onto dark skin tones instead of adjusting the lighting to fit the person. Ava disagrees and says “there’s not one shade that lights all types of dark skin.”
Back in the day, Kodak would test color accuracy of their film against pictures of women called Shirley Cards which only included white women. If the model looked good in the photo it was fine, and “it was only in the 1970’s that Kodak addressed complaints about how the color brown appeared on film. Not because of people of color, but because of wooden furniture companies complaining about how their furniture looked on TV.” This set the baseline for lighting dark skin with Caucasian models while calling dark tones “different.”
‘Insecure’ helps fight the baseline by setting the standard for how darker skin should look on camera and does a fine job at doing it. Watch the newest season of ‘Insecure’ on HBO and see how good the characters look for yourself.
All photos courtesy of HBO