{"id":11153,"date":"2021-05-14T11:42:13","date_gmt":"2021-05-14T18:42:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.icgmagazine.com\/web\/?p=11153"},"modified":"2021-05-29T16:03:03","modified_gmt":"2021-05-29T23:03:03","slug":"black-like-me","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.icgmagazine.com\/web\/black-like-me\/","title":{"rendered":"Black Like Me"},"content":{"rendered":"

Barry Jenkins and longtime collaborator James Laxton, ASC travel the road less taken for Amazon’s new limited series The Underground Railroad<\/em>.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

by Valentina Valentini \/ Photos by Atsushi Nishijima & Kyle Kaplan \/ Amazon Studios<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n

In one of the first frames of the new Amazon series<\/strong> The Underground Railroad<\/em>, Cora \u2013 deftly played by Thuso Mbedu in her first American role \u2013 stares straight into the camera while her voiceover narrates the seedlings of the story. It\u2019s a powerful moment, and though we\u2019re only seconds into a 10-episode series, it forces you to pay attention.<\/p>\n

The visual motif repeats throughout The Underground Railroad<\/em>, urging the viewer to look at the story\u2019s characters \u2013\u00a0enslaved African Americans on a southern plantation; well-dressed Black men and women on display for white people\u2019s manipulation; free-born and enslaved escapees on a black-owned farm \u2013\u00a0by panning the camera across their mural-like setups, all of them staring back into the camera. Teetering on (if not breaking entirely) the fourth wall is a risky move, but Director of Photography James Laxton, ASC, thinks Writer\/Director Barry Jenkins has earned that license.<\/p>\n

\u201cPutting the camera inside the characters\u2019 minds invites us into their journeys,\u201d describes Laxton, who met Jenkins studying film at Florida State University nearly 20 years ago. \u201cA different filmmaker might feel too shy to do that, but it\u2019s something that Barry does very well \u2013\u00a0riding this fine line of being stylistic and maintaining a specific visual language.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"
James Laxton, ASC, who met writer\/director Jenkins two decades ago in film school says \u201ca different filmmaker might feel too shy to [have characters stare into the camera] but it\u2019s something that Barry does well \u2013 riding this fine line of being stylistic and maintaining a specific visual language.\u201d Above: Thuso Mbedu as Cora \/ Photo by Kyle Kaplan<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

The Underground Railroad<\/em><\/strong> is Jenkins\u2019 adaptation of Colson Whitehead\u2019s<\/strong> Pulitzer Prize-winning novel that builds a fictional world around the real-life 19th<\/sup>-century underground railroad \u2013\u00a0a network of subterranean passages traveled by foot that allowed enslaved people to escape to free states and Canada. The script, written by Jenkins, Jackie Hoyt, Nathan C. Parker, Allison Davis, Adrienne Rush, and Jihan Crowther, with Jenkins directing all 10 episodes, centers on Cora’s journey north, as she tries to escape the slave catcher Ridgeway (Joel Edgerton) and his child sidekick, Homer (Chase W. Dillon).<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a story filled with \u201chard imagery,\u201d a term Jenkins uses to describe the horrors, atrocities, and brutality his ancestors endured. And yet there is also textural softness throughout \u2013\u00a0the sun caressing breeze-touched curtains, yellow swathes of light covering fluffy green fields, black faces illuminated only by flickering candlelight. Even in the most violent scenes, flames dance and smoke billows; grey mist swirls and dissipates around scorched-black trees. Laxton, who\u2019d received the novel from Jenkins years before production began, reminds us with his camera and lighting that enslaved people fell in love, had families and friendships, and built communities, despite all they were forced to endure.<\/p>\n

Laxton, who used the ALEXA LF and ALEXA Mini LF and did extensive testing with Panavision\u2019s Dan Sasaki to tweak the Primo 70 series and T-Series Anamorphics to his specifications, shares that, \u201cour job as filmmakers was to paint with a fine brush nuanced scenes of Cora falling in love or having fun at a corn-shucking festival on Valentine Farm.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"
Laxton, who used the ALEXA LF and Mini LF, did extensive testing with Panavision\u2019s Dan Sasaki to tweak the Primo 70 series and T-Series Anamorphic lenses. \u201cOur job was to paint with a fine brush nuanced scenes of Cora falling in love or having fun at a corn-shucking festival on Valentine Farm,\u201d he describes. \/ Photo by Atsushi Nishijima<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

Though the whole series is shot in Georgia, where the first and<\/strong> last episodes take place on the Randall Plantation, Cora\u2019s journey takes her to South Carolina, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Indiana. There\u2019s a challenge inherent with shooting five states in one, and Laxton and Jenkins both credit the art direction team and Production Designer Mark Friedberg, who also designed Jenkins\u2019 Oscar-winning If Beale Street Could Talk<\/em> and many other distinctive features, including Joker<\/em>, Synecdoche<\/em>, New York<\/em>, and Far From Heaven<\/em>.<\/p>\n

\u201cComing out of the writers\u2019 room and into prep with James,\u201d Jenkins adds, \u201cWe knew that this was a television show, [but really] it\u2019s a road movie. So, every time Cora reaches a new state, we have full creative license to completely reorient the visual language, whether it be the color or [framing, et cetera<\/em>].\u201d<\/p>\n

It was no small task to create entirely disparate locales using existing locations in Georgia, but Laxton and his team, cognizant that new characters and new spaces alone wouldn\u2019t cut it, also helped to build separate visual worlds by treating the color palette differently in each state and creating a unique LUT for each episode. Starting with Chapter 1, \u201cGeorgia,\u201d Laxton and his longtime colorist, Alex Bickel, at New York City-based Color Collective, used a Kodak emulation; for Chapter 2, \u201cSouth Carolina,\u201d it was an Anscochrome LUT with E6 chemicals to emulate the same combination of stock and processing Still Photographer Gordon Parks used in his Segregation Story series. Laxton says \u201cthis one was special, as it had never been used before.\u201d<\/p>\n

Chapter 3 and Chapter 7, both set in North Carolina, used a Fuji Film LUT; Chapter 4, \u201cThe Great Spirit\u201d was Ektachrome; \u201cTennessee: Exodus\u201d was three-strip Technicolor with a modified white point based on Erwin Olaf\u2019s Keyhole series; and for \u201cTennessee Proverbs,\u201d back to Ektachrome. Chapter 8 \u201cIndiana: Autumn\u201d was Technicolor three-strip again but modified to emulate blues and greens in reference to photographer Jacques Henri Lartigue; \u201cIndiana: Winter\u201d was Agfa; and finally, for Chapter 10, \u201cMabel,\u201d the filmmakers used two different LUT\u2019s \u2013\u00a0the first half of the episode was Bleached Kodak, and the second half was Ektachrome with inkier blacks. Because of Laxton and Jenkins\u2019 feature-film background, they were keen to preserve a cinematic language even while working on a TV series together for the first time. And Bickel, who has colored all of Laxton\u2019s features, helped to maintain a visual through-line in post.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"
\u201cWe knew that this was a television show, \u00a0[but really] it\u2019s a road movie,” Jenkins comments. \u00a0“So, every time Cora reaches a new state, we have full creative license to completely reorient the visual language.\u201d \/ Photo by Atsushi Nishijima<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cTelevision is so cinematic now,\u201d adds Jenkins, \u201cso<\/strong> the distinction isn\u2019t as sharp as it once was. But we still wanted to step into this realm and put our footprint on it while understanding that it will be viewed on a smaller [screen]. There\u2019s a certain amount of control the audience has when watching TV, there are also variations in image quality and color representation, so we had to think of it from a technical standpoint to decide that we were not making 10 individual movies but rather telling a story that threads from beginning to end.\u201d<\/p>\n

Laxton\u2019s conversations with Jenkins were often about the subtlety between the truth of American slavery mixed with the symbolism of the story\u2019s narrative structure, like the underground railroad being an actual steam engine running through tunnels. Laxton grew up reading Joseph Campbell and other mythology writers; he watched films like Akira Kurosawa\u2019s Rashomon<\/em> and The Wizard of Oz<\/em>, which use myth as a motif. He says these stories he watched as a child helped to shape the artist he became.<\/p>\n

\u201cSometimes I feel like myths can be more impactful than history,\u201d the Oscar nominee describes. \u201cAnd the language we\u2019re using with this production, within cinematography specifically, is to touch on that heightened sensibility with a powerful arc that somewhere in the frame we always will have a truth about our history as Americans. The horrors Cora experiences are always going to be omnipresent \u2013 no matter what I do with the camera, we are going to see those atrocities on screen. We thought about how to shape those moments to make Cora\u2019s journey feel richer, to have a larger spectrum of emotional connection than just distilling it down to, \u2018This was slavery in America.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"
Instead of building a train on a soundstage, Production Designer Mark Friedberg went to the source \u2013 the Georgia State Railroad Museum in Savannah, which allowed filming on period-specific trains on a 150-foot section of their private train track.\/ Photo by Kyle Kaplan<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

Though the show\u2019s name suggests the viewer might<\/strong> be literally \u201cunderground and on a train,\u201d only a quarter of the scenes take place there. Yet Friedberg\u2019s team still built an entire tunnel above ground as if it were below ground. And instead of building a train on a soundstage, the designer went to the source \u2013 the Georgia State Railroad Museum in Savannah allowed filming on period-specific trains on a 150-foot section of their private train track. Safety and control were paramount, and this provided both. Friedberg then built the tunnel around those train tracks using both real rocks and foam.<\/p>\n

Costume designer Caroline Eselin, who worked on Moonlight<\/em> and If Beale Street Could Talk<\/em>, tested textures and colors with Laxton and Friedberg early on, wanting to make sure her looks, which had to jump around and blend styles from the 1830s to the early 20th<\/sup> century, tonally matched the narrative, as well as the goals of the camera and design teams. Jenkins says he didn\u2019t want to use other shows as visual references, as it was all about Cora\u2019s journey and the shift in genres present in Whitehead\u2019s book. In that respect, still photographs were the prime visual references, as evidenced in the LUT\u2019s. The first images shown to Eselin were from Parks\u2019 Segregation Story.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur Black women at the Griffin Institute of Negro Progress in South Carolina wear an institutional dress in their daily work and schooling activities,\u201d Eselin recalls. \u201cI showed James and Barry blue and green fabric swatches only for the dresses to honor and achieve those teals and greens in the photographs.\u00a0In the first episode in Georgia,\u00a0we start with straightforward 1850s as it\u2019s written in the novel \u2013\u00a0the costumes were sun-bleached, worn, washed, and rewashed with a muted color palette on our enslaved people of the plantation, which was a terrible, fearful place. We wanted a clear difference of perceived optimism jumping to the 1880s future of South Carolina. For North Carolina, which comes next in Cora\u2019s journey, we used an 1830s silhouette with rough fabrics, almost like burlap for the white characters, and a much darker color palette to mark a regression from South Carolina.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"
Costume designer Caroline Eselin tested textures and colors with Laxton and Friedberg to ensure wardrobes, \u00a0which jumped from the 1830s to the early 20th century, tonally matched the narrative. \/\u00a0Photo by Kyle Kaplan<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

Cora\u2019s consciousness provides the narrative framework,<\/strong> but the 1850s is the real-world period within which the show takes place, and Eselin often used hybrid periods and time travel for her looks to complement Jenkins\u2019 overall aesthetic.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll our periods and costume choices are there for a\u00a0reason,\u201d she continues, explaining that on Valentine Farm in Indiana, the Black community hailed from all over the southern states. \u201cIn that episode, we had some earlier period silhouettes, but\u00a0mostly we put our Black population in\u00a0the future \u2013\u00a0the 1880s to the turn of the century. The farm is a forward-thinking community; we wanted it to be\u00a0lush and beautiful and to also have a feeling of optimism \u2013\u00a0florals and prints, jewel tones, and lived-in feelings of\u00a0freedom and prosperity. We kept our white\u00a0population in the 1850s only [to make it clear they were stuck in the past].\u201d<\/p>\n

To keep with the authenticity of enslaved Americans\u2019 surroundings, Laxton chose to light scenes as if there was no electricity in Georgia and Indiana but to add electricity into the look of South Carolina and the big train stations. Chief Lighting Technician Kiva Knight had the challenge of lighting a series often grounded in the absence of light. \u201cI felt this show pushed the envelope in terms of how dark we could go with exposure,\u201d offers Knight, who worked on Jenkins\u2019 two other features. \u201cThis was the only show I\u2019ve done where the majority was set pre-electricity for the bulk of the shoot. That meant we were relying solely on the moon, gas-powered lanterns, and fire as our motivational sources for night. Exterior day work was mostly natural light and bounce to augment.\u201d<\/p>\n

For scenes on the Randall Plantation and the Valentine Farm, where Knight and his team needed to light landscapes at night the size of a football field, an HMI Bebee light was the main backlight with a 1\/8+ Green. To further bring out the environment in areas the Bebee wasn\u2019t lighting, an 80-foot Condor with two ARRIMAXes with 1\/8+ Green pushing through a five-by-ten frame of one-quarter grid was used. Knight would also place two 80-foot Condors with SkyPanel 360s in six-by-six chimeras with a quarter grid to sculpt and augment the light while moving around for coverage. Whenever possible his team would bring in an 18-by-18 Softbox that housed 28 Titan tubes, put through a quarter grid, and added some grading from the console to match the HMI\u2019s. If there was fire, as in the nighttime party scene in Chapter 1, Knight augmented with ARRI SkyPanel S60s or Titan tubes in 8-pixel mode. Astera AX10 Pars were also used to light various parts of the background for exterior nights, which Knight likes as they\u2019re battery-powered and controlled via wireless DMX.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo often the camera is floating 360 degrees in this series,\u201d Knight continues. \u201cIt\u2019s par for the course with Barry to give the actors lots of room to perform. And there can\u2019t be any waiting on us; if we bring something in to light with, it\u2019s minimal \u2013\u00a0one or two quick things off the floor to make the talent shine, and that\u2019s it. Our approach is to light from above or further away so that [everyone] has room to breathe.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"
Chief Lighting Technician Kiva Knight says The Underground Railroad\u00a0<\/em>was the first series he’s done where the bulk of shooting was set before electricity. “We relied solely on the moon, gas-powered lanterns, and fire as our motivational sources for night.\u201d \/ Photo by Atsushi Nishijima<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

A-Camera\/Steadicam Operator Jarrett Morgan, SOC,<\/strong> a native Georgian and new to Jenkins\u2019 creative team, had a front-row seat to the director\u2019s intimate style of filmmaking. Laxton\u2019s directive for the camera movement came from the desire to minimize cuts and tricks, connect action characters and emotional through-lines, which he knew would (literally) fall on Morgan\u2019s shoulders.<\/p>\n

\u201cBarry and James empower the whole crew to be emotionally invested,\u201d describes Morgan, who operated on FX\u2019s Atlanta<\/em> for two seasons. \u201cI was allowed the freedom to make my own choices about where I was going with the characters and what I was framing. Often, Barry would let a scene roll long past when he might have called cut, and those were the times where I did some of my best work. But, also, by allowing us to feel that emotion and go on that journey with a character, the horror we\u2019re [portraying] in this story is truly visceral.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"
A-Camera\/Steadicam Operator Jarrett Morgan, SOC (above), a native Georgian, says Jenkins and Laxton “empower the whole crew” to be emotionally invested. \u201cI was allowed the freedom to make my own choices about where I was going with the characters and what I was framing.” \/ Photo by Atsushi Nishijima<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

In one example in Chapter 5, Morgan was filming<\/strong> Joel Edgerton\u2019s character, Ridgeway, on horseback on a Tennessee road, Dillon driving the wagon and horses with Mbedu in the back. In the scene, a man gallops by in the other direction and Ridgeway turns to ride after him, leaving the frame. As Ridgeway comes back, Morgan is following him on Steadicam, but no one hears cut, so they all keep going.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve never worked with an actor more aware than Joel,\u201d recalls Morgan. \u201cHe knew to stay in character but also knew to pay attention to what I was doing. He was on the other side of the wagon on a horse, so I tracked him over the side of the wagon, tipping up to see Chase in the front seat, wrapped around to Joel\u2019s horse, and pulled with him another 15 feet. The whole company was only about 40 feet beyond us, so I kept tipped up to keep them out. That blocking was not planned, and it was the kind of thing that happened multiple times a week. We got incredible footage because we were just staying in the emotion of the scene.\u201d<\/p>\n

Indeed, it was Laxton and Jenkins\u2019 greatest goal for The Underground Railroad<\/em> to treat every frame with that type of care and honesty. By being forthright about the \u201chard images\u201d in this story, Jenkins felt it created an \u201cemphatic assertion\u201d of the softer images.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis story is about endurance and survival,\u201d Jenkins concludes. \u201cAnd it\u2019s important for these characters to experience rapture or even just moments of normalcy\u00a0\u2013 an enslaved man sitting on a porch sewing a doll for a child that is not his is an extremely powerful image. It\u2019s not the kind of thing I\u2019ve seen associated with a story set in this world. And yet, we also had to tell the truth about the more horrific images as well.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"
Jenkins (r) with Laxton (L) says it was important “for these characters to experience rapture or even just moments of normalcy…and yet, we also had to tell the truth about the more horrific images as well.\u201d \/ Photo by Kyle Kaplan<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

The Underground Railroad<\/em>: Local 600 Crew\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Director of Photography: James Laxton, ASC<\/p>\n

A-Camera Operator\/Steadicam: Jarrett Morgan, SOC<\/p>\n

A-Camera 1st<\/sup> AC: Alan Newcomb<\/p>\n

A-Camera 2nd<\/sup> AC: Callie Moore<\/p>\n

B-Camera Operator\/Steadicam: Matthew A. Petrosky, SOC, Ramon Engle, SOC<\/p>\n

B-Camera 1st<\/sup> AC: Warren \u201cWar Dog\u201d Brace<\/p>\n

B-Camera 2nd<\/sup> AC: Chris Dawson<\/p>\n

DIT: Ryland Jones<\/p>\n

Loader: Dumaine Babcock<\/p>\n

Utilities: Brody Docar, Beau Bellanich, Becca Thompson<\/p>\n

Still Photographers: Atsushi Nishijima, Kyle Kaplan<\/p>\n

Publicist: Denise Godoy Gregarek<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Barry Jenkins and longtime collaborator James Laxton, ASC travel the road less taken for Amazon’s new limited series The Underground Railroad. by Valentina Valentini \/ Photos by Atsushi Nishijima & Kyle Kaplan \/ Amazon Studios   In one of the first frames of the new Amazon series The Underground Railroad, Cora \u2013 deftly played by Thuso Mbedu in her first American role \u2013 stares straight into the camera while her voiceover narrates the seedlings of the story. It\u2019s a powerful […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":11178,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11153","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-features"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nBlack Like Me - ICG Magazine<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.icgmagazine.com\/web\/black-like-me\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Black Like Me - ICG Magazine\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Barry Jenkins and longtime collaborator James Laxton, ASC travel the road less taken for Amazon’s new limited series The Underground Railroad. by Valentina Valentini \/ Photos by Atsushi Nishijima & Kyle Kaplan \/ Amazon Studios   In one of the first frames of the new Amazon series The Underground Railroad, Cora \u2013 deftly played by Thuso Mbedu in her first American role \u2013 stares straight into the camera while her voiceover narrates the seedlings of the story. It\u2019s a powerful […]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.icgmagazine.com\/web\/black-like-me\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"ICG Magazine\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"http:\/\/www.facebook.com\/theicgmag\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2021-05-14T18:42:13+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2021-05-29T23:03:03+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.icgmagazine.com\/web\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/UndergroundRailroad.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1400\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"900\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"editor\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@DGeffner\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@theicgmag\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"editor\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"15 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.icgmagazine.com\/web\/black-like-me\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.icgmagazine.com\/web\/black-like-me\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"editor\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.icgmagazine.com\/web\/#\/schema\/person\/172e4f67e262cc8d0f5b2e21026a77c8\"},\"headline\":\"Black Like Me\",\"datePublished\":\"2021-05-14T18:42:13+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2021-05-29T23:03:03+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.icgmagazine.com\/web\/black-like-me\/\"},\"wordCount\":3110,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.icgmagazine.com\/web\/#organization\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.icgmagazine.com\/web\/black-like-me\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.icgmagazine.com\/web\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/UndergroundRailroad.jpg\",\"articleSection\":[\"Features\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.icgmagazine.com\/web\/black-like-me\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.icgmagazine.com\/web\/black-like-me\/\",\"name\":\"Black Like Me - ICG Magazine\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.icgmagazine.com\/web\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.icgmagazine.com\/web\/black-like-me\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.icgmagazine.com\/web\/black-like-me\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.icgmagazine.com\/web\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/UndergroundRailroad.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2021-05-14T18:42:13+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2021-05-29T23:03:03+00:00\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.icgmagazine.com\/web\/black-like-me\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.icgmagazine.com\/web\/black-like-me\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.icgmagazine.com\/web\/black-like-me\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.icgmagazine.com\/web\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/UndergroundRailroad.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.icgmagazine.com\/web\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/UndergroundRailroad.jpg\",\"width\":1400,\"height\":900},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.icgmagazine.com\/web\/black-like-me\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.icgmagazine.com\/web\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Black Like Me\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.icgmagazine.com\/web\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.icgmagazine.com\/web\/\",\"name\":\"ICG Magazine\",\"description\":\"Showcasing the members of the International Cinematographers Guild\",\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.icgmagazine.com\/web\/#organization\"},\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.icgmagazine.com\/web\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Organization\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.icgmagazine.com\/web\/#organization\",\"name\":\"ICG Magazine\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.icgmagazine.com\/web\/\",\"logo\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.icgmagazine.com\/web\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.icgmagazine.com\/web\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/ICG_logo_blkbox.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.icgmagazine.com\/web\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/ICG_logo_blkbox.jpg\",\"width\":1294,\"height\":1080,\"caption\":\"ICG Magazine\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.icgmagazine.com\/web\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/\"},\"sameAs\":[\"http:\/\/www.facebook.com\/theicgmag\",\"https:\/\/x.com\/theicgmag\",\"http:\/\/www.instagram.com\/theicgmag\"]},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.icgmagazine.com\/web\/#\/schema\/person\/172e4f67e262cc8d0f5b2e21026a77c8\",\"name\":\"editor\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.icgmagazine.com\/web\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/a241ea268a2580b1b2b3c275c7c5dfa4257fff9cfa94dbc6b1d0215c5a648b31?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/a241ea268a2580b1b2b3c275c7c5dfa4257fff9cfa94dbc6b1d0215c5a648b31?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"editor\"},\"sameAs\":[\"https:\/\/x.com\/@DGeffner\"],\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.icgmagazine.com\/web\/author\/editor\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Black Like Me - ICG Magazine","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.icgmagazine.com\/web\/black-like-me\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Black Like Me - ICG Magazine","og_description":"Barry Jenkins and longtime collaborator James Laxton, ASC travel the road less taken for Amazon’s new limited series The Underground Railroad. by Valentina Valentini \/ Photos by Atsushi Nishijima & Kyle Kaplan \/ Amazon Studios   In one of the first frames of the new Amazon series The Underground Railroad, Cora \u2013 deftly played by Thuso Mbedu in her first American role \u2013 stares straight into the camera while her voiceover narrates the seedlings of the story. It\u2019s a powerful […]","og_url":"https:\/\/www.icgmagazine.com\/web\/black-like-me\/","og_site_name":"ICG Magazine","article_publisher":"http:\/\/www.facebook.com\/theicgmag","article_published_time":"2021-05-14T18:42:13+00:00","article_modified_time":"2021-05-29T23:03:03+00:00","og_image":[{"width":1400,"height":900,"url":"https:\/\/www.icgmagazine.com\/web\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/UndergroundRailroad.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"editor","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_creator":"@DGeffner","twitter_site":"@theicgmag","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"editor","Est. reading time":"15 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Article","@id":"https:\/\/www.icgmagazine.com\/web\/black-like-me\/#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.icgmagazine.com\/web\/black-like-me\/"},"author":{"name":"editor","@id":"https:\/\/www.icgmagazine.com\/web\/#\/schema\/person\/172e4f67e262cc8d0f5b2e21026a77c8"},"headline":"Black Like Me","datePublished":"2021-05-14T18:42:13+00:00","dateModified":"2021-05-29T23:03:03+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.icgmagazine.com\/web\/black-like-me\/"},"wordCount":3110,"publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.icgmagazine.com\/web\/#organization"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.icgmagazine.com\/web\/black-like-me\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/www.icgmagazine.com\/web\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/UndergroundRailroad.jpg","articleSection":["Features"],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.icgmagazine.com\/web\/black-like-me\/","url":"https:\/\/www.icgmagazine.com\/web\/black-like-me\/","name":"Black Like Me - ICG Magazine","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.icgmagazine.com\/web\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.icgmagazine.com\/web\/black-like-me\/#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.icgmagazine.com\/web\/black-like-me\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/www.icgmagazine.com\/web\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/UndergroundRailroad.jpg","datePublished":"2021-05-14T18:42:13+00:00","dateModified":"2021-05-29T23:03:03+00:00","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.icgmagazine.com\/web\/black-like-me\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.icgmagazine.com\/web\/black-like-me\/"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.icgmagazine.com\/web\/black-like-me\/#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/www.icgmagazine.com\/web\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/UndergroundRailroad.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.icgmagazine.com\/web\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/UndergroundRailroad.jpg","width":1400,"height":900},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.icgmagazine.com\/web\/black-like-me\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.icgmagazine.com\/web\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Black Like Me"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.icgmagazine.com\/web\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.icgmagazine.com\/web\/","name":"ICG Magazine","description":"Showcasing the members of the International Cinematographers Guild","publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.icgmagazine.com\/web\/#organization"},"potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.icgmagazine.com\/web\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https:\/\/www.icgmagazine.com\/web\/#organization","name":"ICG Magazine","url":"https:\/\/www.icgmagazine.com\/web\/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.icgmagazine.com\/web\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.icgmagazine.com\/web\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/ICG_logo_blkbox.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.icgmagazine.com\/web\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/ICG_logo_blkbox.jpg","width":1294,"height":1080,"caption":"ICG Magazine"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.icgmagazine.com\/web\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/"},"sameAs":["http:\/\/www.facebook.com\/theicgmag","https:\/\/x.com\/theicgmag","http:\/\/www.instagram.com\/theicgmag"]},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.icgmagazine.com\/web\/#\/schema\/person\/172e4f67e262cc8d0f5b2e21026a77c8","name":"editor","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.icgmagazine.com\/web\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/a241ea268a2580b1b2b3c275c7c5dfa4257fff9cfa94dbc6b1d0215c5a648b31?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/a241ea268a2580b1b2b3c275c7c5dfa4257fff9cfa94dbc6b1d0215c5a648b31?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"editor"},"sameAs":["https:\/\/x.com\/@DGeffner"],"url":"https:\/\/www.icgmagazine.com\/web\/author\/editor\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.icgmagazine.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11153","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.icgmagazine.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.icgmagazine.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.icgmagazine.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.icgmagazine.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11153"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/www.icgmagazine.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11153\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11184,"href":"https:\/\/www.icgmagazine.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11153\/revisions\/11184"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.icgmagazine.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11178"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.icgmagazine.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11153"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.icgmagazine.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11153"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.icgmagazine.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11153"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}