China girls around the world

In France, the China girl is most frequently called "Lili," and less frequently (but more charmingly) "Kodakette." Given the variety of names she has in the US and UK, I'm eager to learn what she's called in other countries. What might a China girl be called in China, for instance?

Here's more info on the French term, plus a short compilation video of Lilis (h/t Becca Hall).

lili on the web from BkTs on Vimeo.

BBC Test Card 61

“Test Cards 61 and 61P have been designed to present as natural a portrayal as possible of a human subject on a color television display, so that a sensitive flesh tone color balance may be carried out between the cameras in a studio. The spectral reflectance characteristics of human skin have been reproduced in the test cards as accurately as possible.”

E.W. Taylor and S.J. Lent, “BBC Test Card No. 61 (Flesh Tone Reference): Colorimetric and Other Optical Considerations,” SMPTE Journal vol 87, February 1978, 78.

More BBC television test cards can be found here.

Northwest Chicago Film Society

An archivist friend recently sent me this link on China Girls/Leader Ladies from the Northwest Chicago Film Society. It's a wonderful resource, with several of the very common China girls (most coming from film manufacturers) identified by date. I'm becoming increasingly interested in building a database that matches China girl with lab or film stock, and, in some cases, might point the way to locating the woman who sat for the shoot.

"Little Blondie" is especially compelling:



The site also includes a link to John Pytlak's acceptance speech for a technical Oscar in 2001. In describing the LAD system he pioneered, he suggests that the China girl "has probably been in more movies than any other actress in the world."

in search of the China girl

I'm not sure when I glimpsed my first China girl. It had to have been sometime before I saw Morgan Fisher's Standard Gauge, which features a section on the elusive yet ubiquitous figure, or George Landow's Film in Which There Appear Edge Lettering, Sprocket Holes, Dirt Particles, Etc., which is composed entirely of a China girl image. I must have seen one even before I had a college job as a projectionist; it could have happened in any theater, at any given film.

A quick description of China girls, or China dolls (or Shirleys or Marcies or girl heads, as they are alternatively known): an image of a woman, usually young, attractive, and, in the West, Caucasian, who poses in front of color bars. The image is used by film laboratories to calibrate color and density, as well as providing a model for ideal skin tone. It has been in existence since the 1920s and continues in limited use today.

I've set about searching for the China girl as part of my dissertation research at the University of Southern California. A few days ago I met with artist and archivist Julie Buck (whose 2005 exhibit, Girls on Film, showcased 70 of the hundreds of China girls she and Karin Segal encountered while working at the Harvard Film Archive) at a cafe in Harlem, and, excited by the knowledge we shared, and the new questions our conversation opened, I decided I'd start this site as a repository for anything I learned about the China girl. As common as this figure is, there's very little that has been documented about her. I've consulted scholars, archivists, projectionists, and filmmakers, as well as film labs and film manufacturers. In rare cases, I've also been able to talk to a couple of China girls. As generous and informative as my sources have been, few of my questions have been conclusively answered.

For example:

Where does the term "China girl" come from?
When was the first China girl used? Who was she?


It does seem, however, that a lot of people are interested in learning more about the China girl, and I hope that, with this blog, we'll be able to unravel some of her mysteries, or at least find out her name. And gather her images. So if you have any stories, sources, or pictures, please send them my way, and I'll post them here.

Eastman Kodak, year?, courtesy of Brian Pritchard