National Post (National Edition)
Women who raised the stakes
FLASHBACK TO WHEN FEMALES IN FILM AND TV WERE LOOKING FOR THAT UNION LABEL
Talk to any honest filmmaker, and they’ll tell you: a movie is only as good as its crew. Yet for decades, the ranks of camera operators, sound mixers and electricians were filled only by men, most often white men. When production work came with a union card, it was a relatively high-paying career. But it was not welcoming to women.
That began to change, however slowly, in the 1960s and ’70s, amid the tumult of the civil rights and feminist movements. One catalyst was a 1971 sex-discrimination lawsuit against an NBC affiliate in Washington. Alison Owings, a plaintiff, recalled that the goal wasn’t even equal pay. “It was equal work,” she said. “I just knew that women could do basically whatever the men were doing, whether station chief or camera operator.”
Other lawsuits followed, and doors opened. Some women got their starts in TV news and branched into filmmaking, fighting for union access. Some came from other professions or armed with degrees from film schools, a rarity in the trade.
Today, some of these early union members have moved on to other careers, but several are still very much in the field. These are edited excerpts from their stories. BEGINNINGS
CELESTE GAINEY, gaffer: I started out wanting to be a director. (At New York University’s film school in the early 1970s,) you had a threeperson crew and shot these little 100-foot movies. I took on the lighting because I knew I wasn’t able to direct actors until I figured out the lights. CABELL SMITH, production sound mixer: (As part of the women’s movement in New York, our) consciousnessraising group purchased a Sony Porta Pak to videotape our consciousness-raising sessions. After our consciousnesses were slowly raised, we started (filming) other groups. I had worked in advertising, and I remember just putting the cover on the IBM Selectric one afternoon. I never wanted to type again. SUNNY MEYER, production sound mixer: Everybody in my home was into electronics and music. My brother was putting together this hifi studio in his bedroom. He would never say, “Go away, you’re a girl.” He would say, “Hand me the two-pin RCA connector.” JESSIE MAPLE, first black woman to join the cameraperson’s union, filmmaker: My first career was in bacteriology. After I got married and moved to New York, I wanted something more exciting. I became interested in film; I started to research, how can I make the most money? The first union I got into was the editing union. They told me the requirements, I did all that, then I fought for my rights. FIRST JOBS
NANCY SCHREIBER, director
of photography: (In the ’70s, after) a crash production course, I answered an ad in The Village Voice for production assistants, $50 a week. And that was my education.
SMITH: (After the lawsuit at the NBC affiliate,) they wanted to put a woman on the flagship station, at 30 Rock. They had never seen anybody like me before. These were guys who very solidly did not believe a woman could do this. I wasn’t getting political, but just by doing the job that only they thought they could do, it was a very political statement.
MEYER: (I got involved with) one of the top sound mixers in Hollywood, David Ronne, (who) started sending me on jobs. The first was The Graduate. Mike Nichols had given him a list of sound effects. When the movie opens, you hear on a speaker a pilot say, “Ladies and gentlemen, we’re landing in Los Angeles.” I recorded that — on a plane. JOAN CHURCHILL, cinematographer-director: (After film school at the University of California, Los Angeles), I was working as an editor at a small educational company, making really boring films. My friends who were male started getting jobs directing, so I started shooting for them. JOINING THE UNION
SMITH: I had to threaten to sue the union. I got a lawyer to write a letter; I got voted in at the next meeting. It was going to expose me to much better work.
MEYER: I tried to get in (for years). I (showed) them what I’d done and they’d say, no, we don’t hire women. I finally got in; shortly after I got Hill Street Blues. The guy who got me in saw all the paperwork. We go to lunch, and he says, “Sunny, tell me the truth, you don’t really do this, you’re just union-busting, right?” He had just seen 15 years of (my) work. It was extraordinary.
CHURCHILL: My real battle was in England, because you could not work unless you were part of the union there. I got a letter from 12 cinematographers trying to get me deported. They’d never heard of a woman as a cinematographer. I was the first woman to get into the union. It was about a three-year struggle. My union card says “lady cameraman.”
MAPLE: In the (cameraperson) union, you were supposed to stay an apprentice a certain time. If I had waited, I would never have become a cameraperson. So I took ’em to court. At the (time), they said minorities could not learn how to use the cameras. CHALLENGES
GAINEY: My first day at NBC, I went out with the cameraman and sound technician, and neither spoke to me the entire day. They parked as far as they could from the location, because of course I had the heaviest equipment. RISA KORRIS, cinematographer: I remember being in Boston, charging up Bunker Hill with 25 pounds (of camera equipment) on each shoulder, and a policeman said to me, “If you say you don’t believe in women’s lib, I’ll help you get this equipment up the hill.” I trudged up the hill myself.
MEYER: It was men who taught me and supported me, but there were some really awful things. The feeling of not being (considered) adequate, it’s very painful. At one point, I was in therapy and I said, I’ve got to leave this job, it’s too devastating.
SCHREIBER: I had no idea it would be so hard. When I was a gaffer, (cinematographers hired) me, and the producers couldn’t say anything, but to get hired to shoot as a woman, it’s still hard. The blame I put on myself at the time — was my reel not strong enough? It didn’t occur to me there was sexism involved.
MAPLE: I get motion sickness. So every day, they would send me up in the helicopter. I would get my story, and then when I would get off, I would be so sick. But they had to pay me $60 anytime I went up, so I was making money.
SMITH: The path to being fully accepted as a production sound mixer on a big movie was closed to me. It was a real boys club. I did small movies — a bunch with James Ivory — and if I had really pushed, I might have (had a career in big films). But I wanted to have kids, and I didn’t want to go away for six months at a time. I felt like I could have a family and do commercials.