Cinematographer Brings
Diversity to the Forefront with 'Brown Girls' Series
This Chicago filmmaker seeks to reform an industry dominated by white men.
Art plasters the walls of a tiny bathroom in Pilsen, where a girl is pulling her hair at the thought of seeing her ex girlfriend right outside the door. She stares into the mirror and grasps the sink; she’s in front of a lens in the basement of the Dojo, a Chicago DIY music venue where "Brown Girls" is filming that night.
Hannah Welever, the cinematographer for the web series, is filming. Her “Formation World Tour” t-shirt brushes against the wall, leaving oil paint stains on her back. She tucks her wavy blonde hair into a messy bun, rests the camera on her right shoulder, and crouches down between the toilet and the wall to shoot the woman looking into the mirror.The venue host suggests they move to one of the two larger bathrooms, but Welever insists that she will make it work.
“Scenes like this are nice in a way because they are so intimate and restricted,” says Welever. “You have no choice but to be really focused.”
Welever captures the stress painted on the actress’ face without getting her own reflection in the shot. She continues to film the entire night in the basement illuminated by purple, red and yellow neon lights—from moving shots of soul singer Jamila Woods performing on stage to crowd shots of black and brown people socializing. At the Dojo, this looks like any other night, but a woman and her camera are drifting through the crowd.
The people who watch “Brown Girls,” which tells the intimate story of two mid-twenties feminists coming to terms with their sexuality, will never see the person who brings the series to life—the mindful woman behind the lens. Armed with her camera and her intersectional lifestyle, Welever is changing the way media frames race and culture in Chicago.
Welever was born in 1992, the year “Reservoir Dogs” and “Malcolm X” came out. She grew up in Hudson, Ohio, a suburb of Cleveland. The town, according to Welever, lacks diversity and is majority white. In middle school and high school, she walked through the halls knowing she was queer, but felt like an outcast. She didn’t come out to her parents until after leaving Ohio in her early 20s.
“I definitely did feel like an outsider, a black sheep. I still do," she says. "Something that drove me and still drives me is feeling somewhat isolated or different, and then trying to [create art] with those feelings, as opposed to having them eat me alive.”
She found solace in a group of friends who were also frustrated by the absence of art and culture in their hometown. They never talked about being feminists or queer during their teens, but Welever says they all inherently fell under those labels. After school, they would escape to the nearest metropolis, where the Cleveland Museum of Art and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame awaited their exploration.
Her parents were high school sweethearts, both brought up in Hudson. Her father is a contractor, her mother an interior designer; Welever grew up in a world of designing. She says her biggest influence was her brother, whom she connected with over a love for the White Stripes and “Beavis and Butthead.” They both framed their schooling around their passions. For him, it was drawing; he left to pursue architecture when Welever was 13 years old.
The year her brother left home was the same year she watched “Kill Bill” for the first time and realized filmmaking was in her future. She admires the way director Quentin Tarantino bends genres and combines elements from different types of filmmaking, she says.
“It jumpstarted something in me— that there are no rules in filmmaking," Welever says. "You can do whatever you want as long as other people enjoy it."
After high school graduation, Welever left Ohio to study cinematography at Columbia College Chicago. But even in college, many of the sets Welever worked on left her feeling isolated and outnumbered by a crowd of men.
“If you are on a [crew] of 15 people, maybe two of them are women. You might be the only one," Welever says. "Instantly people assume you don’t know what you are talking about and you have to prove yourself in a way that is really intense.”
She saw that a lot of her female peers shared the same discomfort, so she founded Columbia’s Women in Film club, where women can get together in a safe space and talk about times they feel invalidated by male peers or teachers.
Welever recalls moments when she wasn’t accepted into cinematography classes because of Columbia’s competitive environment, but she says the only way to combat the defeat was by continuing to create work until people noticed.
“I’m not going to be the cutest girl on set, and I’m not going to be the most charming person," Welever says. "But if I make good work, then people will hit me up.”
Welever, now 24 years old, infuses intersectional feminism into almost every aspect of her life. She always works on diverse sets, which is exemplified by her work on “Brown Girls.” The series stars South Asian-American and Black-American actresses and was created by a cast largely comprised of people of color.
“[Race is] usually portrayed terribly in the media, but that’s usually because the people who are making the content aren’t people of color,” she says.
Welever considers the overused stereotypes of queer and people of color toxic, both when making a film or TV show and when hiring its cast and crew members. To combat these stereotypes, she frequently collaborates with OpenTV and VAM, both platforms showcasing marginalized groups often left out of mainstream media.
“If you want to have a diverse set, you have that power,” she says. “We have a huge responsibility as media makers to have some sort of truth and moral values because we have a lot of power.”
Her ongoing project with VAM is called FRNTWMYN (front woman), which showcases female musicians in Chicago. Welever curated the project and shoots bands playing a single for VAM’s website. She uses the project as a way to hear new music and connect with other women in male dominated industries.
Samantha Jo, event producer for VAM and the event host for “Brown Girls,” says Welever’s attention to light and detail transcends in her work, capturing a “warmth” in three to four minutes that many filmmakers cannot grasp in a two hour film.
“It’s that intimate connection you just feel,” Jo says. “There was something about where she was standing that spoke to her, where she saw you in your best light. It’s the most beautiful fucking thing.”
In Episode 6 of FRNTWMYN, Welever filmed one of her favorite bands, Date Stuff. In the video, Welever switches seamlessly between shots of the guitar player riffing and intimate close-ups of the band members’ faces. Her filming style echoes the music, revealing her knowledge of the Chicago music scene, garnered from spending many nights at shows around the city. Welever’s videos have also appeared on She Shreds Magazine's website.
When she began filming “Brown Girls,” Welever already knew a lot of people at the Dojo, the venue host to the bathroom used in filming.
Alex Palma, who runs the Dojo, met Welever when she showed a film at its monthly female film showing. He says Welever embodies intersectional feminism in the diverse teams she collaborates with and the narratives she pushes about marginalized groups. The Dojo hosts events to empower people of color, which mirrors Welever’s mentality.
“The goal is to try to make these things become normal so that oppressors can feel like they are in the minority—so that they can get educated,” Palma says.
Rather than modeling herself after famous filmmakers like Orson Welles or Wes Anderson, Welever admires Chicago artists who are reachable; people like Palma at the Dojo and Sam Bailey, director of “Brown Girls.”
“There are people around me who are doing really good work and I want to be supportive to them because we are all going to help each other succeed,” she said. “That’s very real to me. Idolizing someone who is far away doesn’t feel real.”
Welever, inspired by those around her, has made a lifestyle of supporting marginalized groups in the media. She says that as a white, queer woman, she appreciates communities where there is room to grow, and also learn to be quiet so people of color can be heard. She is the artist behind the lens in the tiny bathroom wearing a paint-stained t-shirt, while her friend, a South Asian-American actress, is the face whom “Brown Girls” viewers will recognize.
“You need to find people in your social realm who challenge your ideals, but also educate and inspire you—people who are different than you,” she says. “Once you find that community, you will start to feel a lot more comfortable fighting for other people.”
“It jumpstarted something in me— that there are no rules in filmmaking," Welever says.
Welever films actress Nabila Hossain on the set of "Brown Girls."
written by Caroline Bowen
edited by Sadie Miller
Photos by: Drake Li