By Adrian Pennington
Who doesn't love an historical epic? says Polly Morgan, BSC, ASC. Especially one wrapped up in so much action and drama and heart and in an environment we know so little about.
Who doesn't love an historical epic indeed. Modern classics Gladiator and Braveheart laid the template for action drama where the audience roots for the heroic underdog against an imperial oppressor.
The Woman King does this and a whole lot more. It's a slice of our past that until recently would have been confined to the history books and, if retold by Hollywood at all, handed to the only gender it believed could handle action spectacle.
Instead, Sony Pictures' historical epic about female warriors living and warring in the west African kingdom of Dahomey in the early 19th century is directed by Gina Prince-Bythewood (The Old Guard) and filmed with her handpicked team of mostly female heads of departments.
Morgan was in Louisiana shooting the Netflix drama Where the Crawdads Sing when Prince-Bythewood invited her to join the team. She put together a pitch deck of color, light and camera references drawing on the Golden Age of Dutch and Flemish painters for inspiration. She used travel photography out of Africa to help convey atmospheric elements like smoke, flame and water and discussed the options with her director.
Shooting on Arri Alexa 65 we wanted to light the movie with firelight and ambient daylight, to draw people into the environment in a way that Braveheart and Gladiator did, she says. It had to be visceral and textural with a painterly quality, not sharp, glossy and digital. For me, looking at those masters of art evoked the kind of filmic feeling we were after.
On location in South Africa
They shot principally in and around Cape Town, supplemented by scenes in KwaZulu-Natal in the north of South Africa. This region is dry, especially in the summer, at odds with the tropical and lush climate of Western Africa. With production designer Akin McKenzie Morgan worked hard to ensure that both locales would be a fine substitute for Benin (formerly Dahomey).
In Cape Town this meant masking everything that said South African', making sure each frame leant into the fact that it wasn't dry or too dusty, that we gave it a tropical feel. Shooting exteriors are always a challenge in trying to match colors and control the light in a changing environment.
The remarkable vistas of KwaZulu-Natal helped contextualise the movie but put the production in a remote location that required taking all crew, generators and equipment. The film's opening night-time battle is shot here and showcases the athleticism of the actors who had intensively trained to perform many of the stunts themselves.
We conceived this action sequence in longer takes to be able to move from one performer to another, so the camera had to move 360 degrees, Morgan explains. As the camera does this dance with the action I had to do the same with lighting by dimming lights up and down with the movement so that nothing became flat or over lit. I had to make sure I had enough depth in the negative so I could see everything I needed to see in front of camera. It took a lot of rehearsal to get right.
Another challenge was to light the many night scenes for a period when there were no electric light sources. I wanted to make sure I really exposed the faces of our Black actors well. I don't want to over light or flat light them or take away the mood. I wanted to lean into the contrast, between the daylight and the fire or the moonlight and fire, and to do it in a way that retains darkness and shape.
Lighting for skin tonalities
With a majority Black cast, Morgan was conscious of making sure every actor was given due attention to the way they were lit. Historically some [filmmakers] haven't done the best job in lighting properly for dark skin, she says. In our movie you have super rich dark skin such as Sheila Atim ranging to lighter dark skin like Thuso Mbedu's. For me it was about figuring out how to capture these tonalities in a way that would highlight the beauty of Black skin.
She was intrigued to discover ongoing research on the issue being made by Cape Town based company Digital Melanin. From them she learned that photography has been technologically biased toward Caucasian skins.
From a light meter to a camera sensor every exposure tool is based on 18% middle grey, she explains. This harks back to a decades' old photographic tool used by American masters like Ansel Adams for exposing landscape prints. Eighteen per cent grey is matched with lighter skin tones so when you are exposing everything is related to Caucasian skin. The aim of Digital Melanin is to help cinematographers everywhere to light dark skin with accurate tonality. It's not one size fits all.
Ideally, this approach encompasses a production-wide embrace of wanting to see people correctly on screen. Make-up artists, for example, have a role to play in learning about the best application for different skin tones. Other notable cinematographers like Tommy Maddox-Upshaw, ASC are making vocal and visual statements about this approach to tonality.
It is important for everybody to have this conversation and not be shy of shooting Black skin or nervous about broaching this topic, Morgan urges. Filmmaking is blossoming in its diversity and that adds to the richness of the stories we are telling.
Diversity and richness
The Woman King also makes a powerful statement about the role of women behind the camera. For Morgan, who began her career over twenty years ago, it's a sign of significant change but also of progress yet to come.
When I started out, I desperately wanted to be a DOP and there were very few women I could see who represented that career choice and showed me that tha
Most recent headlines
06/10/2025
France T l visions, France's leading broadcaster, has received the 2025 EBU ...
04/09/2025
Monumental Sports & Entertainment (MSE), in collaboration with Dalet, has been a...
30/08/2025
WASHINGTON The Federal Communications Commission has adopted its FY 2025 Regulatory Fees Order that establishes the regulatory fee rates for the broadcast stati...
29/08/2025
Australian Red Cross and SBS launch training to help workplaces in the fight aga...
29/08/2025
The National Film and Video Foundation (NFVF), an agency of the Department of Sp...
29/08/2025
L3Harris Technologies has concentrated decades of expertise across the entire enterprise to develop affordable and reliable best-of-breed solutions to rapidly c...
29/08/2025
BURBANK, Calif. The CW Network and the Pac-12 Conference have announced a new media rights deal that will extend their broadcast partnership beginning with the ...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK Gracenote has released a new analysis of its global video dataset showing that the number of FAST channels grew nearly 14% from Q1 2025 and 76% since 2...
29/08/2025
SAN JOSE, Calif. Harmonic has announced a series of improvements to its live sports streaming solution that the company said will improve fan engagement, protec...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK and LOS ANGELES Fox Corp. and YouTube TV last night announced a renewal of the full portfolio of Fox networks, including Fox News Channel, Fox Business...
29/08/2025
Budapest, Hungary, August 2025 - The integration of Microsoft Teams Rooms (MTR) with Lightware's Taurus universal matrix switchers delivers a new level of f...
29/08/2025
Frequency, the engine behind many of the world's best-known streaming television channels, today announced it will launch Studio Live, a next-generation uni...
29/08/2025
In an era when AI and cyber resilience are essential, Scality will mark the 10th anniversary of Scality Day on October 16, 2025 in Paris. This flagship global e...
29/08/2025
Disguise's In-House Creative and Technical Teams Pre-Visualised, Programmed and Delivered Content for the Experience, All Powered by EX 3+
Technology solu...
29/08/2025
Disguise will be demonstrating the latest workflows for TV, film and live events on a number of partner booths at the show
Disguise, the industry-leading tech...
29/08/2025
STOCKHOLM, Sweden Accedo will showcase Accedo Compose, its AI agent-powered modular orchestration layer that assists streaming providers in transitioning client...
29/08/2025
LOS ANGELES Cineverse has announced that it is working with Xperi to bring four of its streaming channels to automobiles for the first time as part of the DTS A...
29/08/2025
DALLAS & ATLANTA Gray Media has announced an agreement with the sports streaming service Victory+ to simulcast 17 Dallas Stars NHL games in 15 television market...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK AND CULVER CITY Comcast NBCUniversal and Amazon have announced new and extended distribution agreements that will expand the content available on their...
29/08/2025
FOOTHILL RANCH, Calif. RED Digital Cinema will feature its Cine-Broadcast Module supporting live broadcast workflows during IBC2025, Sept. 12-15, at the RAI Ams...
29/08/2025
29 Aug 2025
Kyivstar Rings Opening Bell at Nasdaq Marking Landmark Listing and ...
29/08/2025
More than half of all NFL games live on Sky for the first timeFriday 29 August 2025
Sky Sports has announced a new three-year deal with the NFL, extending its ...
29/08/2025
Back to All News
RIV4LRIES: The Trailer of the New Series With Samuele Carrino ...
29/08/2025
Get ready for an inspiring and emotional insight into the world of competitive Irish dancing with My Story: Tomi Champion of the World airing on RT 2 this monda...
29/08/2025
RT has today announced that David McCullagh is to be the new presenter of RT Radio 1's flagship Today programme, which airs every weekday at 10am, replaci...
28/08/2025
By Kristin Feeley, Director, Documentary Film & Artist Programs
If you want to tell untold stories, if you want to give voice to the voiceless, you've got ...
28/08/2025
Directed by Steven Bognar and Julia Reichert, Sundance Institute-supported Amer...
28/08/2025
Corridos have been a cornerstone of M sica Mexicana for generations, telling stories rooted in everyday life. Now, a new chapter is taking shape: motivational c...
28/08/2025
Los corridos han sido un pilar de la M sica Mexicana durante generaciones, contando historias enraizadas en la vida cotidiana. Ahora, un nuevo cap tulo est tom...
28/08/2025
Earlier this month, we promised our Verano Forever party would bring the heat, a...
28/08/2025
L3Harris will provide the Polish F-16V fleet with the Viper Shield electronic warfare system as part of an upgrade program....
28/08/2025
Bilbao, August 26, 2025 - AgileTV, an international television and video technol...
28/08/2025
Ken Wilkinson is an Emmy Awards nominated New York audio engineer who specialises in production sound mixing for film, commercial, episodic and documentary work...
28/08/2025
NEW YORK FuboTV today announced that it will launch Fubo Sports, a skinny bundle that focuses on sports with a subscription price of $56 monthly....
28/08/2025
NEVADA City, Calif. At IBC2025, Sept. 12-15 at the RAI Amsterdam, Telestream will debut its new Global Ingest strategy, introducing a next-generation ingest arc...
28/08/2025
Dr. Rhoda Bernard Releases Groundbreaking Debut Book on Accessible Arts Educatio...
28/08/2025
TAG Video Systems, the leader in software-based IP end-to-end workflow monitoring, deep probing, and real-time visualization, has named Oliver Gappa as Sales Di...
28/08/2025
AI-based voice enhancement will be among a series of innovations making their IBC 2025 debut on the DHD stand B46 in Hall 8 at the RAI Amsterdam Convention Cent...
28/08/2025
Telef nica Servicios Audiovisuales (TSA), the leading system integrator and service provider in the media sector in Spain, with the support of Appear, the globa...
28/08/2025
To fully immerse sailing fans in the world's biggest offshore yacht race, production company, Optical Media turned to LiveU's On-site Production solutio...
28/08/2025
Working with Calrec on its most recent overhaul, radio and television broadcaster, WNED has migrated to a fully IP infrastructure with multiple Type R consoles,...
28/08/2025
Cleeng, the Subscriber Retention Management (SRM ) inventor, has unveiled Cleeng Pro, the first-ever direct-to-consumer (D2C) subscription management platform t...
28/08/2025
Zixi, the industry leader in live broadcast-quality video over IP, today announced that French media distribution platform OKAST has selected Zixi to enable rel...
28/08/2025
Solution offers a streamlined, speaker-free architecture to optimize integration with premium external loudspeakers and advanced loudness metering
Nixer Pro Au...
28/08/2025
Cinegy, the premier provider of software-defined television technology, has announced a strategic partnership with Vision One Touch Film Production Services L.L...
28/08/2025
Telestream, a global leader in media workflow technologies, will debut its new Global Ingest strategy at IBC2025, introducing a next-generation ingest architect...
28/08/2025
Tier 1 operator selects Broadpeak to power high-performance, unified CDN solution across Norway, Sweden and Finland
Broadpeak, a leader in streaming and moneti...
28/08/2025
Leading video software provider, Synamedia, today announced that 24 Frames Digital, one of India's leading live event streaming service providers, has chose...
28/08/2025
Meet VisualOn at IBC2025: See What's Next in AI-Powered Video Streaming Join VisualOn at IBC2025 and discover how our AI-driven Optimizer and advanced media...
By Adrian Pennington
