politically incorrect?

[deepvisual]

a problem, that occasionally arises and came up again this week, is the issue around projecting a black object with a black background onto a black screen.

its a purely practical problem, you can't project dark light, so how can you seperate the dark image from its background? the answer is you can, by very careful lighting, and creating a halo with creative keying, but it is far more difficult that just using a light coloured object - which in the real world translates into taking much longer to do and costing far much more to get a comparable result.

unfortunately this can translate into a potentially explosive issue when the object in question is a person and they could be considered unsuitable as a model because of the colour of their skin.

Its a problem I came up against again this week.
We needed a model who can body-pop in a bikini

So, here is my question,
It seems to be ok to not choose a professional model because they are the wrong sex, too fat, too short, too ugly etc...
would it be wrong to not choose them as the model for a projection video because they are unsuitable... just because of the colour of their skin...?

[SteveG]

I'd say not as it's being done for practical & professional reasons and the model/dancer/actor would surely understand this. Surely if employed through an agent it would not come about after he/she recieved the brief on suitability for the part.

[john01]

Reminds me of a few problems we've run into in advertising in Japan.

A couple of years ago one of our creative directors was making a poster for a company that makes paper shredders for office use. Since privacy and confidentiality is a bit of a hot topic these days he thought he's emphasize the security side. So his idea was to have two black guys wearing black jackets looking like an upscale club's security.

He chose black guys partly because the product was foreign, partly because the image would be easy to understand, and also because they look good composition wise. Halfway through the client (an expat) got all politically correct and decided we needed one white guy. Which spoilt the visual symmetry the creative director was going for. In the end they did a completely different and less interesting ad.

I knew nothing of this project until one afternoon I wandered out of my studio, through the creative section to go to the loo, I walked out of the door to the very small waiting area outside the casting room and there were about ten big black guys standing there, all well over 6 feet tall and about as broad. I visibly jumped, last thing you expect at 3 in the afternoon in an office in Tokyo. I hope they found it funny too.

They did get as far as shooting the version with the white guy, the guy they chose was a former squaddie, now a bodyguard & bouncer. The CD told me whereas the black guys had been very affable and easy to work with, this guy was really scary, never smiled once during the whole shoot.

A couple of weeks later they were casting for foreign women with nice asses, that time I walked into a room with 6 young Brazilians wearing thongs, the CD on that job told me they had told the ladies they could wait til they got in the casting room before peeling, but those Brazilians ......... think I went to the toilet about 8 times in 2 hours that day.

I get the "Do you know any black people ?" request from time to time when the model agencies haven't come up with the right people, last time they were casting for jazz musicians, it is always a little weird when you are explaining the job to a buddy. In that case it was even worse because they only wanted hands and arms.

This is a complex issue, so I tend to approach it simply, in advertising your aim is to sell the product, not to make political statements. This means we deal with preconceptions and assumptions a lot, we may even re-inforce them, but we are businessmen, not social engineers.

Aesthetically it is less of an issue, if you want a certain effect you do what you have to do, from choosing the subject to the way you do the lighting and make-up.

By the way, we do use less than perfect people in advertising, though we make we make some look a lot more "perfect" than they are. We also use "imperfect" people more or less as they are. The former hot dog eating champion is doing OK, and the reigning air guitar champion looks like he has a bit of a career ahead of him.

This year's Cannes Lions Grand Prix Dove (http://www.canneslionslive.com/film/)

[sleepytom]

I don't think their is a problem with casting for a certain look - it is accepted in acting circles that you get jobs based on your appearance as well as your acting skills, accent, hair colour etc.

I think the trouble is that Gary is wanting a white girl for technical reasons rather than because he needs an actor to play the role of "white breakdancing girl". This does make things more complex (especially if you have a capable black actor / dancer who your having to turn down).

I'd suggest that you pick the best dancer, deal with the skin colour creatively (shoot against white or chroma screen then do back lit / halo effects in post - or use a shadow screen type setup - or use lots of tribal looking body paint - or - or - or.....)

[deepvisual]

well, the final decision isn't mine to make.
I do know of a perfect model, but I can tell you now, they won't be suitable.

you can make it work, of course,
when I had to project nelson mandela onto south africa house it was really difficult, but we did it.

but it did strike me as being strange, that discrimination of this kind is accepted in media circles as part of the job.


I hear that models are starting to make a fuss about how few asian and black models there are.
all I can say is, you can add to that how few obese, disfigured, disabled and dead models there are...

after all beauty is about discrimination, isn't it?? otherwise we would all be beautiful

[sleepytom]

I guess you just need to price the job high enough to allow you to do a lot of post, this will cover you for difficult skin colours and will allow you to make a better set of clips even if the skin contrast is totally ideal:)

[john01]

I hear that models are starting to make a fuss about how few asian and black models there are.
all I can say is, you can add to that how few obese, disfigured, disabled and dead models there are...

after all beauty is about discrimination, isn't it?? otherwise we would all be beautiful

Lots of asian models where I am.

Just on Friday a guy asked me what I thought of about 5 different white models, had to tell him 4 of them looked like more or less the same person to me, all nose and teeth. On the other hand I find that really strange Hollywood uses Chinese actresses to play Japanese women, like they can't tell the difference.

As for the political side, you might as well get upset about people that wear check shirts not being represented on TV, all that moire. This is possibly what prevented Rory Gallagher from achieving international stardom. You might have seen a white Irishman in a checked shirt, did you judge by that or by his playing ? Or did you never think to listen because his image had already put you off ? We use our past experience as a guide to judge what we encounter, when we have no experience we rely on opinions fed to us.

If you want to worry about something worry about the continued popularity of skin whitening products in Africa & Asia, bit of a scandal brewing in India over it right now.

I'm sure with good lighting and the right background all problems can be solved. There is no such colour as pure black in nature, only dark shades of brown, blue, purple, green, etc.

[vjrei]

He chose black guys partly because the product was foreign, partly because the image would be easy to understand, and also because they look good composition wise. Halfway through the client (an expat) got all politically correct and decided we needed one white guy. Which spoilt the visual symmetry the creative director was going for. In the end they did a completely different and less interesting ad.[/URL]


I was watching a Pet Shop Boys documentary once, they were aske why they included "some animal" into the video, the answer: because it look good.

Imagine the world of architechture and desing based on "practical reasons". Something that "look good" make sense and end up being the most practical way to go.

"Because it looks good" is teh way to go, period.

[sleepytom]

<godwin's law="on">yeah coz the Nazis looked great in their long leather SS outfits...</godwin>

[karl]

...On the other hand I find that really strange Hollywood uses Chinese actresses to play Japanese women, like they can't tell the difference.


http://www.alllooksame.com/

:)

[vjrei]

<godwin's law="on">yeah coz the Nazis looked great in their long leather SS outfits...</godwin>

I would say: Why the military can't look good? So, if there is an stailish military uniform would that make it Nazi?

In other words... that is YOUR point of view because you have that paradigma. My country was never attacked by the nazis so I do not relate actions around that experience, but is just that, a paradigma and creativity is all about breaking paradigmas, creating new things, opening peoples minds, not about fallowing and getting locked parameters.

There are principles, there are certain rules but imagine if that is the case Spencer Tunick would be doing phorno and should be arrested even here in Venezuela when he came last year for making people run naked on the street.

Everything depends on the context and we can not limit our creativity just because some one elses paradigma.

[john01]

<godwin's law="on">yeah coz the Nazis looked great in their long leather SS outfits...</godwin>

Are you coming out on a uniform fetish here ?

There was a problem with a D-Day re-enactment or something similar recently because all the participants want to dress up a Nazis, not Tommys and Yanks.

The question is do they really look good or is there some subliminal association affecting people's judgement ?

[labmeta]

Just reading an interesting blog about shooting skin tones:

On Preshootpost Today's entry is entitled "Skin Tones," and in it Eric explores and verifies the claim that the miriad of human ethnicities all tend to land on the same axis of the vectorscope, making that "flesh tone" demarcation a racially unbiased target.

http://prepshootpost.blogspot.com/