The Oscar-nominated editors behind "Moonlight," Joi McMillon and Nat Sanders, discuss working with director Barry Jenkins, getting their start in reality TV and breaking a color barrier at the Oscars; A new study from USC finds best picture Academy Award nominees rarely have characters over 60 years old and, when they do, they're often stereotypes; What are the trends for the current TV pilot season?
A new study puts some numbers to Hollywood's issues with ageism
Hollywood has long favored young talent over older actors — particularly older women — and a new study is confirming that perception of the film industry.
Released by the Media, Diversity, and Social Change Initiative at USC's Annenberg School, the study, "Over Sixty, Underestimated," analyzed more than 1,000 characters in Best Picture nominees from the past three years. Among the findings: roughly 11.8% of those characters were aged 60 and over, which is noticeably lower than the 18.5% of the population that age group represents.
Katherine Pieper and Marc Choueiti are co-authors of the study, and they joined us on The Frame to talk about the frequent issues that crop up with portrayals of senior citizens, the many negative effects of ageism in film, and how Hollywood can be more inclusive moving forward.
Interview Highlights
On the common pitfalls of Hollywood portrayals of senior citizens
Pieper: There's a couple things to think about. Many of us know individuals who are in this age group, and I think the people that we know in our lives are vibrant, diverse. Many people are active and they may be involved in the workforce.
But what we see in film really contradicts the perception of what we see in reality — there [are] very few seniors in prestigious occupational roles, they're almost exclusively male, and then in terms of the end of life — when we think about seniors and how their lives end in film — overwhelmingly it's through violence, which is just not consistent with what actually happens in reality.
Then we saw this trend again in these Best Picture nominees, where the dialogue and the comments referencing seniors were ageist comments — they're demeaning or derogatory comments about seniors that just don't reflect the dignity and the vibrancy of the population that we're looking at.
On the negative effects of ageism in Hollywood
Choueiti: We partnered with Humana on this study, and their interest was in looking at the relationship between these portrayals and their impact on seniors. There's this concern that watching these negative portrayals might make seniors feel a certain way about themselves that might not be helpful or healthy. If you're sitting down and watching these films, you might get a certain message about what it is to be a senior, and what it means to those around you as well.
On the box office power of older Americans:
Pieper: That's a really interesting question. We do know that, according to the [Motion Picture Association of America], about 14% of ticket buyers are aged 60 or above. So we know there's an audience out there. And particularly as the population of our country continues to age and we see the Baby Boomers move into this next phase, there's definitely an audience and they have stories as well — there are so many people out there who have interesting, compelling stories that we just don't see reflected on screen.
Oscar-nominated 'Moonlight' editors on making history in the era of #OscarsSoWhite
The film "Moonlight" tells the story of a young man coming to terms with his identity and his sexuality. The film is divided into three parts — as the main character, Chiron, grows from a boy to a teen to a young man.
"Moonlight" has garnered eight Oscar nominations, including one for film editing.
It’s the first Academy Award nomination for co-editors and long-time friends, Nat Sanders and Joi McMillon. They met each other, and the film’s writer/director Barry Jenkins, when they were film students at Florida State University.
After film school, McMillon and Sanders found work editing scripted and reality TV shows. And while Sanders moved on to work as an editor on feature films, McMillon still had not broken out of the assistant editor role — that is until "Moonlight" came along.
Now, McMillon has made history. She's the first African-American woman to ever be nominated for film editing.
The Frame’s John Horn spoke with Joi McMillon and Nat Sanders about how they approached editing "Moonlight."
Interview highlights:
On editing long dialogue scenes with a lot of silences:
McMillon: I feel like the moments that are silent, they speak volumes. And with these characters, Chiron is a very internal person, you know, so he doesn't speak much, but I think that's conveyed in such a stylistic and cinematic way. And so, as an editor, when you're given these experiences where you have to cut these scenes without dialogue, you're allowed to pay more attention to what the character's actually giving you in their expressions and in their movements. And I feel like a lot of times when you're not trying to cut for dialogue, it's a lot more freeing.
On how reality TV editing skills transfer to an artistic film like "Moonlight":
McMillon: I think reality TV teaches you to go with your instincts. We had to [edit] really fast. Our turnaround time is so tight in reality television. You have to be able to wear a lot of hats and you have to be able to multi-task because, if you don't, someone else is coming up right behind you and will take your spot.
Sanders: At the time I really regretted having ended up there, but it was a great training ground. Because the footage you're given, you really have to learn how to make the best thing out of [it]. You're not always going to have the most compelling footage and you have to make something that's interesting, entertaining and watchable.
On what it's like to tell a director, who's also your friend, that you think a scene or act should be cut a different way:
Sanders: Yeah, it's interesting. [Barry Jenkins] was actually not very precious about anything ... He was pretty detached, in a good way, like, Let's make this the best thing, based on the footage that we have. So we did our first pass just pretty much isolated on our own without any input from him — just aside from seeing the footage and hearing between takes what direction he was giving the actors and having a sense of what he was looking for. And then once he saw the first pass, he gave his notes. We kind of have a shorthand — there were certain scenes where we could tell he wanted us to push the style further. We have a code word going back to film school called bandry [a professor's mispronunciation of the word "boundary"], so anytime Barry said we had to make this scene more "bandry," we knew exactly what he meant that we had to be bolder and make it bigger aesthetically.
On the importance of making history as the first African-American woman nominated for film editing:
McMillon: I think it's extremely important because sometimes you can tell people, You can be anything, but you know, for a long time people never saw a black president. But now that they have, that dream feels more tangible. And the same thing with being a black female editor. You can tell people they can be it, but actually seeing my accomplishments is more encouraging for them to pursue it themselves.
On increased diversity of this year's Oscar nominees after the #OscarsSoWhite controversy of the past two years:
McMillon: I think looking at the nominees luncheon [this year] and seeing that class photo, I think we have a little more ways to go ... It's encouraging to see a little bit more diversity this year, but I definitely feel like we have a ways to go.
TV networks aim for quality over quantity this pilot season
If you didn’t know, it's TV pilot season in Hollywood.
That’s where the broadcast networks make a slew of test episodes in the hopes of finding hit shows for the Fall schedule.
Pressure from cable networks and streaming giants have pulled audiences away from broadcast TV and it seems the result is that the big five – ABC, NBC, CBS, Fox and CW – are being more careful about what pilots they’re choosing to make.
, a senior TV reporter for Variety, recently wrote about this year's pilot season. He says:
It used to be that the networks had a monopoly on what a viewer watched but that’s no longer the case. Last year, according to research done by FX networks, there were something like 454 original scripted television shows across broadcast, cable and streaming.
Compared to last year, the networks have chosen fewer pilots and there aren’t the kind of reboots and spinoffs they’ve churned out before. Maybe they’ve gotten the memo that audiences want original programming. Still, they’re often tapping tried-and-true creators who’ve done it before — such as Greg Berlanti of "Supergirl" and Shonda Rhimes of, well, most of the big ABC dramas.