Dear White People…

Not sure what yet another film is going to do to salve or clarify race relations in the US. But – a young brother wants to get into the film business… Which is progress. And I think he’s got some talent.

This one by Justin Smith.

The Birth Of ‘Dear White People’

Perhaps it was being mistaken for the one other Black guy in my office by a colleague who had worked with him for years… Or perhaps it was being asked repeatedly by co-workers to teach them the Single Ladies Dance? Either way something provoked me to go on Twitter as @DearWhitePeople two years ago and start tweeting things like:

“Dear White People. The single ladies dance is dead. Please turn off your web cams and go on about your lives.”

Meant to articulate the sometimes funny, mostly harmless, but occasionally painful experience of being a Black face in a vastly white place (i.e. most Hollywood work environments) @DearWhitePeople also served an ulterior motive of mine.

I’d been working for some time on a satire about race identity. The feature script for Dear White People follows the events leading up to a race riot a prestigious predominately white university through the perspectives of four very different Black students. While the script was culled from my
own college experiences and those of others I knew, I wanted to test out the voice of my lead character, Sam White, whose radio show “Dear White People” gives the film its title.

Sam, a kind of amalgamation of Dap from School Daze and iconic activist Angela Davis had a lot to say and I wanted to know what resonated with people.

As I charged through several drafts of the script, feedback from the twitter account would make its way into the project. Tweets that asked how I would feel if there was a “Dear Black People” prompted responses such as:

“Dear White People, there’s no need for a Dear Black People. Reality
shows on VH1 and Bravo let us know exactly how you feel about us.”

Samuel L, Jackson Now Top Grossing Actor of All Time

Samuel L. Jackson has been in a lot of movies – over 100. Several of these have been mega-hits at the box office, including roles in Star Wars and Pulp Fiction.  Of course any black guy who would walk around in a Kilt with cornrows, as Jackson did in the Movie Formula 51 – is a badass… He gets moved to the “Giant Negroes” category for that one!

Top-Grossing Actor of All Time Is…

Samuel L. Jackson has made it into the Guinness Book of World Records as the highest-grossing actor of all time, according to the Hollywood Reporter. Jackson’s films—he’s made more than 100—have earned more than $7.4 billion, thanks in part to huge earners like the Star Wars prequels, which account for a whopping $2.4 billion. Perhaps Jackson isn’t the person you would have guessed held the spot—but who can deny the appeal of an actor who will do this?

The Death of Kodachrome

This image was shot by Steve McCurry in 1984 entitled "Afghan Girl", it has become one of the most recognized images.

Digital photography has pretty much pushed film the way of the Dodo bird.  Professional photographers shooting high quality magazine covers or art typically selected Kodachrome as the Gold Standard in days gone by. It was a relatively slow film, which had a color saturation unmatched by any of it’s contemporary rivals.

The other advantage to Kodachrome was it’s archival quality. If kept in a cool, dry place it wouldn’t lose any of it’s richness for 50 or more years.

Essentially, what high end camera manufacturers are tying to do with their 20 Megapixel plus cameras is match the image quality of Kodachrome though digital manipulation.

Yeah – it was that good.

The end of Kodachrome means the end of the old saying “The camera never lies”. There is very little relationship between what is actually in front of the camera and the digital image. And even the image content is not sacrosanct. Like a lot of things in this world, the passing of film and emergence of digital is a loss of honesty.

A lot of pros and serious amateurs would keep Kodachrome in the freezer, which would preserve the film long beyond it’s expiration date. There might still be a few rolls of the stuff sitting in the back of a freezer somewhere – just waiting for that rich saturated image…

Bad news… The last shops processing Kodachrome are shutting down Dec 30 of this year. Use it or loose it time, guys!

Exposed: The Last Roll Of Kodachrome

In 1984, photojournalist Steve McCurry was in an Afghan refugee camp in Pakistan. He followed the sound of voices to a tent where he found a group of girls. “I noticed this one little girl off to the side that had his incredible set of eyes that seemed almost haunted — or very piercing,” he tells NPR’s Audie Cornish.

Photographer Steve McCurry, 2002

McCurry snapped a picture that ended up on the cover of National Geographic’s June 1985 issue. “The Afghan Girl” became one of the magazine’s most widely recognized photographs — and one of the century’s most iconic. To get that shot, McCurry used a type of film that has become iconic in its own right: Kodachrome.

The film, known for its rich saturation and archival durability of its slides, was discontinued last year to the dismay of photographers worldwide. But Kodak gave the last roll ever produced to McCurry. He has just processed that coveted roll at Dwayne’s Photo Service in Parsons, Kan. — the last remaining location that processes the once-popular slide film.

What’s on that landmark roll of film is still under wraps. It will be the subject of an upcoming documentary by National Geographic. What is known is that the first and last images are in New York City, McCurry’s home base. And between those frames are photographs from India, where McCurry established his career as a master of color photography.

Although he has almost a million images spanning 35 years in his Kodachrome library, he still felt the pressure of this assignment. Every one of the 36 frames on that final roll was precious. “Am I getting the right moment?” he wonders. “Is it in focus? Is the exposure right?”

So before he took one of those shots, he used a digital camera to hone in on the perfect exposure. “To have that reinforcement, to be able to see that on a two-dimensional screen … it was a big help,” he says.

And he’s got a piece of advice for amateur photographers with unused Kodachrome film lying around: Get it to Dwayne’s! The Kansas photo shop will stop processing Kodachrome rolls on Dec. 30. And while that will mark the end of an era of photography, the memories created with Kodachrome — like that Afghan girl’s green eyes — will live on.