September 25, 2023 • 11 mins
In this episode, we're joined by Karra Duncan, an accomplished executive producer renowned for her work on the celebrated series 'Rebuilding Black Wall Street.' Karra's journey in the entertainment industry is a remarkable testament to seizing opportunities, with her Sundance Film Festival volunteering experience leading to a thriving television production career. She offers valuable insights into television production, discussing her roles on various projects and sharing practical advice on budgeting for shows. Notably, 'Rebuilding Black Wall Street' is a project dear to her heart, as her grandfather was one of the survivors of the Tulsa race massacre, and she's always been passionate about showcasing her hometown's powerful story. Karra's wisdom and expertise are a must-listen for aspiring producers and entertainment enthusiasts alike.
Host IG:@itstanyatime
Guest IG: @heymskarra
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
It's very near and dear to my heart because I
am from Tulsa, Oklahomas. My grandfather was there the night
that the massacre broke out, So it's something that I've
always known about because nobody was allowed to talk about
it really, but you know, you know the elders. Yeah,
(00:22):
when it's quiet and nobody's around, I'll always whisper to you.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
You're listening to Money Moves powered by Greenwood, a finance
podcast dedicated to dropping all the knowledge and gems from
the world's leading celebrities, entrepreneurs and experts, and tech, business
and more. I'm your host, angel investor, technology enthusiast, and
media personality Tanya Sam. Each week, we talk with guests
who are making significant strides in their fields and learn
(00:47):
how they are making their money move. If you're someone
who's looking to make your money move, you're in the
right place. So open up your notes app and lock
us in because this podcast will give you the keys
to the kingdom of financial stability, well and abundance you
so rightly deserve. Before we start the episode, I'd like
to remind you to check us out at Gogreenwood dot
com and follow us on social media. At Greenwood and
(01:10):
Me on All Things social at It's Tanya. Time to
stay locked in to new episode.
Speaker 3 (01:18):
Hey, Moneymovers, welcome back. This week.
Speaker 2 (01:21):
We are doing something different on our show. We are
bringing you a behind the scenes look and an extraordinary
production that was done jointly by Greenwood Studios and Sunwise Media.
Rebuilding Blackwall Street is a renovation docu series that doesn't
just rebuild structures. It reveals history, resilience, and the stories
of so many of our people. Make sure you tune
(01:42):
in to Rebuilding Blackwall Street on the Oprah Winfrey Network
on September twenty ninth. So I want to get you
excited as you prepare for a week of incredible conversations,
inspiring stories, and today I have with you one of
our executive producers, Kara.
Speaker 3 (01:57):
Welcome to Money Moves.
Speaker 1 (01:58):
Thank you very much, happy to be here, Thanks for
having me.
Speaker 3 (02:01):
Cara, Thank you so much for being here.
Speaker 2 (02:03):
I'm so inspired by your career in entertainment and the industry,
and most importantly, as we sit here to talk about
Rebuilding Blackwall Street.
Speaker 3 (02:11):
But I want to start from the beginning.
Speaker 2 (02:12):
So let's go back to little Kara and tell me
how you got your start in the entertainment industry.
Speaker 1 (02:18):
Well, if you ask my mother a mom we can
call a friend, she would tell you that I was
supposed to do this all my life should have been
in front of the camera. No, once upon a time
I was in front of the camera and I was
to tell story.
Speaker 3 (02:38):
I want to hear all the stories? Do I want
to hear all the stories?
Speaker 1 (02:41):
So I was a.
Speaker 2 (02:43):
Hooters girl in Atlanta, Georgia, an orange shirt girl.
Speaker 3 (02:47):
Mm hm.
Speaker 1 (02:48):
And I was an actress doing background work on some
Aaron Spelling show. I'm late for work. They put me
in a van to ride to the studio up to
the sound stage and.
Speaker 3 (03:02):
I'm running going wait, wait.
Speaker 1 (03:04):
And the driver goes calm down. Nothing happens without the DP,
and I was like, excuse me, sir, And I tapped
the man sitting in the front seat, who is the DP?
And I have him explain to me what a DP is.
I didn't know that he was one of Aaron Spelling's
best friends. But we get up to set and he
remembered me, brought me up, put me on the dolly,
(03:26):
let me look through the camera, and I was like, oh,
I'm on the wrong side of the camera. I'm doing
this all wrong. And that is when label I was like,
I need to be telling me what to do to
make the stories happen.
Speaker 2 (03:39):
Instead of I feel that for your energy, this resonates
with me.
Speaker 1 (03:43):
So that would probably be the start there, the start
producing wise, once upon a time, I was an independent
filmmaker and so I used to volunteer at the Sundance
Film Festival every January. And a woman Sawny doing six
or seven things at once. It's translating something into French,
counting money, helping a patron talking over a walkie talkie,
(04:05):
and she goes, have you ever worked in TV before?
And I was like, uh no, I'm a waitress. And
she said would you like to?
Speaker 3 (04:13):
And I was like, oh yes, please, Wow.
Speaker 1 (04:17):
And so I got my first job as a production
coordinator on a show called Airline that was on A
and E.
Speaker 3 (04:24):
And the rest is history.
Speaker 1 (04:25):
Here we are.
Speaker 3 (04:26):
I love this, So tell us a little bit more.
Speaker 2 (04:28):
You know, you've got credits all over the place. You've
done a multitude of different shows and productions, and now
we're sitting here because you were working on passion projects
such as rebuilding Black Wall Street. But give us a
little sprinkling of some of your favorite projects throughout the years.
Speaker 1 (04:44):
Declassified Untold Stories of American Spies by far one of
my favorites because we got to go inside of the CIA,
the FBI, the NSA and so, and we got to
hear like stories of house buys, got to where they
were and like the story the man who figured out
(05:04):
where Saddam Hussein was.
Speaker 3 (05:06):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (05:06):
The first woman operative in the CIA.
Speaker 3 (05:09):
And that to me was incredible.
Speaker 1 (05:12):
Yes, but also being able to move a crew around
the country in and out, like security clearances, getting geared
in and out, staying on time, budget, all of it,
and so it showed me. Then that's when I was
like not just you know, like you get to a
point where you've done something and you're like I can
(05:34):
do that. I'm pretty good at it. But like, once
you've done it at that level, I was aw like
I have hear Wow.
Speaker 2 (05:40):
Okay, So tell you mentioned budget. On Money News, I
love to talk about money, the ins and.
Speaker 3 (05:43):
Outs of it.
Speaker 2 (05:45):
I want to come back to like how you've been
successful in this industry and money is a huge part
of it. We talk about People will speak on films
that they've worked on that ran out of money that
overspent underspent? How do you sort of navigate being able
to control budgets and people in this so that you
can make a successful project.
Speaker 1 (06:04):
I often tell people that black women make excellent line
producers because we are in charge of the budget.
Speaker 3 (06:14):
Yep.
Speaker 1 (06:15):
So it's a lot like managing a household, but at
an extremely high level. So instead of telling people know
right away because I was a filmmaker and I know
you want the beautiful shots and you want to make
some light, you want to do the things, we only
have a certain amount of money to do it. So
(06:36):
just like well in my case, my mother had to
make some stuff work to try to send me to
private school when we lived in the ghetto. Same thing
with TV. You can have a helicopter, you just can't
have the camera operator, the camera and the insurance to
send it up in the air.
Speaker 3 (06:56):
So which would you like?
Speaker 2 (07:00):
That's a hard line to draw with a lot of people,
I'm sure, but I mean this is the things that
you have to sacrifice to make successful films. Let's talk
about your latest project, rebuilding Black Wall Street and tell
us how this came about for you.
Speaker 1 (07:14):
Well, it's very near and dear to my heart because
I am from Tulsa, Oklahoma. My grandfather was there the
night that the massacre broke out. So it's something that
I've always known about because nobody was allowed to talk about.
Speaker 3 (07:34):
It really, But you know, you know the elders, Ye, when.
Speaker 1 (07:37):
It's quiet and nobody's around, I'll always.
Speaker 3 (07:39):
Whisper to you, those little whispers right right.
Speaker 1 (07:43):
And so I always knew somehow, some way I was
going to try to be involved in. Even in seventh grade,
our project was for Oklahoma History. Was we could do
anything we wanted as long as it had to do
with Oklahoma history. So some kids did the land run
and some kids had talked about this sister tail Flycatcher.
(08:05):
I built a little model elevator and then told the
story of what happened that night.
Speaker 2 (08:10):
So you mentioned, you know, going back to in your family,
this wasn't something that was talked about, and I think
for a lot of folks this was sort of protective.
It was a very traumatic experience. How does it feel
to be able to tell these stories to sort of
crack open family secrets, family trauma?
Speaker 3 (08:30):
And what was your intention? Is this become sort of
a healing.
Speaker 2 (08:34):
Journey And how do you feel about it Now, looking back,
as you've been able to unpack and uncover so many
deep experiences, I.
Speaker 1 (08:45):
Think that it's not necessarily a matter of healing, because
perseverance and overcoming was all that we were about. So
they burned down our within five years they had rebuilt,
and we're thriving all over again. So it's the thriving
(09:06):
that I focus on. Yeah, and so no matter and
it just proves that no matter what comes or what happens,
we gonna make it work.
Speaker 3 (09:16):
There's resilience, yep.
Speaker 1 (09:17):
Right, So Rebuilding Black Wall Street focuses on descendants who
are doing something now in the spirit of what our
ancestors were doing to make us be thriving again, because
for so long nobody talked about it. But then once
some politicians like Don Ross right made it so they
(09:41):
had to listen, and then they try to kind of
ignore it and rush it under the rug. But we're
not going anywhere.
Speaker 3 (09:49):
Pay attention. Pay attention, yep.
Speaker 2 (09:53):
So, as you mentioned, resilience in Rebuilding, the docu series
aims to tell the stories of how we're rebuilding and
revitalizing this neighborhood. Tell us what we can expect to
see in this Docku series.
Speaker 1 (10:05):
We're going to get to see a black farmer who
learns about a black grocery store and see how we
all get to work together, which is what we used
to do then, because then our people couldn't leave North
(10:26):
Tulsa because we had to stay where the black people were.
But also we didn't need to because we were self sufficient.
We had businesses that we needed to So same thing now,
so the farmer can put his stuff in the grocery store.
There's a birthing center.
Speaker 3 (10:44):
Oh wow, because I.
Speaker 1 (10:47):
Had no idea that the black mortality rate amongst babies
and black women was so high.
Speaker 3 (10:53):
And especially in communities like this that are underserved. You know,
access to healthcare is such a huge thing.
Speaker 2 (11:00):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (11:00):
So you guys are.
Speaker 2 (11:01):
Really making such impact in this community that just desperately
needs it. Thanks for listening to today's episode. If we
helped you make your money move, please share it with
your community. Subscribe and leave us a review on iHeartRadio
and Apple Podcasts. Follow us on social media at Greenwood
and visit us at gogreenwood dot com for more financial
tips and remember money movers, If this were easy, everyone
(11:24):
would do it, So take the lessons you've learned from
this episode and apply it to your life. Money Moves
is an iHeartRadio podcast powered by Greenwood Executive produced by
Sunwise Media, Inc. For more podcasts on iHeartRadio, visit the
iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts from.
(11:44):
Make sure to tune in Monday, Wednesday, and Friday and
subscribe to the Money Moves podcast powered by Greenwood, so
that you too can have the keys to financial freedom
you so rightly deserve.
Speaker 3 (11:54):
Until next time,
It's very near and dear to my heart because I
am from Tulsa, Oklahomas. My grandfather was there the night
that the massacre broke out, So it's something that I've
always known about because nobody was allowed to talk about
it really, but you know, you know the elders. Yeah,
(00:22):
when it's quiet and nobody's around, I'll always whisper to you.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
You're listening to Money Moves powered by Greenwood, a finance
podcast dedicated to dropping all the knowledge and gems from
the world's leading celebrities, entrepreneurs and experts, and tech, business
and more. I'm your host, angel investor, technology enthusiast, and
media personality Tanya Sam. Each week, we talk with guests
who are making significant strides in their fields and learn
(00:47):
how they are making their money move. If you're someone
who's looking to make your money move, you're in the
right place. So open up your notes app and lock
us in because this podcast will give you the keys
to the kingdom of financial stability, well and abundance you
so rightly deserve. Before we start the episode, I'd like
to remind you to check us out at Gogreenwood dot
com and follow us on social media. At Greenwood and
(01:10):
Me on All Things social at It's Tanya. Time to
stay locked in to new episode.
Speaker 3 (01:18):
Hey, Moneymovers, welcome back. This week.
Speaker 2 (01:21):
We are doing something different on our show. We are
bringing you a behind the scenes look and an extraordinary
production that was done jointly by Greenwood Studios and Sunwise Media.
Rebuilding Blackwall Street is a renovation docu series that doesn't
just rebuild structures. It reveals history, resilience, and the stories
of so many of our people. Make sure you tune
(01:42):
in to Rebuilding Blackwall Street on the Oprah Winfrey Network
on September twenty ninth. So I want to get you
excited as you prepare for a week of incredible conversations,
inspiring stories, and today I have with you one of
our executive producers, Kara.
Speaker 3 (01:57):
Welcome to Money Moves.
Speaker 1 (01:58):
Thank you very much, happy to be here, Thanks for
having me.
Speaker 3 (02:01):
Cara, Thank you so much for being here.
Speaker 2 (02:03):
I'm so inspired by your career in entertainment and the industry,
and most importantly, as we sit here to talk about
Rebuilding Blackwall Street.
Speaker 3 (02:11):
But I want to start from the beginning.
Speaker 2 (02:12):
So let's go back to little Kara and tell me
how you got your start in the entertainment industry.
Speaker 1 (02:18):
Well, if you ask my mother a mom we can
call a friend, she would tell you that I was
supposed to do this all my life should have been
in front of the camera. No, once upon a time
I was in front of the camera and I was
to tell story.
Speaker 3 (02:38):
I want to hear all the stories? Do I want
to hear all the stories?
Speaker 1 (02:41):
So I was a.
Speaker 2 (02:43):
Hooters girl in Atlanta, Georgia, an orange shirt girl.
Speaker 3 (02:47):
Mm hm.
Speaker 1 (02:48):
And I was an actress doing background work on some
Aaron Spelling show. I'm late for work. They put me
in a van to ride to the studio up to
the sound stage and.
Speaker 3 (03:02):
I'm running going wait, wait.
Speaker 1 (03:04):
And the driver goes calm down. Nothing happens without the DP,
and I was like, excuse me, sir, And I tapped
the man sitting in the front seat, who is the DP?
And I have him explain to me what a DP is.
I didn't know that he was one of Aaron Spelling's
best friends. But we get up to set and he
remembered me, brought me up, put me on the dolly,
(03:26):
let me look through the camera, and I was like, oh,
I'm on the wrong side of the camera. I'm doing
this all wrong. And that is when label I was like,
I need to be telling me what to do to
make the stories happen.
Speaker 2 (03:39):
Instead of I feel that for your energy, this resonates
with me.
Speaker 1 (03:43):
So that would probably be the start there, the start
producing wise, once upon a time, I was an independent
filmmaker and so I used to volunteer at the Sundance
Film Festival every January. And a woman Sawny doing six
or seven things at once. It's translating something into French,
counting money, helping a patron talking over a walkie talkie,
(04:05):
and she goes, have you ever worked in TV before?
And I was like, uh no, I'm a waitress. And
she said would you like to?
Speaker 3 (04:13):
And I was like, oh yes, please, Wow.
Speaker 1 (04:17):
And so I got my first job as a production
coordinator on a show called Airline that was on A
and E.
Speaker 3 (04:24):
And the rest is history.
Speaker 1 (04:25):
Here we are.
Speaker 3 (04:26):
I love this, So tell us a little bit more.
Speaker 2 (04:28):
You know, you've got credits all over the place. You've
done a multitude of different shows and productions, and now
we're sitting here because you were working on passion projects
such as rebuilding Black Wall Street. But give us a
little sprinkling of some of your favorite projects throughout the years.
Speaker 1 (04:44):
Declassified Untold Stories of American Spies by far one of
my favorites because we got to go inside of the CIA,
the FBI, the NSA and so, and we got to
hear like stories of house buys, got to where they
were and like the story the man who figured out
(05:04):
where Saddam Hussein was.
Speaker 3 (05:06):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (05:06):
The first woman operative in the CIA.
Speaker 3 (05:09):
And that to me was incredible.
Speaker 1 (05:12):
Yes, but also being able to move a crew around
the country in and out, like security clearances, getting geared
in and out, staying on time, budget, all of it,
and so it showed me. Then that's when I was
like not just you know, like you get to a
point where you've done something and you're like I can
(05:34):
do that. I'm pretty good at it. But like, once
you've done it at that level, I was aw like
I have hear Wow.
Speaker 2 (05:40):
Okay, So tell you mentioned budget. On Money News, I
love to talk about money, the ins and.
Speaker 3 (05:43):
Outs of it.
Speaker 2 (05:45):
I want to come back to like how you've been
successful in this industry and money is a huge part
of it. We talk about People will speak on films
that they've worked on that ran out of money that
overspent underspent? How do you sort of navigate being able
to control budgets and people in this so that you
can make a successful project.
Speaker 1 (06:04):
I often tell people that black women make excellent line
producers because we are in charge of the budget.
Speaker 3 (06:14):
Yep.
Speaker 1 (06:15):
So it's a lot like managing a household, but at
an extremely high level. So instead of telling people know
right away because I was a filmmaker and I know
you want the beautiful shots and you want to make
some light, you want to do the things, we only
have a certain amount of money to do it. So
(06:36):
just like well in my case, my mother had to
make some stuff work to try to send me to
private school when we lived in the ghetto. Same thing
with TV. You can have a helicopter, you just can't
have the camera operator, the camera and the insurance to
send it up in the air.
Speaker 3 (06:56):
So which would you like?
Speaker 2 (07:00):
That's a hard line to draw with a lot of people,
I'm sure, but I mean this is the things that
you have to sacrifice to make successful films. Let's talk
about your latest project, rebuilding Black Wall Street and tell
us how this came about for you.
Speaker 1 (07:14):
Well, it's very near and dear to my heart because
I am from Tulsa, Oklahoma. My grandfather was there the
night that the massacre broke out. So it's something that
I've always known about because nobody was allowed to talk about.
Speaker 3 (07:34):
It really, But you know, you know the elders, Ye, when.
Speaker 1 (07:37):
It's quiet and nobody's around, I'll always.
Speaker 3 (07:39):
Whisper to you, those little whispers right right.
Speaker 1 (07:43):
And so I always knew somehow, some way I was
going to try to be involved in. Even in seventh grade,
our project was for Oklahoma History. Was we could do
anything we wanted as long as it had to do
with Oklahoma history. So some kids did the land run
and some kids had talked about this sister tail Flycatcher.
(08:05):
I built a little model elevator and then told the
story of what happened that night.
Speaker 2 (08:10):
So you mentioned, you know, going back to in your family,
this wasn't something that was talked about, and I think
for a lot of folks this was sort of protective.
It was a very traumatic experience. How does it feel
to be able to tell these stories to sort of
crack open family secrets, family trauma?
Speaker 3 (08:30):
And what was your intention? Is this become sort of
a healing.
Speaker 2 (08:34):
Journey And how do you feel about it Now, looking back,
as you've been able to unpack and uncover so many
deep experiences, I.
Speaker 1 (08:45):
Think that it's not necessarily a matter of healing, because
perseverance and overcoming was all that we were about. So
they burned down our within five years they had rebuilt,
and we're thriving all over again. So it's the thriving
(09:06):
that I focus on. Yeah, and so no matter and
it just proves that no matter what comes or what happens,
we gonna make it work.
Speaker 3 (09:16):
There's resilience, yep.
Speaker 1 (09:17):
Right, So Rebuilding Black Wall Street focuses on descendants who
are doing something now in the spirit of what our
ancestors were doing to make us be thriving again, because
for so long nobody talked about it. But then once
some politicians like Don Ross right made it so they
(09:41):
had to listen, and then they try to kind of
ignore it and rush it under the rug. But we're
not going anywhere.
Speaker 3 (09:49):
Pay attention. Pay attention, yep.
Speaker 2 (09:53):
So, as you mentioned, resilience in Rebuilding, the docu series
aims to tell the stories of how we're rebuilding and
revitalizing this neighborhood. Tell us what we can expect to
see in this Docku series.
Speaker 1 (10:05):
We're going to get to see a black farmer who
learns about a black grocery store and see how we
all get to work together, which is what we used
to do then, because then our people couldn't leave North
(10:26):
Tulsa because we had to stay where the black people were.
But also we didn't need to because we were self sufficient.
We had businesses that we needed to So same thing now,
so the farmer can put his stuff in the grocery store.
There's a birthing center.
Speaker 3 (10:44):
Oh wow, because I.
Speaker 1 (10:47):
Had no idea that the black mortality rate amongst babies
and black women was so high.
Speaker 3 (10:53):
And especially in communities like this that are underserved. You know,
access to healthcare is such a huge thing.
Speaker 2 (11:00):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (11:00):
So you guys are.
Speaker 2 (11:01):
Really making such impact in this community that just desperately
needs it. Thanks for listening to today's episode. If we
helped you make your money move, please share it with
your community. Subscribe and leave us a review on iHeartRadio
and Apple Podcasts. Follow us on social media at Greenwood
and visit us at gogreenwood dot com for more financial
tips and remember money movers, If this were easy, everyone
(11:24):
would do it, So take the lessons you've learned from
this episode and apply it to your life. Money Moves
is an iHeartRadio podcast powered by Greenwood Executive produced by
Sunwise Media, Inc. For more podcasts on iHeartRadio, visit the
iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts from.
(11:44):
Make sure to tune in Monday, Wednesday, and Friday and
subscribe to the Money Moves podcast powered by Greenwood, so
that you too can have the keys to financial freedom
you so rightly deserve.
Speaker 3 (11:54):
Until next time,
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