--- title: James Wong Howe: Google Doodle Celebrates Cinematographer description: The two-time Oscar winner was a revered American cinematographer, but his Chinese heritage gave rise to obstacles as well. canonical: https://time.com/4917990/james-wong-howe-google-doodle/ author: Kevin Lui article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2017-08-28T03:24:00.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-04T07:47:28.563Z og:title: Google Doodle Celebrates Cinematographer James Wong Howe og:description: He was revered for his many innovations behind the camera. og:url: https://time.com/4917990/james-wong-howe-google-doodle/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt5cb52c60f4ea2f55/6988db700b72e3d30f6ef2eb/james-wong-howes-118th-birthday-4706169112231936-2x.jpg?branch=production&width=724&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 724 og:image:height: 407 og:image:alt: james-wong-howes-118th-birthday-4706169112231936-2x og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Google Doodle Celebrates Cinematographer James Wong Howe twitter:description: He was revered for his many innovations behind the camera. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt5cb52c60f4ea2f55/6988db700b72e3d30f6ef2eb/james-wong-howes-118th-birthday-4706169112231936-2x.jpg?branch=production&width=724&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # A New Google Doodle Celebrates Chinese-American Cinematographer James Wong Howe > Sponsored content. 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Terms and conditions apply. * Savings buckets are a feature of Ally Bank's Savings Account. * No ATM fees from Ally Bank at Allpoint and Moneypass ATMs plus we reimburse for fees charged by other ATM owners nationwide up to $10 per statement cycle. * Early direct deposit offers eligible direct deposits up to two days sooner. * Spending buckets are a feature of Ally Bank's Spending Account. ## Video: How Google Makes its Doodles [Watch (HLS stream): How Google Makes its Doodles](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/upF0qp1E.m3u8) (3:23)  _Published 2018-07-07. Our videographer went to the Googleplex in Mountain View, California to meet some of the designers and coders who create the special, clever variations on the Google.com logo known as_ by [Kevin Lui](https://time.com/author/kevin-lui/) ## Kevin Lui Aug 28, 2017 3:24 AM UTC  Google by [Kevin Lui](https://time.com/author/kevin-lui/) ## Kevin Lui Aug 28, 2017 3:24 AM UTC On Monday, Google [rolled out](https://www.google.com/doodles/james-wong-howes-118th-birthday) a monochrome Doodle to celebrate James Wong Howe, one of the most revered early-era cinematographers, on what would have been his 118th birthday. Howe’s first Hollywood job involved delivering films and cleaning up scraps left on the cutting room floor, according to Google. Before that, the Chinese-American had worked odd jobs, and even been a professional boxer in his teens. Later, he would come to be lauded professionally as a pioneer in cinematography, [from](https://www.google.com/doodles/james-wong-howes-118th-birthday) “accidentally discover\[ing\] how to use dark backdrops to create color nuances in black-and-white film” to “pioneer\[ing\] using wide-angle lenses, low key lighting, and color lighting.” He was also an early adopter of the crab dolly, a four-wheeled moving platform for cameras with a movable arm. But Howe faced obstacles in his personal life due to his heritage. For example, he could only become a U.S. citizen following the Chinese Exclusion Act’s repeal, and laws barring interracial marriages meant that his marriage to novelist Sanora Babb wasn’t legally recognized until 1949. Through his long career behind the camera, Howe received a total of ten Oscar nominations for best cinematography, winning twice in 1955 and 1963\. He died aged 76 in 1976. ## Transcript [00:01] >>The Doodle [00:07] team was able to meet Ira Glass from This American Life, [00:10] and he was just meeting us for fun. I guess, I'm not even [00:13] sure why he was here, but we talked about potentially [00:17] collaborating and they thought that it'd be fun to collaborate [00:21] with us on Valentine's Day, so I took the lead on [00:25] this project. [00:34] >>We do Valentine's Day pretty much every year, and [00:36] we've done your typical like lovebirds and, you know, [00:39] flowers and things like that. But Ira and his [00:44] team are awesome. [00:44] >>They were able to pull stories that they have collected [00:47] over the years, they've recorded new stories for us, and [00:49] they're all about love in all different respects of the word. [00:55] They sent us maybe 8 or 10 stories and they're all really [00:58] fun and really sweet. [00:59] >>The stories run the [ unk ]. There is [01:03] a story about middle school love. [01:03] >>I was in the cafeteria, just got [01:07] on a drink of root beer and she walks up to me. [01:11] >>There is a story about a new bride who's in doubt that [01:14] she made a mistake. [01:14] >>My husband, me and I, we're just so worried, his face I [01:14] could tell. I said, " Where he could be ," you know, and [01:20] I-- and I called the police because I thought [01:24] he got lost or something happened. [01:28] >>When I first got the audio from Ira, my co- worker and I [01:31] listened to it together and we wrote down bullet points of [01:34] where we wanted to have a little drawing come up. [01:37] >>One of my favorite stories, it involves middle schoolers. [01:43] We're titling it, " Puppy Love" so true to the title, I just-- I just [01:46] drew everyone as a dog. [01:47] >>Each stories are-- containing a little candy heart. [01:47] >>And when you click on it, the heart will flip, [01:52] the audio will play and you will also see the images that [01:55] we've drawn to accompany the phrases. So, [01:59] now we are all going to brainstorms together because we [02:02] need the creative side and we also need the technical side [02:04] to tell us what is possible and what isn't possible. For this [02:08] one, it's a pretty conservative on the interactive side, [02:12] because we didn't want to overshadow the audio. When I [02:15] first started, they were no engineers on the team, we only [02:17] did static doodles, but since then, we've started doing more [02:21] animated stuff, more interactive work, and for that we [02:24] needed a dedicated team. [02:24] >>Some of our most like ambitious to those have come [02:26] from engineers that are just incredibly talented [02:30] and spare similar time for our projects. [02:33] >>Sometimes the illustrators will come up with an idea that [02:36] is way too wacky and just not possible yet. The technology [02:41] hasn't been invented, but sometimes we're too [02:43] conservative and it's great to have the engineers there to [02:46] tell us that we can actually be way wackier with our ideas. [02:53] The relationship with my engineer on this was to just keep [02:56] my files size at a reasonable capacity, I was getting [03:00] a little bit ambitious with how many frames I wanted to draw [03:03] and my engineers said, " Hey, you need to double it ." [03:07] >>We tried to do as many doodles as we possibly can. [03:08] We're a pretty small team, relative to how many audiences [03:11] are out there [ unk ], but yeah, we-- you never know what [03:14] you're gonna get. 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