A MAN’S WORLD

SPOTLIGHT

A man’s World

Women and people of colour still don’t have equal footing on set in Vancouver’s film and television productions. What will it take for the industry to change?

LAURYN JAMISON

Karina Jesson was sitting cross-

legged on her roommate’s brown-leather couch when she decided it was time to make the call. There was no way the production company would ask her to perform her role as director of photography at half the normal rate. Or worse, that she would need to work under a mentor, which hadn’t been the case for the last nine months.

But they did.

“‘We just think you’re not ready to take your training wheels off yet.’ They said those words to me,” Jesson angrily recalls, as she retells the story four months later from the same brown- leather couch. Beside her, a collection of vintage DVDs and VHS movies is aesthetically colour-coded and features some of her all-time favourites: When Harry Met Sally and Stand by Me. “I came to the conclusion that they were trying to take advantage of me because I was young and wanting to DOP,” Jesson says.

The director of that specific project is two years younger than Jesson, and had attended the same film school. They’re also best friends, and he had been pitching for her—and her alone—for this project since the beginning. And yet there were no training wheels suggested for his role. “I know it’s because I’m a girl that they didn’t want my training wheels off,” Jesson says. “I have male equivalents who have said this would never happen to them.”

Canada’s film and television industry is 100-plus years old, and yet women still struggle for equality on set. In 2021, the Centre for the Study of Women in Television & Film found that women accounted for 25 percent of all key behind-the-scenes roles, including directors, writers, executive producers, producers, editors and cinematographers. While these roles are important to any production, they also make up only one-third of the industry. The remaining two-thirds are comprised of what’s called below-the-line workers, including makeup and production artists, technicians, craftspeople, designers and drivers. In those roles, 34 percent are women, and only 15 percent are visible minorities.

This unequal footing makes the industry an ideal working environment for predatory behaviour. Several studies on sexual harassment in the workplace— including a 2015 study from the World of Labor journal—found that women are more likely to be harassed when they perform male-dominated roles. And as women in the film industry start to fill those male-dominated positions, they’re also more likely to experience harassment.

From left, Prabhjot (PJ) Nijjar and Karina Jesson working together on set of a Capilano University student production in 2020.

At 24 years old, Jesson is still very early on in her film career. But that doesn’t mean she hasn’t already had her fair share of sexist and unpleasant experiences, but like her “training wheels” experience, it isn’t always blatant.

Prabhjot (PJ) Nijjar, a 24-year-old Punjabi camera trainee, agrees. “It’s never really something that’s so outrageous and big,” she says. “It’s always little microaggressions, which I get being a brown person too. The people who are making comments know that if they act in a more grandiose way, they’ll be gone. But if they’re sneaky with it, they’ll probably stay on the show.”

Jesson and Nijjar weren’t always as disenchanted with the business. In their early days, they just saw opportunity: to be creative, to collaborate with creative people. Jesson walked onto her first set was she was 14 years old, and “thought it was the most magical place [she] had ever been.” Nijjar says she felt similarly, but she wishes she “knew more about the industry before trying to get into it.”

As a young Punjabi woman in the industry, Nijjar is all too familiar with the dynamics of being a minority in the workplace. As a camera trainee, Nijjar says that on set, people can be racist but “not in a mean way racist, but in a weird way racist, maybe like a fetish way racist—like touching my hair or making comments about my skin looking golden. Questions like, ‘Where are you from?’ ‘Where are your parents from?’ ‘What do you speak?’ ‘How do you pronounce your name?’ ‘Oh, that’s so exotic.’”

Nijjar’s first name, Prabhjot, is a common unisex Punjabi name. “I go by Prabhjot anywhere else. When I started in the industry, I was like ‘I’m gonna go by PJ’ because it’s a lot more recognizable and it stays in your mind more than my name Prabhjot.” She started to go by PJ so she could hopefully get more work and so that her name could be easily recognized by white producers and executives who make up a significant portion of the industry. (University of Southern California’s 2020 Hollywood Diversity Report found 93 percent of senior executive film positions are held by white people and 80 percent are held by men.) Nijjar says she is fine with going by PJ, “but if I were to go back, I would go by Prabhjot because that’s my name and fuck you, you just have to learn it.”

Jesson primarily works as a DP, but she also has years of experience in the LX (electrics) department and as a grip, which is the position that sets up and supports the necessary camera equipment. “It’s extremely physical,” Jesson explains, “and on top of extremely physical, it’s extremely long, so most days I work I need a full day after to recover.”

According to Work BC’s 2019 BC Motion Picture Industry Below-the-Line Labour Market Study, five percent of grip and LX workers are female. In any techni-

cal role, Jesson is usually the only woman on set. “I’ve never had a day where I don’t get comments like, ‘It’s really nice to see women in the LX department,’” she says. “And that’s nice to hear but, at the same time, it’s kind of just this exhausting reminder of the inequity.”

Jesson often finds she has to navigate the egos and opinions of the men under whom she works, as well as the ones of whom she is in charge. “I could write a book about the ego dynamics that I’ve had with men I work with,” she says. “Men get very intimidated when you know more than them and they get visibly itchy when you try to teach them something new.”

Jesson explains that to work in the industry, especially in a technical role like hers, you have to be tough, energetic and resilient, “and I think it’s a totally different set of requirements if you’re a female technician. Every female technician has to be so smart, so tough, so resilient, so good at their job, or they won’t make it. They’ll just get too beat down and quit.” Nijjar agrees, “I do feel like I have to step it up—one as a trainee, two as a woman and three because I’m brown.”

Applying the majority of her energy into proving that she’s worthy of her position is exhausting in more ways than one. “I won’t drink water on purpose so I don’t have to go to the bathroom,” Jesson says. “There is no time for bathroom breaks, especially in key roles, and also, you don’t want to be seen as the girl who has to pee all the time and needs a lot of breaks that other people don’t get.”

Another challenge in the film and television industry is the difficulty of finding work in the first place. Jesson and Nijjar agree, “It’s all about who you know.” Someone who is friends with another crew member is more likely to get a job than someone who is more qualified. Making connections and proving your worth is imperative to your career.

This nepotism is an aspect of the industry that Creative BC is looking to change. In Fall 2021, B.C.’s motion picture industry and the B.C. government invested $500,000 in a new website with Creative BC to “create pathways that welcome all British Columbians into the industry and offer special streams for people from equity-seeking groups.” The website—Creative Pathways—highlights career opportunities for both above- and below-the-line workers, particularly for women and visible minorities.

And in an effort to try to stem instances of assault and harassment, in 2018, the Canadian Women’s Foundation reported that members of Canada’s creative industries agreed to enforce a “zero tolerance policy for sexual assault and harassment, as well as a framework for reporting and resolving complaints.”

But there are still incidents. Nijjar recalls when working on one of her first television shows, “one of the producers was known for being a creep.” She was warned not to stand too close to him, and if asked to meet him in his office, not to go alone. Nijjar says another woman told her he had threatened her job if she didn’t meet him alone in his office. That producer is still working on that show, and new crew members are still warned about him when they start working. “Even though we think that the industry and the world have come a long way, which it has,” Nijjar says, “there are still things like this where the guy still has the power and even though he might get a slap on the wrist, he’s not going anywhere.”

Jesson admits that being a woman in the industry certainly has its challenges, but she is still optimistic about the future. “I always knew that my aspirations were traditionally male,” she says, “but that motivates me more to be successful and it gives me an even greater purpose to prove everybody wrong and be great at what I do.” Nijjar agrees, “I want to show people I’m a good worker and I have a good attitude.”

More work needs to be done in order for Vancouver’s film, television and commercial industry to be a liveable and realistic career option for women, minorities and anyone who wants to pursue such a creative and illustrious lifestyle. And Jesson is determined she won’t be leaving the industry any time soon. “It’s a different sort of creative lifestyle that [I’ve] always wanted,” she says, “and always will want. ■

Lights, Camera, Women in Action!

There are dozens of different types of jobs in the film industry. Karina Jesson and Prabhjot (PJ) Nijjar highlight three roles necessary to any production:

START FROM THE BOTTOM When you first enter the industry, you’re most likely to start off as a production assistant (PA). On a set, PAs are considered to be the lowest in seniority, but they’re invaluable to any production. Their job is to run errands, relay messages, sweep, “and basically do the things everyone else is too busy to do,” says Jesson.

SHINE A LIGHT Second to Director of Photography, Jesson’s primary role on set has been lamp operator. Lamp operators are responsible for installing and operating any and all lights and electrical equipment required for production. “You have to be able to lift heavy lights above your head,” says Jesson, and mount them on stands that are as high as 30 feet. Lights often weigh at least 50 pounds, so two women may be required to lift the equipment based on gender alone. Jesson says, “[The movie business is] a money industry and at the end of the day it’s cheaper, cheaper, cheaper, so if we can have a strong guy who can lift then we don’t need two women to get a light on the stand. So that’s innately so hard.”

SHE SHOOTS, SHE SCORES Nijjar aspires to be a camera operator because “they don’t do any other preparatory or extra work— they show up, they shoot and they leave,” she says. Especially considering the long and gruelling hours associated with the industry, a role that allows for a personal life is extremely rare. “Trying to think ahead,” Nijjar says, “It’s like, can I even have kids? Can I even have a proper relationship? I’m 24 and I’m already reconsidering my career because I don’t know if I can live like this long-term. It’s so scary.”