By Robert Goldrich

HOLLYWOOD, Calif. --

Amidst a showcase of cutting-edge technology and papers delivered on innovative breakthroughs, the Society of Motion Picture & Television Engineers (SMPTE) Annual Technical Conference & Exhibition held this week (10/23-26) in Hollywood was also marked by a mainstream issue that has become an increasing cause of concern and attention all across the business spectrum, being grappled with by different industries–namely how to best promote a culture of diversity so that the community at large can benefit from the talent of women and under-represented ethnic minorities.

Technology-oriented organizations and industries remain sparsely populated by women and people of color. To help address this, SMPTE presented a series of sessions on “Innovating People: Managing, Mentoring and Change.” Included in the mix was a discussion in which mentors and mentees shared their experiences–lauded cinematographer Bill Bennett, ASC, and his mentee, DP Megan Stacey; and Kari Grubin, VP of mastering for studio operations, Walt Disney Studios, and her mentee, Sara Kram, who’s now at 20th Century Fox. 

Bennett noted that he could never fully repay his mentor, director/cameraman Ron Dexter. But a different form of repayment has come naturally to Bennett who has followed in Dexter’s footsteps, mentoring assorted aspiring artisans over the years, helping them to segue into professional careers. Among them is Stacey who met Bennett during her senior year at LMU. Stacey said she has benefited from not only Bennett’s technical advice and know-how–including a recommendation on a job which entailed deployment of a Technocrane–but also his insights into the “politics” of cinematography. Bennett estimated that his guidance is some 25 percent cinematography and 75 percent politics, with the latter including people management skills, how to get the most out of collaborators, and maintaining a productive relationship with a director.

Bennett noted that a major part of the ASC mission is “to teach the next generation.”

Gruber observed that mentoring is a two-way street, relating that she has learned from mentee Kram. She also praised the Hollywood Professional Association’s (HPA) Young Entertainment Professionals Program (YEP), now in its second year, for matching up working professionals with aspiring pros. SMPTE, which supports YEP, is separately looking to set up its own mentoring program, added Gruber.

Rethinking diversity programs
Kylee Pena, workflow supervisor at Bling Digital and president of The Blue Collar Post Collective, teamed with Meaghan Wilbur, West mentor director for The Blue Collar Post Collective, to present broad strokes of their detailed research on diversity and how to attain it. The Blue Collar Post Collective is an accessible and focused grassroots non-profit supporting emerging talent in postproduction.

While varied diversity programs have emerged over the years, Pena and Wilbur observed that there’s been no significant change in under-represented individuals making gains in the STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) field and the entertainment industry in the last decade. They cited such findings as college graduates in engineering being 20 percent women and six percent African-American, with resulting employment pools showing that women account for just 11 percent of the workforce, and African-Americans a mere three percent.

Diversity programs’ lack of success is due in part to their being focused more on symptoms, above-the-line professions like directing, and the prevalence of unpaid internships, according to Pena and Wilbur. Also, while training more women and minorities in STEM is a sign of progress, it can be undermined if they end up having to cope with  hostile working environments with an ingrained bias that favors the white male norm.

Pena and Wilbur offered five recommendations to promote meaningful inclusiveness for women and minorities:

• Stop pushing diversity programs. Instead focus on changing the workplace culture. It’s counterproductive to place female and minority talent in environments where they cannot succeed.
• Make an effort to focus from the bottom up, looking to open up opportunities at the entry level rather than trying to open up access to the director’s chair right out of the gate.
• Put a stop to unpaid internships. “I had parents to subsidize me,” said Pena, noting that many others, including people of color, do not have that advantage. Thus unpaid internships don’t represent a viable option for them; often they have to work an income-producing job just to make ends meet. She affirmed that internships should be paid positions, showing that employers “value” those they bring into the industry. 
• Empower hiring managers with the tools and insights they need to make a difference, opening up more opportunities for deserving talent.
• And Pena and Wilbur advocate the ALOHA mantra for companies looking to make a positive difference. ALOHA stands for Ask-Listen-Offer-Help-Ask For Feedback.

According to Pena and Wilbur, the first five years in a career are pivotal, meaning its incumbent for companies seeking to promote diversity to place more resources into researching and supporting the broad range of graduates and emerging talent during that crucial span of time. Otherwise the current norm will continue which finds considerable attrition after those initial five years as female and minority talent drops out of the marketplace due to lack of progress. Pena and Wilbur noted, for example, that some 40 percent of women engineers leave by the age of 30–and only a quarter of them exit to have children. If the workplace culture isn’t inviting, supportive and generating opportunities, many just move on.

Inclusiveness and diversity are vital dynamics, stressed Pena and Wilbur–and not just for altruistic reasons like the betterment of society. Pena and Wilbur found that companies with established and successful strategies for inclusion and diversity reported more than two times higher cash flow per employee. Furthermore, gender diverse companies were 15 percent more likely to outperform other firms, while ethnically diverse companies were 35 percent more likely.

During his keynote address which helped to kick off the SMPTE confab, cinematographer Andrew Shulkind touched upon the importance of diversity in the context of entertainment content as well as new communication disciplines such as VR, AR and MR. Shulkind, who also serves as director of virtual reality cinematography at Headcase VR, noted that emotion and empathy are key components of the VR experience, underscoring the pressing need for a diversity of stories as well as a diversity of people who tell them.

Record attendance
The SMPTE 2017 Annual Technical Conference & Exhibition drew more than 2,500 registered attendees for a landmark event. SMPTE 2017 featured 70 expert presentations, and 105 exhibitors spread across two nearly sold-out exhibit halls.

“Attendance for SMPTE 2017 was our highest in more than a decade, with guests from around the world joining us for the final installment of the conference here at the Hollywood & Highland Center and Loews Hollywood Hotel,” said Barbara Lange, executive director of SMPTE. “In fact, attendance broke the record set last year for the Society’s centenary celebration. The continued growth of our annual conference and exhibition is a strong signal of SMPTE’s vital role in enabling the future of entertainment technology.”

During the course of the confab, SMPTE and HPA unveiled and honored the winners of the third annual SMPTE-HPA Student Film Festival, which showcased submissions demonstrating creative uses of technology in storytelling.  SMPTE and the HPA received 119 submissions from more than 30 countries, and the 17 official selections screened during SMPTE 2017 represented Germany, Hong Kong, the U.K., and the U.S.

The event was hosted by Howard Lukk, SMPTE director of engineering and standards, who is also a film director, and by Aimée Ricca, SMPTE marketing and communication, who previously worked in cinema. The official selections at the festival were screened in SMPTE-DCP format, courtesy of Sundog Media Toolkit. Here’s a rundown of award winners:

Innovative Use of Entertainment Technology to Engage the Audience in the Story — Animated Short (tie)
Tom in Couchland” by James Just of Ringling College of Art and Design (Sarasota, Florida, U.S.)

“VERGE” by ChingTien Chu of School of Visual Arts (New York, New York, U.S.)

Innovative Use of Entertainment Technology to Engage the Audience in the Story — Live-Action Short
“Mind Game” by Weisi Dai of School of Visual Arts (New York, New York, U.S.)

Innovative Use of Technology in an Experimental Short
“Jazz Orgie” by Irina Rubina of Filmakademie Baden-Württemberg (Ludwigsburg, Germany)

Innovative Use of Mobile Device or Tablet to Convey a Story — Narrative Short
“LONDON STRIKE” by Jiranant Kanjanagawin of University of Greenwich (London, U.K.)

Innovative Use of Analog Technologies in a Live Action Narrative Short
“Home” by Vivian Lau of Emerson College (Boston, Massachusetts, U.S.)

Documentary Short With Technology as the Subject Matter
“Baylor VirtuOso Documentary Short on Use of Technology in VR Music Video” by Gustavo Raskowsky, Marcos Luna Hoyas, and team of Baylor University (Waco, Texas, U.S.)

Audience Choice Award
“KCLOC” by Ninaad Kulkarni of School of Visual Arts (New York, New York, U.S.)

MySHOOT Profiles