Keeping ‘Insecure’ lit: HBO cinematographer Ava Berkofsky on properly lighting black faces

Any brown person who’s taken a selfie in the club can tell you cameras aren’t made for us. Yet in Insecure’s club scenes, dark-skinned protagonists like Yvonne Orji’s Molly continue to impress. You can thank Ava Berkofsky, the show’s director of photography, for that. Berkofsky was brought on for the show’s second season(currently airing on HBO) to give the show a more movie-like look, which includes making black faces not only legible, but striking.

“When I was in film school, no one ever talked about lighting nonwhite people,” Berkofsky said in a phone interview with Mic. “There are all these general rules about lighting people of color, like throw green light or amber light at them. It’s weird.” These rules are a start, but they’re far from a complete picture.

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The Reason Your Brain Loves Wide Design

There’s a specific reason why we choose these wide faces in some situations: because humans have evolved to be scared of them. Previous research has found–and Maeng has confirmed–that we’re put off by wide faces specifically because they look dominant. “People don’t like the dominant human face, but people really like dominant-looking products, somehow,” says Maeng. “So we were intrigued to figure out why. And we figured out that. People probably see the dominant product as part of myself, that can boost my dominance, whereas human faces that are more dominant, we don’t like, because this other person will dominate me, and I’ll have to play the subordinate role.”

Maeng reached this conclusion through a series of studies, discovering that while people don’t always prefer wide products, they often do when put into a high-pressure situation. In one study, participants were told they had to rent a car to drive to a job negotiation. They were told that the negotiation wasn’t going well, and the other side currently had the upper hand. People were offered the same model of BMW, but at various widths. And they agreed to spend more money on the wider car.

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Weighting Type

Art Center type & lettering professor, Nils Lindstrom, breaks it down for The Futur

The Spirit of Inquiry

The force behind scientific progress is the simple act of asking questions. This episode, TED speakers explore how a deeper and more humble style of inquiry may help achieve the next big breakthrough. 

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Branding

Its not what you say it is. 

Its what they say it is.

Branding: Identity Design

Chris Do sits downs with Founder and Creative Director, Yo Santosa for her perspective and insights into building brands with personality. It's a special late night edition of Unfiltered taped live in front of a studio audience.