CDWC is not just another list serve; we are an intentional and active community, and we ask each member to participate and contribute to it.  Before requesting to join our local San Francisco Bay Area (in person) group and/or our International Facebook Community (open to women and nonbinary documentary cinematographers anywhere in the world), please read and agree to the following guidelines. 

MISSION

CDWC aims to provide a safe, educational, and encouraging virtual community for women and nonbinary documentary cinematographers where they can offer peer-to-peer support, resource & job sharing, knowledge transmission, and raising each other up.

WHO WE ARE

We self-identify as women and nonbinary people who are persuing careers as documentary cinematographers. We have received at least one credit as Director of Photography or Cinematographer on a feature length documentary film or its equivalent. We actively work-for-hire as documentary cinematographers, and are emerging (3-7 years of experience ), established (7-15 years of experience) or veteran (15+ years of experience) in our profession.

Please note that this is not a group for beginners. This is also not a group for people who are lurkers or who are curious about our profession. Lastly, this is not a forum to find a DP to hire for your next project (but if that is you, please see our Best Practices in Hiring Documentary Cinematographers resource).

MEMBERSHIP

Members may be approved to join based on their self-definition (see “Who We Are”) and only after filling out our Membership Questions.

COMMUNITY GUIDELINES

We agree to be accountable to CDWC by upholding the values stated in our mission, and following these community guidelines:

Contributing:

  • We are a community that can only thrive if there is active contribution from all members around our mutual shared interest and experience in documentary cinematography. All members are asked to participate and engage regularly.  Participation could include things such as posting educational content, asking and answering questions, asking for or giving encouragement and support, sharing from our personal networks, participating in virtual events, and more.
  • We will make contributions that we think are directly relevant to this community such as documentary cinematography jobs, networking and educational opportunities, petitions, and opportunities to join professional associations such as a union or collective. We will share stories of our experiences navigating as women and nonbinary documentary cinematographers. We will share access to professional opportunities such as virtual film screenings or networking events, and share opportunities to promote our cinematography work, grow our professional networks, and share our personal business strategies and advice. 

Communicating:

  • We treat each other with respect and care, and always strive for understanding.
  • We will not talk disparagingly about any marginalized groups or talk disparagingly about any fellow members. Specifically, the community agrees not to engage in any form of ableism, ageism, colorism, classism, homophobia, racism, religious intolerance, sexism, transphobia, or other types of bigotry, oppression or inflammatory speech.
  • We will be conscious of both the privilege and oppression that are experienced by members of the group. We will be conscious of any unequal power dynamics between us and endeavor to uplift each other through our contributions.  We will be conscious that we live in a toxic culture that affects all of us. We will be conscious that our intention when we speak is not the same as the impact our words may have on another person.
  • We will not share legal advice, medical advice, tax advice or health & safety advice, but we will instead recommend paid, licensed professionals, and may share links to published online resources related to our field.
  • We will also refrain from posting anything that could be considered defamatory.

Sharing work opportunities: 

  • We will only post or re-post documentary cinematography jobs and volunteer opportunities that fit within legal standards and minimum wage requirements for their jurisdiction, and we agree to never knowingly re-post exploitative job opportunities.  
  • When reposting a job or volunteer opportunity we will disclose clearly our relationship to the person posting (e.g. this is from my production company,  or this is a courtesy post for an unknown production company).  
  • It will be the responsibility of a member to decide if a job opportunity they see posted is worth pursuing and to diligently vet the opportunity and employer.

Solidarity:

  • We are not a labor organization. However, we will encourage each other to advocate for fair labor practices in terms of our rates, payment terms, working conditions, contracts, on-screen credits, rights to access footage for our reels, and more.
  • We do not focus on narrative cinematography, however we recognize the advantages of being a DP with experience in narrative cinematography techniques, lightning, lenses, and strategies, and in that spirit we support cross-over knowledge sharing, resources, and job opportunities with narrative cinematographers.

PRIVACY & SHARING GUIDELINES

Membership requires adherence to the following privacy rules:

Privacy: Our Facebook group is by, for, and about CDWC International Community members. Only members are allowed to read, post and be tagged to the private group page.

Confidentiality: Posts within CDWC International Community stay within the group. No posts, contacts, resources or opportunities are allowed to be shared outside the group privately, or within other networks, unless specifically encouraged by the original poster.

Please also refrain from quoting or representing the views of individual members, and please refrain from sharing any identifying information about individual members such as their names, ages, film projects, personal opinions, work experiences, family background or any other details that are related to any individual member. Do not share screenshots. Do not share any educational resources or creative materials without asking permission from the original contributor(s).  

Any resources generated specifically for the group are to be considered private to and cannot be shared outside the group under any circumstances.

FLAGGING A VIOLATION OF COMMUNITY GUIDELINES OR PRIVACY & SHARING GUIDELINES

If you feel that someone is violating the community guidelines by communicating in a way that is inappropriate, harmful or undermines the safe space of the group or an individual member, you can flag this to CDWC International Community admins on Facebook.  

If you feel that someone has violated privacy & sharing guidelines,  you may also flag this to the CDWC admins.

What will happen after the flag:

  • CDWC admins will ask the member for a summary and for any supporting materials such as a screenshot.
  • CDWC admins will then decide to either give the offending member a warning (one max per person) or remove them from the group. 

CDWC admins will reserve the right to revoke membership and access to the Facebook group if these guidelines are violated.

Additionally, CDCW admins reserve the right to revoke membership and access to the group if a member has been found to engage in behavior that violates these guidelines elsewhere on the internet or in real life.

OK, GOT ALL THAT, AND READY TO JOIN US?

If you are based in the San Francisco Bay Area and hope to be active in our local group, please complete our Community Intake Form. 

If you’d like to join our International Facebook Group (open to women and nonbinary DPs around the world, as well as Bay Area DPs who are unable to actively participate at this time), click “Join” to complete the membership questions on FaceBook.  

It may take us a little while to review your information and add you, but we promise we’ll get to it!

CREATE YOUR OWN GROUP

Do you wish there was a CDWC chapter where you live?  Well then create one!  We would love nothing more than to share our model with you.  Please get in touch.