The writer for About Last Night, a white writer, was very cool about the cast changes from a traditionally white-cast rom-com, to a black one, but others weren’t so cool about it.
It was like my script was suddenly not as good or less than or just plain not cool because of the casting. Whatever. Those people suck.
I haven’t seen the movie yet, but this is nice to hear. Just because a movie features black actors, doesn’t mean their lives must appear different than if the movie were starring white actors. There are a few cultural differences, but we have the same careers, the same relationship problems, and the same insecurities that everyone of any race has. The last quote was my favorite:
Before Headland even finished the first version of the script she told herself, “Don’t write jokes, Leslye. Write people.”
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-pFoBks5ly0&w=420&h=315] via Watch: Ava DuVernay’s Filmmaker Keynote Address At 2013 Film Independent Forum | Shadow and Act. I haven’t seen any of Ava DuVernay’s work yet, but I loved this keynote address and think it’s useful for anyone who is a media creator/artist. (She’s also directing an upcoming episode of Scandal, episode 308, so I’ll get to see a bit of her style then.)
All of the things that we try to do while trying to move forward in the industry is time not working on your screenplay [insert what your art is & what you’re supposed to be doing to work on it]. All the time you’re focusing– trying to grab– ‘I need this, I need this, I don’t have this–‘, you’re being desperate, you’re not doing. All that stuff is not active, it’s not moving you forward.All of the so called ‘action’ is hinging on someone doing something for you.Does that make sense? […] The only thing that moves you forward is your work. […] If you channel your desperation towards things you have, it’s passion. If you channel it towards things you don’t have, it’s desperation. It’s stagnation. […]
My whole thing, what I want is to be making films as a senior citizen. When I look at senior citizens making films, they’re only white guys. There’s no black, female Woody Allen. Or Mike Nichols. Like Clint Eastwood? Just imagine a bad ass black woman, walking like Clint, ‘I don’t care! I’m gonna say whatever I wanna say!” You’re old as hell, you’ve made a gang of films, say what you wanna say! I wanna be her. Old and making films. American women making films, black women making films into old age, actively and consistently. I wanna be Werner Herzog, I have so many films, I don’t know their names. I wanna be that. […] I just want consistency and longevity.
Watch the whole thing, you may get a nugget of something.
