China Girl
In the motion picture industry a China Girl is an image of a woman accompanied by color bars that appears for a few frames (typically one to four) in the reel leader. A "China Girl" was used by the lab technician for calibration purposes when processing the film. The origin of the term is a matter of some dispute but is usually accepted to be a reference to the models used to create the frames -- either they were actually china (porcelain) mannequins, or the make-up worn by the live models made them appear to be mannequins. Originally the "China Girl" frames were created in-house by laboratories to varying standards, but in the 1970s Kodak developed a standardized "China Girl" system called "LAD". LAD itself has since been supplanted by a digital system.
As with many other aspects of the film-making process, the "China Girl" has occasionally appeared as a visual trope in experimental films over the years.
Not to be confused with the 1983 song of the same name by David Bowie, or the 1987 film of the same name, or the Anime Chinese Girl.
Art
- In 2005, "China Girl" images were the subject of an art exhibit by Julie Buck and Karin Segal at the Harvard Film Archive.
Film
Film examples should be limited to those works which actually draw attention to the normally unnoticed China Girl device.
- Film in Which There Appear Edge Lettering, Sprocket Holes, Dirt Particles, Etc. (1965-66) by Owen Land
- New Improved Institutional Quality: In the Environment of Liquids and Nasals a Parasitic Vowel Sometimes Develops (1976), also by Owen Land
- Girls on Film (2005) by Julie Buck and Karin Segal
- MM (1996) by Timoleon Wilkins
- Standard Gauge (1984) by Morgan Fisher
- To the Happy Few by Thomas Draschan and Stella Friedrichs
- China Girls (2006) by Michelle Silva
- Releasing Human Energies (2012) by Mark Toscano
Literature
- The narrator and main character in the 2013 novel The Flamethrowers by Rachel Kushner shared her experience as a China Girl model for a film lab in New York City.