Below the Line: Camera & Steadicam Operator, Rochelle T.A. Brown

Rochelle Brown is a Jamaican-born artist based in the Los Angeles area. She moved to the United States (Atlanta, GA) at the age of nine and later attended the Savannah College of Art and Design where she received her undergraduate degree in Film and Television. She worked as a 2nd Assistant Camerawoman and Loader before stepping up to Camera / Steadicam Operator, and occasional DP. Her film credits include Babylon, Promising Young Woman, Ad Astra, Judas and the Black Messiah and Django Unchained; her television credits include Yellowstone, Brooklyn Nine-Nine, Little America and Westworld.

I met Rochelle when she operated a steadicam rig on a music video I directed, called "What Are We Fighting For (If It Ain’t Love)?" We caught up on a cozy Sunday afternoon to talk movies, immigration, and being a working woman in Hollywood.

Aminah: So, tell me about your role on set.

Rochelle: Previously, as a 2nd AC, I was basically in charge of knowing all the gear in the camera department and how to put it together, slating, laying marks. And that's honestly a really tiny part of that job. My current role is working a lot as a ‘B’ camera operator. ‘A’ camera will get the shots that set up the scene and get the wides. Then I’ll come in and get a medium shot from a similar angle. Sometimes it’s the same shot on a different axis. I'm usually the one who's on the close up or the longer end of the lens, which ends up being the more difficult shot. I really enjoy it because my learning curve goes up. I get challenged a lot in this job.

Aminah: What was the most exciting production you worked on?

Rochelle: I think the first one was Django Unchained by Tarantino. It was my first time on a big movie set. I got to see a lot of equipment I had seen in film school or as a PA and see how it all works together on set. And I learned that film works slower than TV. We really got a chance to figure out what we were doing for the day and have multiple takes and figure out stunt pieces. That was the most interesting and fun time I’ve ever had. I realize now, it’s because I was so green. Everything was so exciting and awesome.

Aminah: I bet! What would you say was your happiest memory on set?

Rochelle: It would have to be a Netflix feature I did last April in New Mexico called Rez Ball. It’s about a Native American basketball team. You get to learn about how Native American culture works. It was a really good experience because, first of all, I had never worked with any native people in leadership roles on a film set before. And I realized, our props team are Navajo, our director is Navajo, some of the cast is Navajo, and we don’t have to worry about anything cultural on set, because all this stuff has been checked. So, it felt different and that was the special part about it. There was such a mix of people on that set that it just felt like home. It felt like we were all getting to bring our different experiences and our different cultures together to make this movie about this culture that a lot of the crew did not understand or had never been this close to but were so fascinated to learn more about.

Aminah: You’ve worked on some really big project, but I want to ask you about Promising Young Woman and your experience in working with Emerald Fennell. How does the experience differ when there’s a woman in the director’s chair?

Rochelle: That was a really interesting project because Emerald was also very pregnant during that piece. So, she was just walking around killing it with that belly in front of her. What I like about Emerald is, she had a vision and she knew what she wanted and she always had an answer if someone wanted to pitch her something else. She was like, "... no, I want it this way because of X, Y, and Z." The DP was this really funny British dude named Ben Kracun and our focus puller was a woman. I was the 2nd AC on ‘A’ camera and our loader was also a woman. The crew was a nice mixed bag.

We were shooting it all around L.A. like an indie movie, but the director really knew what she wanted. She understood the genre of film she was making and the choices she was making. If she didn’t want a closeup, we didn’t do a closeup. Someone might pitch it, and she’d say, “... no, I don't need that because that's not what this part of the scene is about” and we’d move on. I was grateful that she didn’t get talked into stuff because other people were telling her she might need it. It was so refreshing. She's not easily pushed around. That's what I love about her.

Aminah: Do you feel like when there's a woman at the helm, it’s more likely there'll be more women on the crew?

Rochelle: Yeah, definitely, and that really creates a different environment on set. It was the same thing with Rez Ball. I can always feel the difference, hands down. You get that vibe check. Everything just feels like I’m in a community, rather than just a straight up hierarchy.

Aminah: Yeah. I love that. So, outside of working on large scale productions, you’re a DP and a Steadicam Operator.

Rochelle: An emerging DP—a quiet, sneaky little DP. I’m still shy to say it, but I really enjoy lighting. It’s what I pay attention to most in life. Like, you have a really nice highlight right now coming from that salt lamp, and I’ve noticed it since you sat closer.

Aminah: That’s why I’m sitting here. It’s the pink glow. It’s great for my skin. So, how has working as an AC affected your work as a Cinematographer?

Rochelle: I think for me, it was essential that I go through those roles because I find that it helps in my understanding of what my crew needs from me. So, I’m not impatient when there is no need to be impatient. It helps me to have more realistic expectations.

Aminah: Well, that's a kick-ass answer! You're one of only how many female steadicam operators in L.A. or the States, or the world—do you know?

Rochelle: Honestly, I don’t, but I know there are only a handful of us.

Aminah: How have you felt as a woman moving into that role? Have you felt supported?

Rochelle: Actually, I have, but I also feel I’ve managed to manifest the people in my life that I need to support me. It’s been wonderful.

Aminah: What drew you to choose camera in the first place?

Rochelle: When I was a kid, I was kind of introverted. I loved to draw and my mom was really supportive. When I was around thirteen, I was watching the travel channel, and they were talking about photography. I found a photography book in a local bookstore, and she bought it for me. I still have it at my house in Marietta. It taught me all the different photographic techniques, how to shoot with zoom lenses, prime lenses, telephoto lenses, setting a stop, shutter angles—it kind of just broke everything down. And it had photographic examples of what each setting would produce. I was obsessed with that book. So, for Christmas, I asked for a camera I’d seen in a magazine somewhere—a silver Canon Rebel 35mm film camera. I learned how to set my exposure, read the meter, and I still have some of the photographs that I took from some of my first rolls. Some of them are terrible, but it was the beginning of my love for photography.

My best friend would go to movies all the time, so I started to go with her every Friday. Her dad would drop us off. Sometimes we’d see two movies. Some people were there to make out with their boyfriend or whatever, but we were really watching the films, and I thought, this looks like fun!

We had a class in high school, and I’d see the kids running around school with cameras. I had to wait until I was a junior to get into the class. I ended up helping write the TV news segment. I even tried being an Anchor. We’d gather stories during the week, shoot on Wednesdays, edit on Thursdays, and it would air for the entire school on Friday. That professor, she’d show us old movies in between, and my love of still photography developed into a love for motion pictures. I started out shooting pep rallies and football games, then she encouraged me to go to film school.

Aminah: I heard that when you were working on Babylon, there was a guy on your team who wanted to direct, and you would borrow a camera from set and take short ends from the 35mm film stock, and go out on the weekends and shoot short films for him. Tell me about that.

Rochelle: Yeah, Babylon was the last movie I was a 2nd AC on before I started operating. I was talking to our camera PA, Mike Mentor, one day and he said he wanted to make something he wrote. Linus (Linus Sandgren, Cinematographer of Babylon, La La Land, Saltburn, and others) said, “Why don’t you ask Rochelle to shoot it?”

Linus has his own Aaton Penelope, which is a beautiful little French 35mm camera, and his own set of Zeiss Super Speed lenses, and he let me use his gear. I told the key grip and gaffer what I was doing and asked if I could borrow some gear. It was their own gear, and they were like, take what you want. We were exhausted from working on the movie, but we’d drive out somewhere on Saturdays and shoot our own stuff, and rest on Sundays. We did a black and white short called Hot Feet, and a proof-of-concept called Production Dogs. We did a few other small things since, and we’re working on something else now.

Aminah: Awesome. What are you most passionate about right now?

Rochelle: I think the thing that I'm most passionate about is giving people permission to do whatever it is that they want to do.

I'm not of the American diaspora. The way I thought of myself was not as a Black woman. It was just as a Jamaican person living in this country. My parents never had that conversation with me—“this is how you interact with police officers, this is how you interact with those white people over there because you’ve got to humble yourself.” So, I never had that mentality to stop me from moving throughout the world.

It was something I had to learn as an adult here, especially my early 20s, because I would get my Black friends in this country in trouble because of the way I would move through it, not understanding my place in certain white spaces.

Aminah: That's really interesting. Obviously I'm not a person of color, but I had a mother who told me I could be anything I wanted to be, and I had to learn, as a woman, that if I tried to move through the world in the same way as my male friends, I would be constantly told that I was bold.

Rochelle: Yes, me too, me too. And I had never, ever been told that before because my mom told me the same thing.

I love that things are changing. I like watching Bollywood and Nollywood (Nigerian Hollywood) movies and British and Australian TV shows. I’m watching a Choctaw show right now, and it’s so cool. I love when I can’t pronounce the director’s name. And that’s the thing that is going to kill this American-born white supremacy—kids are going to school with folks of different colors, and they just see them as their friends, and they’re not going to stand for you talking shit about their friends.

Aminah: I didn’t realize until today that you’re from Jamaica.

Rochelle: I mean, I think for me in this industry, my Jamaican identity comes into play. I think a lot of people think Jamaica is a closed off island where all we see are Black people everywhere. But it's actually the complete opposite of that. I have a brother-in-law who's half Chinese and his father was a Jamaican-Chinese man whose ancestors immigrated for work. I grew up around native people, Indians, white people, Canadians, Chinese and Korean people. There are some Hispanic people there, from Cuba and such.

We’re exposed to a lot of other cultures, so my experience there was a lot more worldly than my experience when I moved to the United States. Given the size of the U.S., you think it’s going to be a huge melting pot. And it is, but everyone is kind of segregated to their own areas of the cities, areas of the country. So, that was a very different experience. And having to be in these all-white, male spaces was something that was a very foreign feeling to me because this wasn’t my world.

Aminah: You’re talking about the film industry.

Rochelle: Yeah, the film industry. I went to an art school, and my high school experience was predominantly Black. And everyone else was mixed in the crowd. And so, I go to film school, and it's kind of the opposite. Being around people who weren’t necessarily socialized around others, they would ask you questions where you're like, do you hear what you're saying? Why would you ask someone that question? So, I came to understand that just because we think of America as this big melting pot, there are still a lot of people who don't get exposed to anything other than themselves. It means that when they come out into the world, it’s awkward for them because they don’t know how to just interact with you as a person.

It made me realize how much more of an open world I lived in, in Jamaica. I was so excited to move here and America’s different, and it’s amazing, but in a way, you have to learn this really horrible thing. I tell people, “I learned racism in America.” It’s different here.

Aminah: That's interesting to me because racism is definitely an issue in Australia, but I grew up in a mixed-race family, and I had friends who were from lots of different walks of life, different religions, different races, and I've always had that. I feel like America is very individualistic, and the people I’m drawn to are more community minded. I mean, I’ve always been aware of my privilege, but I feel like I’m constantly aware of my race in America. Race is a massive thing here.

Rochelle: Yep, it’s huge.

Aminah: How do you overcome those barriers, now that you see them?

Rochelle: You have to analyze what you’re doing, when what you’re doing is just taking up space. And you're doing it with honestly half the confidence of a mediocre white man, yet you're being told that you're too bold. Yes, exactly. And depending on the people who are in charge on set, I will stand differently. With my hands crossed in front of me, my legs spread apart. Because I’ve realized that if I stand how I usually stand, arms behind back, almost balancing on one foot, people will come and stand in front of me during rehearsals, like I don’t exist. So, I have learned that I need to truly take up space, as though I were a six-foot five, blonde-haired, blue-eyed, strapping white man. Although I still like to get my nails done and be cute, I have to carry myself differently and command that space.

Aminah: Yes, I consciously carry myself differently on set, too, depending on whether I’m around women or men. I feel like I have to hold a more confident stance. I’m also a music producer and engineer, and I’ve gone into recording studios where the guys don’t want me to touch anything, and others where I’ll ask, “Can I just sit in and do this? It’ll be quicker.” And they’re like, oh she knows what she’s doing, and I’m like, yes, I’m not gonna break your shit.

Rochelle: Exactly. And this happens to me on 95% of sets that I go on—I'll be there sitting on the dolly trying to think of what shots I'm doing, what's coming up next, figuring out coverage, and I'll get tapped on the shoulder by someone. They'll whisper to me, “I don't know what it is you had to do to get to this position, but I just want you to know that I see you, sis. I see you in this space. And I'm so happy to see you in this space.”

*Feature photo: Rochelle T.A. Brown by Cori Kim, "What Are We Fighting For (If It Ain’t Love)?"