QLS Classic: Sam Pollard

This week's Questlove Supreme guest is known for producing, editing and directing some of the most impactful movies of our time both scripted and unscripted. From Eyes on the Prize to Style Wars, several Spike Lee movies in between, numerous documentaries including his current project, MLK/FBI and most importantly to this podcast Hookers at the Point, Sam has touched it all. Listen as Quest and Team Supreme dive into the life and times of Sam Pollard.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Quest Love Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio. Ladies and gentlemen,
Welcome to another episode of Quest Love Supreme. I mean
it's Quest Love and we have teams Supreme with us. Yea, hello,
how are you to day?

Speaker 2 (00:19):
I am doing well, sir? How are you great?

Speaker 1 (00:23):
Is that a new microphone?

Speaker 3 (00:25):
Man?

Speaker 2 (00:25):
It's like every day every time we do the show,
you you look at me more.

Speaker 1 (00:28):
Not something new.

Speaker 4 (00:29):
It's not new though.

Speaker 1 (00:30):
It's like we're meeting for the first time exactly.

Speaker 2 (00:33):
Just looked at me.

Speaker 1 (00:34):
It's like we know each other since we were thirteen.
I'll start a sugar Steve.

Speaker 5 (00:42):
How you doing, man, I'm doing great. Nice to see
you and me are nice to see your team.

Speaker 1 (00:46):
That sounds like a deflection. How you really? We're all
of it all right. Now we're gonna rename.

Speaker 2 (00:54):
You see.

Speaker 5 (00:57):
Sugar Sugars, Double Sugars.

Speaker 1 (01:00):
Can we start calling you cannot do this on my watch, man,
I'm not because I'm gonna.

Speaker 5 (01:09):
Thank you for your concern. I'm going cold Turkey on
rock Cookie del I'm gonna be fine.

Speaker 2 (01:13):
You are too old to be eating that. That's crazy.

Speaker 5 (01:16):
I'm done with all that.

Speaker 4 (01:17):
I'm done with it all right, Steve I'm now.

Speaker 1 (01:21):
Implement some sugarless snacks in your day. To me, it'll
it'll work for you. Bill. How's life.

Speaker 3 (01:31):
Everything's good.

Speaker 1 (01:32):
I can't play I'm cool and anything. Fine.

Speaker 4 (01:36):
Yeah, man, everything's cool over here. We're just chilling. Everybody's uh.
We staying staying low, staying healthy.

Speaker 1 (01:41):
Were good. That's good? All right? Well, ladies and gentlemen,
I will say, probably during the pandemic, not only for me, well,
I will probably speak for the team. We probably watched
or revisited more content from film and TV in the
pandemic than we normally have. And and I will personally
say that I have a new appreciation for the teams

(02:04):
that make film. It's not just about the director just
about a particular actor or actress that you like. You
have to consider the producer of the cinematographer, the lighting director,
and most importantly, the editing of the film. And so
I will say that, as far as our guest is concerned,
started out his assent into the professional career of filmmaking

(02:26):
as an editor. First of all, in the groundbreaking what
I call one of the first hip hop films, Style Wars,
not to mention as an editor for some of my
favorite Spike Lee films like Mobetta, Blues, Junkle Fever, Juice, Clockers,
Girls Six, his documentaries for Little Girls, both of the

(02:52):
what I would call the New Orleans documentaries for the Levies,
not to mention also, I didn't realize Hooker's on the Point.
I didn't realize that Wow, you.

Speaker 6 (03:03):
On the stroll holes on a roll.

Speaker 4 (03:06):
Yes, I see, but the name remains the same.

Speaker 1 (03:15):
Candy She So, oh my god, you like memorize this film, dude,
And you don't understand, bro, Me and my homies used to.

Speaker 4 (03:24):
Watch because this is like I'm in like high school, right,
So me and my homies watch Hookers at the Point,
and then you come to school the next day and
know all that we'll be saying all the lines and classes.
I would like to.

Speaker 7 (03:36):
Say that Hookers at the Point transcends all things.

Speaker 1 (03:39):
I also because both of my.

Speaker 3 (03:43):
Friends about Hooking the Point, like in a different way,
but I definitely watch them.

Speaker 1 (03:47):
This makes an official that Bill and are the same person. God, dude, O, guys, guys, guys,
hang on Inton is powerful. Shirley Chisholm and his forays
into uh directing documentaries, not to eyes on the Prize,

(04:11):
which I especially in light of uh Black Messiah and Jesus,
Uh Jesus in the Black Messiah movie, him directing the
Eyes on the Prize film too. I'm sorry, Eyes on
the Prize too, of which uh the footage of that
film was used in in in uh in that particular film.

(04:32):
But there's also uh the Mister Soul documentary and his
his latest uh M l k FBI, which weighs heavily
into explores the what we can say, the harassment uh
in the monitoring of the jack Er Hoover led Bureau
into the life and uh kind of the affairs of

(04:56):
Martin Luther King Jr. Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome to
Quest Lifts, Sam Pollard, thank you. Okay, now back to
hookers on the point.

Speaker 3 (05:06):
My god, what happened to.

Speaker 2 (05:09):
Introver for you, sir, I'm sure terrible.

Speaker 4 (05:13):
You've been out there fucking I even fucking.

Speaker 8 (05:19):
Whole.

Speaker 3 (05:19):
I don't memorizing, man, Bren, this is man.

Speaker 1 (05:25):
I got a stage reading.

Speaker 3 (05:27):
Wow. Man, she had to tone everything down.

Speaker 4 (05:33):
Made an impact.

Speaker 1 (05:35):
So how's it going right now? How are you doing?

Speaker 3 (05:37):
I'm good, man, I'm pretty good. You know. I'm working
on a new film about Arthur ash Wow. Yeah, hoping
to kind of set by June and you know, developing
some other stuff.

Speaker 1 (05:48):
Yeah, I'll let our I'll let our listeners know that
you and I are actually partnering up for hopefully, uh,
you know, in the near future, will have the definitive
film about the Negro League. You know, I've been pounding
the pavement together, pitching to various companies and whatnot, So

(06:11):
that's very exciting for me. Yeah, I'll ask. As I
said at the top, I didn't realize how important or
how instrumental editors are to a film. You know, a
lot of the times, like people that aren't you know,
film buffs or whatnot, they just tend to think that

(06:32):
the director has complete control of everything, the screenwriting, everything,
but you know, almost feel as though the editor has
the hardest job of setting the tone. So I'll ask you,
first of all, as an editor, the general rule that
I've been taught is that once a film is done,
you're basically to hand your entire footage to your editor

(06:56):
and kind of sight unseen, just let them do their
thing and not micromanaged. Is that necessarily true or like,
what is the true job of an editor?

Speaker 3 (07:07):
Well, I would I would say this, I would say
in the fiction world, you know, when you when you're
doing editing a fiction film, you're given a script and
you know, and everything that they shoot in that script,
you basically know exactly how to put together. Now, it
can change when you're sitting down editing sequences together, but
usually most directors leave you alone with a fiction film

(07:29):
that's sort of put together what we call the first
rough cut, you know, and then they come in and
they give reactions to everything you've cut outs for changes
and stuff, so that becomes a director's cut, you know.
So that's how it works in fiction film and in
the documentary world. The thing that one of the reasons
I became such a lover of documentaries is because, as

(07:50):
an editor, specifically, what you're speaking to a mirror. Many times,
when I was beginning to edit a documentary, the director
would come in with lots of footage and say, I
have this great idea to tell this story about hip
hop and break dancing and rap music, and I'm not
quite sure the order, but here's the footage, and then
they walk away and they give you, you know, give

(08:11):
me four or five, six months, seven months sometimes to
create the sequences, you know, and you're basically trying to
in some ways as the editor, read the director's mind
to get a sense of what the director is looking
for as you're shaping the sequences. Now, sometimes in the
documentary's the director comes in or he calls in and
he wants to see sequences to see where you're going
before you put the whole thing together, and you show

(08:33):
it to him or her and they react to it
and you make changes. But really in the furms of
the documentary, it's really the editors medium. The editor becomes
with the documentary much more so than with the features.
They become sort of the surrogate directors because they're shaping
the story arc, they're shaping the tone, the emotional tone.
They're shaping me sort of the up and downs of

(08:55):
the film as it unfolds. So, you know, as a
young editor, that's why I mean, I was I was
pretty shy back then, so the idea of being a
director didn't then entice me. It was the idea that
I had all this footage. And you know the big
thing about editing documentaries is that you can hit a
home run. You can hear, you can hear, you can

(09:16):
hit a ball that just pop out, and you could
completely fail. And uh, you know that's the responsibility as
a documentary that you have to take on, understanding that
sometimes a director to walk in and say that you
have to see your first cut. Ah, Sam, this is
exactly what I was thinking about. This is my vision
of the film. You found my vision. Or they can
walk in into the editing room and they'll say I

(09:38):
have to look at your cut. They'll say, oh, Sam,
that's terrible. You didn't understand anything I was trying to
do with this footage. We're gonna have to start all
over again. I've been on both sides of the of
the of those polls. You know, when I was young,
I would be like, oh my god, I'm terrible. Nobody
loves me. It doesn't work. As i've gotten older, that's

(10:00):
part of the process. You realize that's part of the process.
You're never going to make it right the first time.
That's why it's called re editing and re editing. I
mean you listed the films like that edited for Spike,
and even on the feature films, I never made a
cut that Spike completely said, oh it's one hundred percent work. Well, Sam, no, chick.
It just doesn't work that way. There's always going to

(10:21):
be changes.

Speaker 4 (10:22):
Has there ever been a time where in your editing
career where you know, like you said, director comes to
you and says, hey, I want to tell this story
about breakdancing and hip hop or whatever, and so they
give you all this footage. But then during your editing
you kind of start putting together and you see, I
know this is what he thinks this is about, but
I think there's a bigger story that can be told
that maybe he's missing or maybe now when I have

(10:44):
all these pieces together, he may think that it's about,
you know, just hip hop and breakdancing, but there is
probably a deeper narrative that is starting to evolve as
I put this together. Has that ever happened?

Speaker 1 (10:55):
How much leeway are you giving all the time?

Speaker 3 (10:58):
That happens all the time an editor, As a creative editor,
you have to be open to the idea of seeing
the story in a different way and taking on that responsibility.
I'm gonna say, you say to yourself, should I show
it to the director this way? Because I think it's worked?
So should I say, Well, I'm not sure it works,
let me show it to the way he asked me
to do it. I have the I always had the

(11:19):
tendency to show it to him the way I thought
it would work better, you know, and that you know,
that's part of the gamble. Sometimes you show it to
him and they say yeah. Sometimes you shoot them they
say no, that's how it works.

Speaker 2 (11:33):
I just wanted for MLK FBI. Was it the decision
to not show the commentator the folks who were commentating's face.
Was that a SAM decision or was that just like
something that y'all had to established because I was noticing
and that was like a big different in a lot
of the documentaries that I see these days.

Speaker 3 (11:49):
In that case, that was a SAM decision. Before we
even shot, I had said to the producer Ben Henden
that I didn't want anybody on camera. I wanted to
all be voiceover because I had seen a film that
Amyl was involved in the music for a black power mixtape,
you know, and I and they had no voice They
had nobody on camera in that film. I remembered that.

(12:10):
So when I got to do this one, I said,
we don't show anybody on camera. We're going to do
it all voiceover. And you know, that was a gamble,
but I was willing to take it.

Speaker 1 (12:18):
You know, what was it?

Speaker 4 (12:19):
What was the artistic kind of choice? What drove that decision?

Speaker 3 (12:23):
You know? I felt I felt that in this particular film,
I wanted people who were either close confidence or doctor King,
or whose stories could talk about the mythology, the built
and growing mythology, the FBI, and I just felt like
I wanted people to not see people on camera. I
just wanted them to be immersed in the footage and

(12:44):
hear the voiceover. That's what they do. What happens when
you put camera people on camera sometimes it can it
can break the emotional momentum of the footage, you know.
So I felt like, no, keep them, keep them off camera,
keep the footage, keep the archival footage front and centers
of people will engage. Now, as you saw in the epilogue,
we did show their faces when they sort of wrapped

(13:06):
up about what they thought about the tape being released
in twenty twenty seven. Now, I would say that wasn't
my idea. I thought the epilogue is should be all
voice over too. But the editor, this was Laura Thomas Selley,
she had the idea we should put them on camera,
So when I saw the cut and she put them
on camera, I said, Wow, I wish I could take
credit for this, but.

Speaker 4 (13:27):
Yeah, because it was a payoff.

Speaker 1 (13:29):
It was like a break payoff. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I
fell down my own rabbit hole and just happened to
click on Black Power Mixtape. So apparently I won a
Swedish Oscar didn't know that she did know they had.

(13:49):
Apparently I won a gold Goold Bandage Award. Yeah, I
would have to. Yeah, this is the second time I
found out I won something and wasn't told. Uh. Oh,
this very web this very podcast won a Webby and
we weren't told. So there's there's a history of that people. Yeah,

(14:09):
West Supreme, we win in awards and you don't even know.

Speaker 2 (14:14):
Trying to keep us down the man you know about.

Speaker 1 (14:16):
That fan keep it us on, Sam. What what brought
you to the film world or a passion? I'll say
that mostly like from my point of view and my observation,
people easily jump into music, people easily jump into sports,

(14:36):
but I rarely hear of people successfully having a passion
for film and jumping into that world and like making
a living and having a fruitful career in it. So
what started yours.

Speaker 3 (14:51):
Well here, I was a young man who grew up
in East Tarlow. I was going to Blue College with
the majoring in marketing. I was in my junior year
and one day I looked around and I saw myself
being miserable taking all these marketing andstic statistics courses. And
I said, Jesus, I got to find some after school
activity to do. I just I can't handle this. So

(15:12):
I walked across the street to the counselor's office. I
saw my counselor's wonderful African American lady, and I said,
I was looking for an after school in turn internship.
And she said, well, what are your interests? And I said,
one of the things I really loved growing up in
my teens, I loved watching all these old Hollywood movies,
you know. I watched all those Warner Brothers and MGM

(15:34):
and Columbia pictures and RKO movies, Arko Studio movies, and
I love them. So she said. There was a PBS
station in New York City WNAT in nineteen sixty eight.
After Doctor King's assassination. This felt it was important to
get more people of color behind the scenes shooting editing,

(15:57):
taking sound producing, and she said that they had a
one year workshop every year from sixty eight this was
nineteen seventy one, and they had on Tuesday nights they
would have these classes from six to ten where professionals,
professional editor is, professional cinematographers, professional sound people, professionals producers

(16:17):
would come in and teach you about the process of
making television and films. And then on the weekends you
would go out with your crew group of people. There
was like fifteen of us. They would pair us off.
We'd go out and shoot little films. Then we'd go
into come back to an editing space, and we'd learned
how to edit these films together. So when she first
proposed that to me, I said, my response to her

(16:40):
was I like watching movies, but I don't really care
about how to make them. I don't care. But she
was very persuasive. She got me to have an interview
and I got accepted to this program. And I did
that for one year. And the thing that I got
attracted to wasn't the shooting, wasn't the producing, wasn't the
sound mixing. It was the editing. Because I could be
in a dark room, I could by yourself. Nobody could

(17:04):
see me make mistakes. If I made a mistake, I
could undo the foodge and splice it back together because
we were cutting on film. And at the end of
that workshop, I said I was interested in trying. They
said they'd try to find you a job, and I said,
I was interested in finding a job in editing. And
one day I was working the summer of seventy two,
I was working at a marketing firm on thirty third

(17:25):
in Park Avenue, and my mother called me and said
that this production manager called and said they were looking
to interview me to be an apprentice editor on a
low budget feature film called Ganjia and Heads, directed by
Bill Gunn. Bill Yeah, Bill Gunn, And most of the
crew was African American, but the editor was this Jewish guy.

(17:48):
His sister was this young white girl from Kentucky. So
I went and had an interview with this editor and
I got hired in nineteen seventy two. It's my first
first job.

Speaker 4 (17:58):
And then Spike, he remade, that is the sweet blood
of Jesus.

Speaker 3 (18:00):
He did it, the sweet blood of Jesus. Yeah, yeah, okay.

Speaker 1 (18:07):
Well you mentioned w ne Et earlier, did you were
you interning there or.

Speaker 3 (18:12):
Just they had the workshop there. The workshop was part
of NAT.

Speaker 1 (18:17):
So did you have any interaction with like the well
you directed Mister Soul, but the original Soul show, Like.

Speaker 3 (18:26):
Did you work at all? No, it didn't work on
it all. It was it was you know, it had
been canceled. By the time I got into that program,
it was sixty nine to seventy two, So by the
time I left the program, he had been canceled. I
used to watch it all the time. Yeah, what about.

Speaker 1 (18:42):
Well, they had like a lot of black productions. I
remember you remember a show called Rebop or.

Speaker 3 (18:47):
That was rethought. Was not in New York, it was
in Massachusetts, Oh okay, But in New York they had
Black Journal, they had Miss had Soul, they had like
it is Gil Noble on ABC. Bill was to produce
On Soul and some of the first African producers who
worked for Black journals, like Tony Batton and Saint Clair Bourne.

(19:09):
You know who I used to have who I who
became one of my mentors later in my career.

Speaker 1 (19:13):
That's what I wanted to know, Like, who were your well,
it's contemporaries at least starting out with you at the
same time, like I know that Uh uh what's his name?
Uh director Dickerson? No, Uh, what's her name's father?

Speaker 3 (19:29):
Uh?

Speaker 4 (19:29):
God, that's uh.

Speaker 1 (19:33):
What's your names? Father?

Speaker 3 (19:35):
Stand was already director and soul in Black Journal. By
the time I got to the business, Sam, Sam was okay.

Speaker 1 (19:43):
But what I wanted to know was like, was there
uh like a crew of view as young black up
starts trying to get into film or was it just
all of you independently treading in?

Speaker 3 (19:56):
The program I was in was like fifteen that us.
We're all African American, and some of us, you know,
got into the business. Some people went to CBS, some
people with the ABC, some people freelance like I did.
That was the crew I was with, you know. And
then after I did the six months as an apprentice
editor on God and Hess, that same editor who hired

(20:17):
me then made me his assistant and I was his
assistant for three years from twenty two twenty three, twenty
four to twenty five years old. George Bowers No, No,
I met George right around seventy five. Had I sort
of was looking for a job and I went to
this editing room and George Bowers was editing a film
called Campdown on Cassini directed by Assy Davis with Ruby

(20:41):
d and Greg Morris from Mission Impossible. George turned me
on to doing a little film, had me he hired.
He got me hired to do a little film about
the first three black mayors of major cities, Tom Bradley
of Los Angeles, Coleman, Coleman Young of the Detroit Accident
of Atlanta. And it was being directed by David Parks,

(21:04):
Gordon Parks's son.

Speaker 1 (21:05):
Wow, oh wow, okay.

Speaker 3 (21:07):
And I edited it that when I was like twenty
six years old. And then George hired me to edit
some films for him, and then he moved out to
California to direct some low budget features. That in nineteen
eighty I went out to la and directed and edited
it for him a film. I don't know if you
remember this film, Body and Soul with Leon Isaac Kennedy.

Speaker 4 (21:26):
And yes, yeah, I know.

Speaker 3 (21:31):
I edited that film in nineteen eighty.

Speaker 1 (21:34):
Yeah, I know this. I know of this film. Yeah,
I was at the time in the seventies. Did you like,
what was your kind of your what in your mind
would have been your endgame or your your your goal
to get to at the time when you were sort
of finding your way in the early seventies.

Speaker 3 (21:55):
My endgame was I had this dream of becoming a
big time featured film that, you know, I wanted to
edit feature films. That was the big time. That was
the goal, you know. Nineteen seventy, ninety, seventy seven, seventy eight,
I was adding docs, but I wanted to be at
a big time feature edited in George let me edited
Body and Soul, and then I went back to New
York and I was adding more docs. And then George

(22:17):
did this film in nineteen eighty four with a young
Johnny Depp called Private Resort that I edited in California.

Speaker 4 (22:26):
That film too, Man, I don't remember that one. I've
never heard of that one.

Speaker 1 (22:30):
It feels like one of those films that would come
on prison or Showtime.

Speaker 3 (22:33):
Actually, yeah, that's it was my Showtime.

Speaker 5 (22:38):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (22:39):
And then I and then I came back to New
York with some other films, and then I got hired
by Henry Hampton in eighty seven to work on Ice Too.
And I was working on Ice Too for like a year,
shooting and my first time producing. And then one day
I was living in the back base of Boston and

(23:01):
my son, who was ten years old at the time.
The phone rang. He picked it up and he said, Dad,
Spike Lee, and I had just seen you the Right
Thing in the movies. And I said, Jason, will you're
messing with me for a man, Spike Lee didn't call me.
It's not calling me, not Dad, Spike Lee. So I
down the phone and sure enough it was Spike and
a buddy of mine who was his production manager and
Do the Right Thing had recommended me to Spike to

(23:25):
cut No Better Blues okay, and I turned him down.
Wait wow, I turned him down the first time because
I was still in the middle of Eyes on the
Prize too, So I said, Spike, I'm busy. Thanks for
the call, but I can't I say no. And then
Saint clair Bourne had done a documentary about Do the

(23:46):
Right Thing called Making Do the Right Thing, and I
had worked for Saint in the early eighties cutting two
or three films. And then Saint recommended me to Spike,
and about six weeks later Spike called me again, asked
me again to know better, and this time I said well.
He said, let's meet up, and we were both going
up to the venue to Oak Bluffs and separately, and

(24:09):
we met up at Oak Bluff. We went to a
little coffee shop. We spent a half hour in that
coffee shop, and I basically talked myself at the taking
the job, because he didn't talk about.

Speaker 1 (24:25):
Okay, well, you said that, and you know you wanted
to concentrate on your your one project. And you said
the word no, which I clearly don't know the meaning
of that word. How many projects can you realistically juggle? Okay,
I'll rephrase that, how many projects should you juggle any

(24:47):
calendar year? If you are an.

Speaker 3 (24:49):
Editor, you can't. You can't do but maybe one or two.

Speaker 1 (24:54):
So if you're actively working on a project.

Speaker 3 (24:57):
It's very hard. If you're actually physically editing, it's very
hard to do another film unless you know, you know, Listen,
When I was a young man, I would do two films,
edit two films. I would edit probably somebody's film all
day in the day. It'd be my prime time job.
And I'd come home. I remember working in Washington on
a serious close Smithsonian World, and I would edit all

(25:20):
day from from like nine to six. I'd go home
and have some dinner and Saint I was doing a
film for Saint real dramatic film for Saint, and I
would edit for Saint from I would edit my apartment
on the steam back from like seven till midnight. So yeah,
I would edit two films. You know, that's when I
was a young man.

Speaker 4 (25:41):
We don't do that type shit at the moment.

Speaker 7 (25:43):
When it switched over to digital, did that help it all?

Speaker 3 (25:46):
I could probably do three. Oh, I didn't sleep as much,
you know. But it's very hard when you're editing. You know,
it's easier to multitask when you're producing and directing somebody
else's so you can. You can, you can do more
than one show you're producing directly because you know, you
know this. I mean, you got a team right now.

(26:07):
You got you got other associate producers, you got archival producers,
you got editors, so you don't have to do everything yourself.
You're not sitting there at the machine editing, you know.

Speaker 1 (26:17):
Actually, Bill brought up a point that I didn't think about.
At least for musicians. I feel like a lot of
us made the full like the full jump into pro
tools like around like ninety two, ninety three and full
fledged like in mid to late nineties. But for the
film world, when did that jump. When did that jump

(26:41):
with that paradigm shift occur, like from digital editing.

Speaker 3 (26:46):
To around ninety four ninety five. Yeah, I cut my
last film. I cut the last piece on film for
Spike in ninety six. It was Girl six.

Speaker 1 (27:00):
Okay, that was done on film.

Speaker 3 (27:02):
That was done on film. Then after Girls six, I
never did anything else on the shelf. It was fine.
I mean, full Little Girls was was digital. You know,
Bamboozle was digital. Everything after that was digital.

Speaker 1 (27:15):
How hard is that adjustment in learning new language? Learning?
Like Protess steal all my questions all the time on
every show, Sugar, Steve wants to know how hard? Steve
asked a question.

Speaker 5 (27:31):
I'm sorry, well, I just yeah, What was the transition
like for you?

Speaker 1 (27:34):
Was it?

Speaker 5 (27:35):
Was it exciting or frustrating?

Speaker 3 (27:37):
Or at first it was frustrating because you know, I
didn't think of myself as computer savvy, so I had
to I had to get up to speed. I'm working
on the computer and stuff and figuring out how to
do things technically.

Speaker 5 (27:47):
Did how old were you? Sorry, how old were you
at that time?

Speaker 3 (27:53):
Forty five mm? So you know, it used to be
they used to have they used to have you could
call you Avid support all the time, and you had questions.
So the first film I could an avid, I think
it was an average support every day. You know, this
doesn't work. How do I make this work? Or do
I do this? You know? Avid support, avid support, you know.

(28:13):
But but you know I adjusted to it because I
you know, I didn't want to stop editing, so you know,
I didn't want someone else to edit for me, so
I learned how to do it digital.

Speaker 5 (28:22):
Did you find that you were able to be more
creative with digital or than you were with film as
an editor?

Speaker 3 (28:31):
The big, the big advantage to editing digitally is that
you know, when you say edit film you want to
recut a sequence a different way, and say the old sequence,
you'd have to even make a dupe of the old
sequence and then unsplice all the shots to rebuild it
another way. Digitally, you can do it in one way
and then you can just do another version and you

(28:51):
keep the other one. You know, and you know that
to me was like a great sort of plus, I
could see three versions of my cut. Now. The issue
the challenge is is if you sort of don't make
a decision, then you say you got to see six
versions of your pet because then you can't make a decision.
You got to you gotta be mindful of how many
cuts you want to see before you say, okay, this

(29:12):
is the one. You know, maybe you make it so
real adjustment.

Speaker 1 (29:16):
Yeah, as far as the quality is concerned, I know
that as a musician, even though I do use digital technology,
I'm pretty much using that digital technology to make it
sound like I'm doing analog, trying to make it sound

(29:36):
as cheap and whatever. Like are you the type of
editor or do or do editors in general still try
to I don't know, execute that same process as far
as uh, you know, like we we will use terms
like well, there's a warmth sound with analog that you

(29:57):
don't get with digital and it sounds fold. Is that
the same with you?

Speaker 3 (30:01):
Yeah, I mean you're still trying to You're still trying
to figure out when you're you know, in terms of
your aesthetic, how to make it still feel like you're
making a movie and you know, I try to do
a commercial, you know, so you're crafting it in a
certain way. So you're saying the film aesthetic that I
learned when it was film, I'm trying to apply that
to the digital technology. You know, I'm trying not to

(30:22):
edit films like what I would see the fast paced
commercials or something on you know, these music videos. I'm
still trying to bring to it the storytelling editorial storytelling
techniques I learned when I was editing film, you know,
and I try to still apply those, you know, And
then depends on who shoots your material. I mean a
lot of documentary filmmakers still have the ability to have

(30:45):
their camera people shoot it so it's twenty fourth rings
per second, you know, it looks like you're shooting it
on film. You know, sometimes you want to change the
textures and the coloring of it so it has a
more sort of film and texture. And think about all
those things you know, when you when you shoot, you go.
When you watch some of these films I've done in the
last few years, they all I still try to give

(31:07):
it a sort of an emotional film sensibility in terms
of the approach.

Speaker 1 (31:11):
You know that That leads to my question, Okay, you
brought up Bamboozle. So at the time when we shot
that with Spike, and Spike was explaining to me that
Yo're going to shoot this all in digital, and I
think that was like new to him at the time,
Like the way he shot that film was was way different.

(31:33):
So even watching him on the set and how him
and was Malik his his Linesman, I'm not.

Speaker 3 (31:40):
Certain cis shot.

Speaker 1 (31:42):
Okay. Now, when I saw that film and it was digital,
it still had a I don't know what to call
the type of film that like they use when they
do soap operas.

Speaker 3 (31:56):
But that film because because that's what they wanted to.

Speaker 1 (31:59):
Is that is that video or is that? But that's
why I was asking was that done on purpose? Because
then you know you cut to cut to she Hate Me?
She Hate Me still had a kind of you don't
know if it's video or.

Speaker 3 (32:17):
Had the videos of the old television shows texture how
know as you're talking about.

Speaker 1 (32:21):
But now it's like it's borderline, Like it feels like
it's thirty five millimeters when I'm watching it. Like in
the beginning, when I first got my digital TV, everything
felt like it's so proper. Maybe like after ten years
of watching it, I've just conditioned myself to accept this
is the norm. But are they still like rewriting the
quality of what digital is?

Speaker 3 (32:43):
Well, the thing you should remember, you know what your TVs,
you know there's settings in your.

Speaker 4 (32:49):
TV and you got to set that frame rate.

Speaker 3 (32:51):
You got to set the frame rate so it doesn't
look like digital. You go to these hotels sometimes you're
watching things and man, that looks you know, it looks.

Speaker 4 (32:59):
Like a play right, Yeah, it's so proper, right, But.

Speaker 3 (33:02):
If you set your frame rate on your television, it
won't look like that. If you said it for twenty
four frames per second, they're gonna look like thirty frames
per second.

Speaker 2 (33:11):
Service love a good lesson, Let me go get my promote.

Speaker 4 (33:15):
That's because on the new iPhones, like on the because
like I got the twelve, I got the twelve pro
macs and naked you can shoot it.

Speaker 5 (33:21):
You can shoot.

Speaker 4 (33:22):
Thirty frames per second video four and then you can
shoot sixty frames and the sixty frames just it's yeah,
it's like, nah, it looks plastic like it looks so real.
It looks fake. It's crazy.

Speaker 3 (33:34):
The other thing is, you know, the other thing. The
other thing too is that with Bamboozle, Spike was shooting
on DV cameras, the first DV cameras, and the frame
rate was thirty frames per second, but it really had
a real digital feeling. What's happened with the cameras, those
DV cameras. Nobody uses those anymore. So the technology has improved.

(33:55):
So now when you shoot with these video cameras, they
and if you get to if you use the right lenses,
you can feel like you're watching films. You know, that's technology.

Speaker 1 (34:07):
So if they were well, I already know that they
did a uh like criteria, I know they did. Yeah,
they already did a Criterion reissue. So what I'm asking
is if there's a remastering process.

Speaker 3 (34:20):
It will still look the same, so you.

Speaker 1 (34:23):
Can keep it looking just like it did in two thousand.

Speaker 3 (34:26):
Yeah, because I just watched it too on Criteria. It
looks the same. It looks just like it did when
they shot it. You're not going to be able to
change that. That look. That's the field that they got
and it's not going to change.

Speaker 1 (34:38):
So at the time when you were doing it and
watching it was it was it sort of off putting, like, Okay,
is this going to be the future of movies now?
Like is everything going to look like yeah, it was,
you know, I picked up a video camera and made
it look like this, or yeah.

Speaker 3 (34:54):
It's a little off putting. It definitely did but you know,
Spike was you know, Spike did it for a couple
of reasons. I mean, he had access to all these cameras.
He shot with six cameras, you remember, Yeah, he shot
with lots of cameras. And also it had an impact
on the budget because shooting with those cameras, he didn't
spend as much money he was shooting on film. You know,

(35:16):
he did shoot the performance stuff with you know, with
Tommy Davison and and Save You on he shot that
on film six Super sixteen, but everything else was video.

Speaker 4 (35:27):
Okay, I see, what is a question I had? Just
what is an example? And you don't have to, you know,
name any particular movies if you don't want, But what
is an example of just bad editing? Just kind of
just you know, just from a fundamental standpoint, because the
movies I watch and I'm just like, yeah, they felt
like they could have cut maybe ten to fifteen minutes

(35:48):
out of that it felt too long or whatever. But
what is bad editing?

Speaker 3 (35:53):
I never say that anymore, you know, Okay, but most
films when you watched him, I watched the film the
Other Night from twenty fifteen with Sean Penn and Idris
Elba and javardin called Gunman, you know, and they shot
all of it. But they shot and they shot in
South Africa, they shot in Spain, Barcelona, they shot in England.

(36:14):
And it's not a good film. It's not a good
film at all. But it's not about the editing. It's
not about the cinematography, because it looks great. It's edited
pretty well, ain'ty. Remember it's usually not bad editing. It's
usually bad scripts.

Speaker 4 (36:27):
Yeah, bad storytelling.

Speaker 3 (36:28):
Yeah, it's a bad storytelling, you know, because the technology
has improved to such a degree that most films look fantastic.
Most films are edited well. The problem is is the
story sucks. You know, So when the story sucks, it
doesn't matter how well it's put together, it just doesn't work,
you know. So I'm you know, I never really see

(36:51):
that term bad editing anymore. You know, it's really bad storytelling.

Speaker 4 (36:56):
Yeah, I was just so. Yeah, that was curious for
things cleaning it up, because I wonder like, yeah, where
is it? Where does it get made? Is it the
story or is it Can you have a good story
and then a back cut can mess it up?

Speaker 3 (37:07):
You know, it's rare, you could, but it's rare. You
can definitely have a bad story and the cuts won't
help it.

Speaker 1 (37:17):
Well, I was going to say, I was going to say,
what happens in the case of a film like The Irishman,
which clearly I see more of it as a curtain
call than I do a film like I don't know
if I would name The Irishman in my school, you know, no, no, no.

(37:39):
But the thing is is that I enjoyed it, but
I saw it more as a curtain call, Like, Okay,
this is obviously the last time we're going to see
Paccino and de Niro and Scorsese and school micer like
at this level and this intensity of a gangster film.
So it's kind of like, Okay, I forgave the fact

(37:59):
that three hours and forty five minutes however long it was,
but in your mind. But I'm also not a film buff,
so there are a lot of things that I will
let slide that a lot of my film buff films
friends will just start criticizing. Now, I know it might
be sacrilegious or whatever, but what do you do in

(38:22):
what would you do in the case of a film
like The Irishman, where well, here's.

Speaker 3 (38:28):
My take on the ash Man. And you know, there's
some people I know who love it, well, absolutely love
that film to me. To me, I feel like you
it was what I call Scorsese's sort of like the
last trail. You know, he's on this his swan song.
He'll make more films. But in terms of the Gangs,
to mill you, he should leave it alone because for

(38:50):
me it was too long and I didn't buy the
idea that Joe Peshew and de Niro look like young men.

Speaker 4 (39:01):
Oh my god? What is that about it? All?

Speaker 2 (39:03):
Is this effect?

Speaker 4 (39:04):
It doesn't work on everybody? Did they try?

Speaker 3 (39:07):
It didn't work at all and did not.

Speaker 1 (39:09):
But wasn't that also like a primitive like in my mind,
is that bamboozled in two thousand where it's just like
this new technology that they're working on. And obviously though
you know.

Speaker 3 (39:20):
It could be one of those things where in ten
years people when need to visit that film say it
was a master piece. To me, it was too long
and it was a curtain call and you know, and
I don't need to see the narrow but Joe Pesci
played gagsters ever again, you know, I agree, you know,
it was just you know, and you know you know,
I'm a big fan of Marty films, you know, Raging

(39:42):
Bull and Good Photos, even Casino, but this one.

Speaker 4 (39:46):
Was like yeah, casinos, yeah.

Speaker 3 (39:48):
This one. This one was like, Okay, this is time
to stop this this journey, you know, the one.

Speaker 4 (39:55):
I will say. The thing I liked about it that
I thought was interesting was that he he wore his
old films. You know, he was kind of shown as
you know, glorifying the gangster life with Casino and Goodfellas,
you kind of should see the shiny side of it.
But with this one, it was more more so for
lack of vetter termin It was just a blue collar gangster,
like he wasn't rich, he wasn't you know, you know,

(40:18):
he was just that. So I did think that that
was an interesting shift, you know, tone wise, But I agree,
I don't think we need to see them play gangsters.
I think they don't have nothing new to say in
that way.

Speaker 3 (40:29):
And it was watching, you know, even the scene I do.
I remember the scene Narrow's character beats up to kicks
the gangster in the street.

Speaker 4 (40:37):
Dude, he's like eighty years old.

Speaker 3 (40:39):
I said, I said, this guy's an old man.

Speaker 1 (40:42):
I mean, he can his leg, but I well, see
I thought that, uh, like, normally, especially if you watch
Goodfellas and Casino, the way that Filma does cuts and
edits very intensely and things that you know, trademarks that

(41:05):
Scorsese is known for. This was the first time where
I didn't see that fast paced kind of editing action
that makes it more intense. So I actually thought that
it was unique for them to do a slower a
slower cut kind of Scarsese gangster film. That wasn't.

Speaker 3 (41:25):
Yeah, you could say that, you could say that, you know.
The other way to look at it, you know, is
that sometimes you know this sometimes when when when an
autist gets older, their their rhythms and their paces slow down.
You know.

Speaker 1 (41:41):
See I thought that was on purpose, No, I you know, sometimes.

Speaker 3 (41:45):
It is, and sometimes I mean I gave you a
great example, you know. You know, I've been doing the
Max Roach film right right, And so you watch Max
in the forties and you listen to Max and the
Poison and fifties of Quickly Brown, I mean everything is
in the seventies, he's still playing, you know, he's doing

(42:06):
you know, it's drum also losses, but you can tell
it's slowed down.

Speaker 1 (42:10):
Right, Wait, It's funny you said that. I had a moment,
probably one of Max's last public performances before he passed away,
where they set up this drum thing between him and I,
and uh this, I feel so fuck boyish recalling this story.

(42:34):
You know, I was like, all right, I got it.
I'm going up against Max roach Man. I better prepare.
So I spent a month like working on my technique. No, well,
the thing was I had going up against. I did
this with Cindy Blackman maybe seven months before, and.

Speaker 2 (42:54):
Did it with Roy Haynes too, and this.

Speaker 1 (42:57):
Was four hundred No I know, No, I did not
battle Roy Haines, but I'm just saying that with Cindy one,
I was way out of shape. I was like four
hundred pounds whatever, and like three minutes into the solo,
she just dusted me. And I was like I was
on my never again joined And so I was like,
all right, Max Roach, I don't care, I'm gonna dust

(43:18):
his ass. And I didn't realize that he was like,
you know, his late eighties and just he was just
happy to be there. He's like playing a little and
I felt like an asshole at the end, like a man.
I was showing out, and then I.

Speaker 4 (43:36):
Think too because by that point in your career you
don't really have anything left to prove. I mean, it's like, motherfucker,
I'm Max Rose, Like, what that's it?

Speaker 3 (43:43):
You know what I mean?

Speaker 4 (43:44):
If I get I can play fucking spoons and bottles,
you know what I mean?

Speaker 3 (43:48):
Whatever, that's true, That's true, exactly true.

Speaker 1 (43:52):
I want to ask you about style wars for a
lot of hip hop aficionados, especially old school cats like
between Wild Style and Star Wars like those are the first,
probably the two really authentic looks at early hip hop.

(44:13):
How did you did you talk about getting involved in
that that project and was it a big deal to
you that that that sort of thing was greenlit to
make in the first place.

Speaker 3 (44:23):
Well, it was interesting the director Tony Silver. I was
working for Victor Kaneski, the guy who trained me, and yeah,
he had this editing service and we had been doing trailers.
Tony Silvery used to do these movie trailers, these little
two three minute movie trailers, and we used to edit
those for Tony And one day he said he had
a buddy named Henry Chaufman who would go up to

(44:47):
the Bronx and Queens and he would photograph and these
all these graffiti artists doing their thing, and he decided
Tony decided to take a camera crew and start shooting.
And so he just started shooting all the guys, the
breakdancing and all the artists, you know, all of them.
And then he came to Victory and says, I got
all this footage. I don't have a lot of money,

(45:07):
but you guys, I'll pay something so we could start editing.
So in like nineteen eighty one eighty two, we started
editing that film for not a lot of money, you know.
And I knew about the whole hip hop world, you know,
I knew about graffiti, but this was a deep dive.
It took us a whole year to edit that film,
you know, because Tony was always changing every cuts we made.

(45:28):
Held look at the cuts, O, this is not right,
this is not working, which we edit the restructure, We
edit restructure. And by the time that whole year was
over editing that film, I was so angry and disgusted
with Tony. I didn't want to see him again. Yeah,
because we just worked so hard on it. It really
worked hard, and you know, I never realized that the

(45:52):
film would really take off like it did. You know,
we knew that it was an audience. We didn't realize it.
We really had such a big splash. I mean even today.
I mean I've had students, you know, in the last
ten years who've seen that film. I mean even Spike
said he didn't know I edited that film after I
did No Better Blues and saw my credits. What is

(46:12):
you edited one of the editors on the Star Wars.
But yeah, man, you know.

Speaker 1 (46:16):
So you had no clue that this was something revolutionary.

Speaker 4 (46:19):
Like not.

Speaker 3 (46:20):
I knew it was revolutionary, but I didn't realize it
was going to have such a wide reaching impact, you know,
because when we finished it, Tony took it away and
we knew it got in some festival. You know, we didn't,
you know, back then, when I was editing films, I
didn't think much about how where they were going to
go so much. I was just it was, you know,
I was trying to make a good film and didn't

(46:40):
move on. So it was one of those things you said, Wow,
I really had an impact.

Speaker 1 (46:46):
I guess that said for me, the film seems so
guerrilla like, like did it have did they at least
go into the project with some sort of like plan
or or was it just like we'll just shoot as
we go along and try to make create a story
out of this, because it wasn't like they were there

(47:06):
to teach us the history. It was almost like a
reality show.

Speaker 3 (47:10):
So it was it was gorilla or I mean, sometimes
they would they would go to these yards and they
would shoot the guys doing their thing. Sometimes they did
have a little bit of a plan, like when Case
went into his house, you know, when you see Kase
walking through the projects, walking through the playground, walks to
his house, the camera fan doll pans out. They decided
to do that. Then they would have stars and they
sat down with Case and his two buddies and had

(47:33):
them drawing in cases telling you his story about how
he lost his arm and stuff right and seeing with
those guys on the train when casing his guys up
on the L train, you know. And then you know,
like when we put the we did that montage that
was sort of Tony said, let's let's do a montage.
Let's figure out a montage. So we found that song
when they're saying, you know, they're doing that wrap right

(47:55):
on the music, and we just created some of these
things were spontaneous, and these things were a little set up,
but most of those gorilla type filmmaking.

Speaker 1 (48:02):
Well, when you're in that situation, what happens if you're
I assume that if you're editing already, you're at least
towards the end stage or the fourth quart of the project.
What if you're in a situation in which, uh, you
have like way more broth, then you have stue content

(48:29):
for that particular meal. In other words, like if you're
editing and you're trying to create a sort of coherent
storyline and it's not all the way there yet, Like,
do you guys go back out to shoot some more stuff?

Speaker 3 (48:44):
Some Yeah, Sometimes if they have the budget and you
can get them to go back out, they do shues.
Sometimes if they don't have the budget, then you got
to improvise even more to figure out how to make
it coherent and work. If you have more broth than
stu ste ingredients, you know. So the thing you always
have to remember when you make it a film is

(49:06):
always keep yourself, keep on your toes with the surprises.
Never settle into the idea that, oh this is going
to be a material I have. I got to make
it work this way you can always with film, it's
really malleable. You can try different things and all the
time to come up with different ways and look at
a sequence, you know, and a really good filmmaker will

(49:26):
always be open to try different things, because if you're not,
then someone's going to take it from you and say, well,
you know, there's another way, because there's always another way
to make a film always.

Speaker 7 (49:37):
Okay, Can you talk about your relationship with composers and
music editors. I mean, we just we just recently interviewed
Terrence Blanchard, who I'm sure you know, and I've been
working on a bunch of films lately, and I find
that that relationship is always very different as editors. Some
usually work with the same composers, some don't, and just
figuring out that situation and how that how to achieve

(49:59):
the best posts will think and what comes first?

Speaker 3 (50:01):
Music or not music?

Speaker 1 (50:02):
What are you using? Ya ya YadA.

Speaker 3 (50:04):
That's what usually in my process is, you know, I'll
put a cut together. Like I just mentioned this other
film for HBO called Black Art in the Affence of
Life about these different artists from Carrie may Leans to
Carol Walker to Carrie James Bush. So we put the
film together and the editor said, what kind of tent
music going to use? I said, well, there's a composer

(50:26):
out in La Na, Katherine Bostic, and I want to
use her music. So she had done the music for
my August Wilson film, so I said, let's go back,
and I had her send me some of that music
that she had done for the August Wilson post. Let's
use some of your music as temps. Send me some
other pieces that you can use as temp and then
we laid in some of her music. Some of it
worked and it didn't work. But when we got to

(50:47):
a cut where we had some of this tent music in,
and then I had some other music that I found
that I liked it I used. I use some Cold
Traine music. I use some some Billy Straighthorn, which I
knew I couldn't keep because it was going to cost
too much money. So then we had a music session
where I said to Katherine, you know, here's the feel
I'm looking for, here's the tonalities, you know, and I

(51:08):
play an instruments I'm always talking about. Here's the kind
of instruments I want you to try. I want I
want flutes here, I want woodwinds here. I think you
should what's your instrument? I play flute. I used to
play side yeah, okay, so so you know, and you know,
so I'm talking about the rhythm and the pace and
the tonal. Now, some people, you know, some of the

(51:28):
directors don't know music, can't use musical terms. They say,
you know, I wanted to be strong, I want to yellow. Yeah,
But I try to give them some real specific so
I'll say, like i'm talking, I'm talking to this composer
now about this zard astron And I said, you know, man,
we're trying to create that seventies feel. So go back

(51:49):
that sixties and seventies steel. Go back and listen to
the scores that Quincy Jones did for in the Heat
of the Night in the nineteen sixty eight called The Pawnbroker.
Listen to that rhythmic field, Listen to rhythm and the
pacing of that. I want that kind of feel for
this score for this film, you know, you know, and
we're using we're keeping some music. We're having a film
that when Art da Ash goes to South Africa, we're

(52:11):
gonna use Gilbert gil Gilskharens Johannesburg. You know we're going
to use the temptations how I wish every grain, you know,
but so listen to those pieces to see if you
can sort of instrumentally replicate that feel for some of
the other sections of the film. So I mean, I'm
trying to be very specific with composers, you know.

Speaker 4 (52:33):
Now, the fact that you can speak music and film
that goes a long way.

Speaker 1 (52:37):
It helps.

Speaker 3 (52:37):
It really helps.

Speaker 1 (52:38):
Yeah, for me, of all your work with Spike Lee,
I will say, and it's weird, and I hope you
know this. This statement isn't hyperbolic or timely, only because
the film has not been seen in thirty years for

(52:58):
some reason, he hadn't allowed it on streaming or whatever.
But for me at the time in ninety one, watching
that taj Mahal scene jungle Fever, to me, that was
I of all of it in Spike's whole canon, I

(53:20):
don't think six minutes really hasn't gripped me or frightened
me as much as watching that film like it wasn't
over exaggerated. And oftentimes you know, Spike will hammer point
home with over exaggeration or that sort of thing. But
it was just like to watch that scene in its
six minute glory, like to the backdrop of Stevie Wonders

(53:43):
living for the City and the way that was edited
and all that stuff. Could you talk about just the
choreography of how that scene came to be?

Speaker 3 (53:55):
I think, you know, you'd have to aspect this, but
I think he played that music and he was shooting
that scene oh wow, because it was interesting to me.
But when I cut that scene and Spotty said he
wanted to use Living in the City, I don't think
I made a music cut. You know, usually I don't
think I made a music cut. I know, if you
go back to you guys watch The Love Supreme at

(54:17):
the end of My Better Blues, I made a big
music cut there, you know, between when the Babies.

Speaker 1 (54:23):
Yeah, I made a big music cut there.

Speaker 3 (54:28):
But on Living in the City, I don't think I
made a music cut.

Speaker 2 (54:32):
Now, Sam, you know you got to break that down
because I'm like, wait, music, what are you saying a
music cut or.

Speaker 3 (54:36):
Music cart a music cut where you said you removed
some of the music to make it.

Speaker 1 (54:41):
Work to work in the scene.

Speaker 3 (54:43):
But this one, I don't think I made any music cuts.
Live in the City because I think with.

Speaker 1 (54:48):
The exception of the occasional cut of them smoking crack
across the screen, it almost felt like it was one
long take, but I know that you used multiple.

Speaker 3 (55:00):
I used my mostle visual take. I'm talking about it.
I didn't make any music edits.

Speaker 4 (55:04):
Yeah, the music was it plays straight through.

Speaker 3 (55:07):
Usually I make a music edit because the sequence is
too long. But the two films I never made a
music edit was on that one and the sequence in
Girls six when what your name is? Going to the beach.

Speaker 1 (55:18):
And how come you don't call me anymore?

Speaker 4 (55:21):
And I love that.

Speaker 3 (55:22):
Scene scene too, man, I don't think I made a
music cut, you know, the.

Speaker 1 (55:28):
First Catfish one film, the first the first two of
the fly Out story going Wrong.

Speaker 3 (55:38):
It was it was almost like Spike It and Edit
had shot that scene in in the pace and the
rhythm that I didn't have to. I made all these
individual picture cuts that were but it was like they
were just right. Everything was just right. I was like, Wow,
I couldn't believe it.

Speaker 1 (55:54):
I cut it at one point, I borderline felt like
he started with Living for the City and then somehow
like wrote the film around that because I just.

Speaker 3 (56:07):
What I think he did. That's exactly what I think
he did. Man, I think he Yeah. I think he
started with the song and he then built the scene
from that because that's how it works.

Speaker 1 (56:17):
And dressed okay, yeah, because it's just so unusual too.
And again Living for the City is like six minutes long.
But I just wondered how with editing is concerned, Like,
how is he like, because the timing has to be
perfect because literally, for the for those that haven't seen
the film, there's a scene where Flipper Purify played by

(56:41):
Wesley Snipes, has to confront his brother for stealing the
family television the TV. Yeah, Sam Jackson playing a crackhead
his older crackheat butter brother Flipper gataa data. As matter
of fact, I believe that cons had to invent a

(57:03):
category just so that Sam Jackson could win Best Supporting Actor.
They didn't have a supporting scene. So basically what happens
is Wesley Snipe starts at one point in Harlem and
does a real time walk what seems to be four
blocks or whatever to a crack house, a crack then

(57:28):
of which once he gets there. You know, especially for
ninety one, when people were still had their heads in
the sand over the crack epidemic, like to visually see
that shot. I'm really shocked. We didn't even ask Spike
about the scene when he was on the show twice.
I forgot.

Speaker 2 (57:45):
But doesn't it pauls in the middle when when Leslie
has the conversation with was it Charlie Murphy Charlie okay, okay?

Speaker 1 (57:53):
No, music is still going, music is still going, right,
So I guess what I wanted to like, did they
did they have to quirre gra that in terms of
or was that just great editing? Because as far as
I know, Wesley Snipe starts four blocks ahead, walks to
the Tasma hall four blocks later, confronts Halle Berry and
Sam Jackson, and you know, of course this has to

(58:17):
work in coordinance with with the song, you know, and
stopping to talk to child.

Speaker 3 (58:23):
That's what I'm saying.

Speaker 9 (58:23):
I think I think Spike played the track while he
was shooting as okay, because it almost works so perfect
when I cut it, I couldn't believe how it worked.

Speaker 1 (58:34):
It works so well, right, Yeah, that to me is
like one of his I don't know, And again I
don't know timing wise, if it still could work in
twenty twenty one. I beg him all the time, like
why haven't why is this the only film of yours
that's not you know, available for screening?

Speaker 3 (58:55):
Was he saying, I don't know.

Speaker 1 (58:57):
I you know, and it's weird. I've I've done some
uh you know, I've read a few blogs or whatever,
and they'll try to say like, well, you know, this
is his only film that wasn't as timely or you
know that sort of thing like it it didn't age
well or that sort of. I don't know, but he's
sort of just he shruggish about it. But for me,

(59:20):
I don't know. I I between Matt scene and the
final scene with Ozzie Davis and Sam Jackson, I thought
that was some of his most powerful, yeah visuals. So
I guess I want to jump into you as a director,
not just as an editor, as I mentioned at the top.

(59:43):
With Eyes on the Prize too.

Speaker 3 (59:45):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (59:46):
The aforementioned Jesus in the Black Messiah film is based
Judas and the Black I'm sorry I keep saying Jesus
the only one. Wait a minute, I've went on a
record in other places publicly said Jesus and no one
has ever corrected me. That's because we weren't there. Because

(01:00:08):
we weren't there, and that's what we do, We correct
you anyway. So they use the footage from your documentary
interviewing I forget his name, Yeah, William O'Neill, and of
course they they also note that he commits suicide the

(01:00:31):
day that Eyes on the Prize finally gets televised at
the time. Why did you choose to uh include him
in your film? And was he as brash as that
clip seemed to be. You know, he kind of spoke

(01:00:51):
with like no remorse, like, well, at least at least
I did something.

Speaker 3 (01:00:55):
Yeah, yeah, I think he was. I think he was conflicted.
And you know, I think he was a complicated man.
And when when when? You know, because I didn't produce
that particular segment, but I was on the series and uh.

Speaker 1 (01:01:08):
Oh okay, I thought you directed.

Speaker 3 (01:01:10):
That I didn't direct, but and you know, the producers
whose voices really asked the question was a woman, you know,
so it's you know, I think I don't think of it.
I think he was a conflicted man. I just think
he was. He was torn, as you can see in
the film, and he caught up with him emotionally and psychically,
you know, you.

Speaker 4 (01:01:31):
Know, and also too they just didn't show uh well
not the shortened movie, but I think a lot of
times context is lost on just how young they were
when they got involved doing this ship.

Speaker 3 (01:01:41):
He was caught up, he was caught up between a
rock and a hard place. Yeah, you know, so you know,
he was a conflicted man. So it's a sad story,
quite honestly, very sair.

Speaker 4 (01:01:52):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:01:53):
So with h m ok FBI, what what prompted you
to even return to the story or like to investigate
the story because I guess for a lot of people,
you know, there's there's sort of a fatigue on civil
rights and how many ways we can tell the story.
How did you know that there was another story to

(01:02:14):
tell that we weren't aware of.

Speaker 3 (01:02:16):
It was a book. We read, this book by David Garrow,
historian about the surveillance of King by the FBI and Hoover,
and we thought it would be a good story if
we told it right. We thought we could make it work.
And you know, the reality is is that I don't
think there's going to be a fatigue on stories about
King or Malcolm or even you know, Fred Hampton. I mean,
there's always an appetite, and this is this is history now,

(01:02:38):
this is forty years almost fifty years ago, so this
has become really important history. So we thought we could
give it a new spin. You did, you did, and
that's what we did, you know, that's that's why we
did it. You know, it was a new way to
tell the story.

Speaker 1 (01:02:52):
How did you? As far as the film concerns, it
really gets deep into how the FBI tries to to intimidate,
a manipulate and use propaganda against King, especially his uh
kind of philandering if you will, with other women and

(01:03:13):
that sort of thing. Was there any apprehension whatsoever to
sort of let that cat out of the back even
though these things are on record. I know they're on record,
but the I don't think the average Joe likes says
I'm a good FI and and you know.

Speaker 3 (01:03:28):
There were reservations. You know, we we talked about it.
You know, we felt like, you know, what's going to
happen if we put this stuff in? You know, is
it gonna are we going to be doing this the
service of the FBI. And we talked about it constantly,
but we knew that if we left it out, someone
would say, well, you guys really just you know, tried
to clean this up and not whitewashed actor King whitewash it.

(01:03:49):
So you know, we we talked about it, We talked
about we talked about it, We tried that, we tried
different versions of the section about supposed the supposed great
until we felt we were doing we were being responded filmmakers.
So you know, it's it's never sometimes the decisions you
make are never easy, but you have to make a decision.
And that's that when we say, okay, let's make the decision.

(01:04:10):
We're going to put it in. We're going to try
to be responsible filmmakers and tell it in a way
that doesn't sound doesn't seem salacious.

Speaker 1 (01:04:17):
Were there things that you discovered in Uh? Well, first
of all, what is the research besides the book? How
much personal research do you as director have to do
and not just like okay with your team or that
sort of No.

Speaker 3 (01:04:33):
No, you got to read books, you got to read articles.
You know, you try to do as much research as
you can so you understand the subject you're going to tackle,
and then you bring on an archivo producer to help
you find the material that you think can help visualize
and orally tell orally tell the story, you know, so
you always I mean, when you're making these films, you
got to do homework. You know, you could do homework.

(01:04:56):
You could you could do homework on any of these
documentaries for two three years before you make the film.
But sometimes you get schedules and you have to sort
of do it faster, you know. So I read the book,
I read some of the letters, I read some of
the friend of Freedom of Information Act material, you know,
and Ben did also, so we knew what we were doing.

Speaker 2 (01:05:17):
You know, did the King family have well given especially
given who you are, did they have any like heads
up or.

Speaker 1 (01:05:25):
Okay?

Speaker 3 (01:05:26):
Because we know the King family is litigious. You know,
they're looking at they're looking to make money, you know,
and when they're making money, it's you know, we knew
that they want to they want to charge for any
time you see doctor King's image or hear his voice.
And you know, the amazing thing, you know is that

(01:05:48):
they didn't shoot that footage. It was shot by networks
and stuff like that. But they feel proprietory sort of
you know, ownership of their father's image.

Speaker 2 (01:05:57):
And this brings up a good subject because I we
this of Mike Africa and uh, well, I'm sorry the directors,
Tommy Tommy, yes, Tommy Oliver, I'm sorry who did it?
Who did their documentary? And it's interesting that people layman

(01:06:19):
don't understand how people get paid for like their appearances
in documentaries and things of that nature. And I was
I kind of learned a little on this process of
a mirror doing songs of songs that shook, but just
of archival and breaking down like how it's not really
a money making situation with documentaries, right, Like you shouldn't

(01:06:41):
be thinking in that way, but when you do, there's
a way, there's a different way of doing things. Am
I wrong in saying that? Well, it's correct me saying
correctly If I'm not.

Speaker 3 (01:06:52):
Yeah, you should never you should never think you're going
to make a documentary to make money because that's not
really ever happened.

Speaker 2 (01:07:00):
But even some of the participants who feel like they're
a part of this story and this mood, this this
project is going to make money. So if I'm seeing
on camera, then I should make a But even.

Speaker 1 (01:07:11):
If they break the record for highest documentary, the.

Speaker 3 (01:07:17):
Rule of thumb is you should never pay a subject
to do a documentary.

Speaker 1 (01:07:21):
I found out something in this process. Okay, Well, I
found out that if the subject is the executive producer
of the project, like, that's kind of a conflict of interest.
So that in other words, like because Wu Tang insisted
on being the executive producers of that documentary, they're not

(01:07:42):
eligible for uh you know, like awards. He's like for it.
I guess that would be an Emmy thing. They wouldn't
be eligible. And also you cannot pay yourself. You can't
pay a subject to be a talking head. However, right, however,
I found out there's a slight. I don't know if

(01:08:05):
this is the magician giving away that's.

Speaker 2 (01:08:07):
What I thought I was doing when I said the
archival thing, right, yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:08:11):
If someone has if someone has something that you wanted
to use in your film, arch title or skills.

Speaker 1 (01:08:17):
Yeah, you say quote archival.

Speaker 3 (01:08:19):
Yeah, you're paying your license in their materials that you
can do.

Speaker 1 (01:08:24):
Yeah, but I will say that that's that's a loop
around it. You can do archival. Okay, Okay, that's the sort.

Speaker 3 (01:08:32):
Of thing I'm never going to pay.

Speaker 2 (01:08:38):
I got though, I get it together.

Speaker 3 (01:08:43):
That may change it.

Speaker 1 (01:08:45):
So, Sam, I just want to talk about the upcoming
projects you have. Well, in particular the the the Negro
League project that you're proposing. So since you're at the
beginning of it, what in your like, in your mind,
do you already have an outline of what you want
to achieve or is it still a thing where you
have to see what you're given and then add to

(01:09:09):
it later, or.

Speaker 3 (01:09:11):
It's a it's a combination of both. I mean, in
the case of the negro Leagues, we know we have
you know, uh, Bob Madley, Brian's father to help tell
that story, right, he's gonna We're gonna do it. And
I've been reading this book again, so we know we're
gonna have elements from his life to tell that story.
And then the other element I know that we're going

(01:09:33):
to have to tell the story is the archival images,
religion stills to tell the story. And we also have
this this this this box full of interviews that that
Byron did over the years, and I'm gonna use and
in this particular case, because some of it's not shot,
so well, I'm gonna use it as audio. I'm gonna
use it as audio only, okay, because I don't want

(01:09:54):
to see some of these people on camera. I'm gonna
do it audio to help tell that story, you know.
And the other element that that I you know, you've
heard me say this is to create these impressionistic recreations
of the fields, of the places they played, of the
of the of the locker rooms they were in, give
you a sense of that experience to make it. My

(01:10:15):
attitude is to try to make this film as poetic
and informative it's possible, you know, in a different way
than I've did in ok FBI. This one. I wanted
to have more poetry, you know, this, whereas I want
the music to sort of you know, replicate the period
that the negro leagues evolved through, you know. So that'll

(01:10:36):
take me back to this. There was a great musician
for my taste, you know, from the from the early thirties,
you know, you know name, what was his name, Ernie Fields.
He had he had he had a great jump band
in the thirties, and his music would be absolutely appropriate
for the negro leagues, you know, even quite honestly, you know,

(01:10:57):
Count Besie's early bands come out of that side. What's feel,
you know whatever, That would be a great feel for
that period. Also, you know, yeah, herschel Evans and Lester Young,
you know, and Ben Webster. You know. So my head's
already thinking the kind of musical template I want to
use to help tell this story.

Speaker 1 (01:11:18):
My final question is is there a film project that
you long to do that you haven't and that also
includes nondocumentary stuff as well, like is there a fantasy
film that you want to knock out the box?

Speaker 3 (01:11:34):
Well? You know, I got the Max Shrow Show, which
is almost done tweaking now, and if I had, if
there's if there was a fantasy film I had to do. Man,
you know, I was listening to I would do a film.
I would do a film not about Blue Note Records.
I would do a film about the musicians who were

(01:11:57):
probably Blue Note Records, but who had a style that
the change from what I call that Hardbot period to
the post Coltrane McCoy tyner period. Listening to people like
Joe Henderson and Sonny Rollins, you know, Freddie Waits, you know,
you know, because I mean I'm so into the music
that's my head always, you know.

Speaker 1 (01:12:18):
Okay, So basically the stuff that Ken didn't cover in
his documentary.

Speaker 3 (01:12:23):
Is exactly right, man, exactly right. Joe Henderson, Man, No,
Freddie waits you know.

Speaker 1 (01:12:30):
Yeah, I get it. Well, Sam, I thank you for
coming on the show. We really appreciate it was fun.

Speaker 3 (01:12:36):
It was fun, guys, and this.

Speaker 4 (01:12:38):
Was super fun.

Speaker 1 (01:12:38):
Yeah man.

Speaker 4 (01:12:39):
And if you see Brendon's telling myself what up?

Speaker 1 (01:12:41):
Because give me that, give me that wrapp again?

Speaker 3 (01:12:43):
Man for the opening.

Speaker 6 (01:12:44):
Pimps on a stroll, Holes on the road, meet can
did she's looking Dan dig on a Friday night. Everyone knows.
The names change, but the game remain. It's the same.

Speaker 1 (01:13:03):
I don't know who you are any more fun. I
do not know who you are, ladies and gentlemen.

Speaker 4 (01:13:11):
Who who's scoring?

Speaker 1 (01:13:12):
What's at the point?

Speaker 3 (01:13:13):
Anybody?

Speaker 1 (01:13:14):
Anybody you know?

Speaker 3 (01:13:20):
Because because bo is his brother is Jimmy Owens a
trumpet player? Good night?

Speaker 1 (01:13:28):
Yes that's crazy, all right? Well on behalf of like yeah,
sugar Steve, I'm paying Bill and Fante and thank you
saying Paula this quest left signing off we will see
you on the next go around and west left Supreme,
thank you good, take care of very yo.

Speaker 4 (01:13:44):
What's up? This is Fante. Make sure you keep up
with us on Instagram at quls and let us know
what you think. And we should be next to sit
down with us. Don't forget to subscribe to our podcast
all Right.

Speaker 8 (01:13:54):
Peace Must Love Supreme is a production on iHeartRadio.

Speaker 1 (01:14:07):
For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
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