Beyond Fame: Jaleel White on Film Festivals, the "It Factor," and Judging Episodic Content

Renowned actor Jaleel White joins us for an intimate chat on the Cinematography for Actors podcast, offering fresh insight into the world of film festivals. With his debut as a judge at the Mammoth Film Festival, Jaleel brings an engaging perspective on how actors can mesmerize audiences without the crutch of celebrity fame. He humorously reflects on his UCLA film school days, weighing the value of traditional education in a digital age brimming with readily available knowledge. Get ready to explore the mystique of the "It Factor" and how it transcends mere name recognition in captivating storytelling.

As Jaleel opens up about his experience judging episodic television entries, we discuss the art of balancing time management with our shrinking modern attention spans. Despite his TV background, he shares his newfound appreciation for the thrilling diversity of content within the episodic category. This episode is a treasure trove of behind-the-scenes insights, highlighting the passion and dedication of filmmakers and judges alike. Whether you're an industry veteran or a curious newcomer, join us for a compelling look at the ever-evolving landscape of film and television.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
I'm looking for actors that aren't going to draw
me out of the store.

Speaker 2 (00:02):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (00:03):
I don't really care about fame at all, like I really
don't, like.
It's like oh, this is a nameand really a lot of people do.
It's like they get more excitedabout the name of your people
that they see.
Yeah, there's a quality I swearthere's an it factor in a
performer that just makes youwant to watch them.

Speaker 4 (00:20):
Yeah, Right, yeah, right.
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(00:42):
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Now on to the episode Hi.
This is another special shortepisode of the Cinematography

(01:04):
for Actors podcast.
I'm sitting here on ourwonderful couches at the Mammoth
Film Festival with my co-host.

Speaker 3 (01:13):
Jack T, gibson Jack T .

Speaker 4 (01:15):
Gibson and we're sitting here with Give us a name
Jalil White.
Here he is, and he is one ofour judges this year and
something I asked you earlierthat you refused to answer, but
maybe I can get an answer now Ididn't refuse.

Speaker 1 (01:29):
I paused.
I wanted to save all the goodstuff you're gonna throw him
under the bus before the man caneven speak if there's one thing
I wanted to speak into thisgiant mic that you gave me, that
brought you by a hot dog on astick now he's ready to tell us
what did you judge this year,shorts features.

(01:50):
I judged episodics which Ibelieve were for television.
Okay, I really got into it.
It was.
I finally got a chance to putmy my useless UCLA film school
degree to to use.
We love it we love it.

Speaker 4 (02:03):
No shade to UCLA.
Oh no, no, no, don't get mewrong.
I degree to use we love it.

Speaker 3 (02:06):
No shade to UCLA.
I love UCLA.

Speaker 1 (02:09):
Believe me, I'm going to eight.
Clap you right now.
I love my school.
Once you become a father andyou're several decades removed
from your college experience,you go.
They overcharged me.
They overcharged me, theyovercharged me.

Speaker 3 (02:21):
Yeah, this is an expensive school.
They have a charge, they have acharge, they have a charge,
they have a charge, they have acharge.

Speaker 1 (02:26):
Yeah, this is an expensive school.
Yeah, no, college is veryexpensive right now.
No, I'm serious, unfortunately,because Education so much of it
can be found online.
Now, especially during pandemic, a lot of people started
looking at the value of acollege education below
doctorate and master.
Now that's different, becauseyou have a discipline, right

(02:47):
there.
I don't want this to becomeviral.
Jaleel White is down on thecollege experience.

Speaker 3 (02:51):
Jaleel White says no one go to college.
No one go to college.

Speaker 1 (02:54):
That is not what I'm saying, but I'm saying, if your,
parents are going to have tohawk the house for you to go to
college you know you can learnthis shit online.

Speaker 4 (03:04):
Yes, you can.
Okay, so since it is your firsttime judging a film festival,
did you find, while you weredoing, you're watching
beforehand, correct?
And you're getting all of yourdecisions in before you come
here okay.
Is there anything about theprocess that you followed that
you would change if you didanother time?

Speaker 1 (03:21):
I think they were very lenient about the time
frame.
You know that I appreciatedJust the attention span and the
demand on all of our time thesedays.
You know it's not easy to justkeep carving out time to watch.
You know an hour or longer ofsomething, so they might have
known that.
Or I might have just beendiscriminated against because I
haven't done enough movies andI've been more on television, so
they gave me Episodic.

(03:42):
I don't know if I should feelsome kind of way about that, but
I watched some really coolstuff.
I watched some cool stuff,though in Episodic I did.
Okay, maybe that's what I'mqualified currently to weigh in
on, though.

Speaker 3 (03:55):
Don't worry, we're not live.
You can feel however you wantto feel.

Speaker 1 (03:58):
Sandpaper was good.
It stood out.
Puncher's Chance stood out.
Quite a few of them stood out.
What about those episodes?

Speaker 4 (04:04):
stood out to you.

Speaker 1 (04:05):
You know I felt like with those two in particular.
I really appreciated theconnecting storyline.
I felt like the things that theyset up.
They paid off.
And since my category wasspecifically episodic, do you
want to watch another episode?
It was really my, was mycriteria.
I think that's tougher toachieve in comedy and I just

(04:25):
think the bar is higher for thatbecause you got to.
You know there was I forgotwhich one I watched.
It was.
I think it was called theSelectman and there was a
character named Billy that stoodout for me quickly.
I was like they might as welljust call this show Believe in
Billy.
It was actually a piece ofdialogue, but on the dramatic
side Punch's Chance inparticular and Sandpaper they
really paid off the story thatthey were trying to tell

(04:48):
thematically.

Speaker 3 (04:48):
Yeah, great notes for all you episodic submissions.

Speaker 4 (04:51):
Yeah, is this mostly pilots?

Speaker 1 (04:54):
I don't know if they were pilots or not.
Specifically, the running timesfelt like that.
So maybe they were.

Speaker 3 (04:59):
Maybe they were pilots, yeah Well you're also a
pretty prolific actor yourself.
Thank, you, thank you and whenwatching these, I mean all the
submissions, but obviously forthis go-around episodics are
there kind of common themes thatyou see in any of the
submissions that are red flagsor take you out of the story.
That's something good foranyone watching to know if

(05:20):
they're going to submit.

Speaker 1 (05:21):
Yeah, no, that's a damn good question.
I think some of the red flagsthat I look forward to, or look,
I'm sorry, I think some of thered flags that I Can't wait to
see certain red flags.

Speaker 4 (05:29):
Yeah, you're right.
He was like oh, I saw that.

Speaker 1 (05:33):
Press pause, move on to the next Some of the red
flags that will stand out,though, are, on the comedy side,
things that are tonally offright from the gate.
You know, I think the mostimportant thing with comedy is
tone.
Anytime you want to tell acomedic story, you got to let us
know.
Is this surreal right off thebat?
Is this grounded in reality?

(05:54):
Is this nail the genre?
Tell me who I'm supposed to befocused on in in really the
first minute yeah we have someexciting news.

Speaker 2 (06:04):
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Speaker 1 (06:25):
Sometimes the also be consistent with your lead
characters.
So sometimes at a level belowpro, they'll set you up with a
lead character and then deviatefrom that person.
It was like whoa, we weresupposed to be focusing on her.
And it sucks when that happenswhen you were actually starting
to be drawn in.
The other thing I look for,though, is I look for sharp

(06:46):
editing.
The biggest stars of our futurereally are going to be the
editors.
Editing is something that's ateveryone's fingertips now, from
your phone to at a cinematiclevel, so I think even that most
average viewer is a critic ofediting.
Now, really, yeah, is theediting helping or hurting the

(07:12):
pacing?

Speaker 2 (07:13):
of the story Mm-hmm.

Speaker 1 (07:14):
The lighting Mm-hmm matters to me a lot on dramatic
side.

Speaker 3 (07:18):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (07:19):
What mood are you setting?
You know, it's really just theoverall production value that
I'm looking for is.
Let me know, are youprofessional?

Speaker 2 (07:26):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (07:28):
Or just whatever story you're telling.
I'm looking for all thosecategories.

Speaker 3 (07:32):
Yeah, and.

Speaker 1 (07:32):
I'm also.
I'm looking for actors thataren't going to draw me out of
the story.

Speaker 3 (07:35):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (07:36):
I don't really care about fame at all, like I the
story, yeah, I don't really careabout fame at all like I really
don't like.
It's like, oh, this is a nameand really, though, a lot of
people do, yeah, it's like theyget more excited about the name
of your people that they see.
Yeah, um, there's, there's aquality, I swear there's an it
factor in the performer thatjust makes you want to watch
them yeah, right and they eitherhave it or they don't, and

(07:57):
that's a tough one to weigh inon openly yeah because you don't
want to hurt anybody's feelings.
But name names, like I waslet's hear it like in mine, in
my category, I watched uh, thisone called uh sandpaper and it
was just like the two leads inthat were just they.

Speaker 4 (08:14):
They put me in yeah do you think that it factor
happens when someone, someone,is placed in a role that is
truly authentic to what they canbring to the table?
It's not like this person hastalent or this person doesn't.
It's this person is in theright role for them or they're
not.

Speaker 1 (08:32):
You know what?
All talent can be misused.
True, all talent can be void ofdirection.
When I am acting, I love greatdirection.
I love it when, a you know,sometimes you get these quiet
directors who don't even saymuch, but when they do speak up
they always have something smartto say and it's like ooh, okay,

(08:53):
like I've had certain directorsliterally maybe only talk to me
like two or three times, talkedto me like two or three times,
and it was like but every timeyou guys spoke, they had
something to help them.
That really helped me betterunderstand the tone that they
were looking for.
So, yeah, I think that answersyour question.

Speaker 4 (09:07):
Yeah, yeah, it does.
Yeah, was there any criteriathat the festival gave you for
episodic that you're looking for?

Speaker 1 (09:12):
they didn't really give me a hard criteria.
I kind of set one for my ownand I was do, I want to watch
another episode.
Great yeah uh, that was mynumber one criteria.
Yeah, it's.
How quickly do I want to watchanother episode?
Um good criteria, you know Idon't, and I don't even think it
has to be a cliffhanger to wantto watch another episode that's
why I said for for comedy.
If I were to give a note outthere to people who are looking

(09:33):
at submit future submissions.
Worry more on about characterdevelopment yeah whenever I'm,
I'm, uh, whenever you introduceme to somebody, how well am I
getting to know the manydimensions of this person in in
as little dialogue as possible?
yeah character development.
What about?

(09:54):
This person jumps out to me.
Be funny, quickly, that's notover the top, right, you know,
are they, are they?
Are they ocd, are they?
You know there's many differentthings, comedically, that a
character can inhabit so if Isee one character that I like in
a comedy, I'm like great.
If I see two, you are.
I'm halfway to saying I want towatch another episode, okay
great, there we go, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 4 (10:15):
Well, I think, specifically.

Speaker 3 (10:17):
what is cool is all those, all those categories that
you listed that you're lookingout for, that maybe have some
trouble spots, aren't you know?
Having more money and a biggerbudget can certainly help those
things, but they're notexclusive to that.
You can work on lighting, youcan work on you know your tone
and all those categories youlisted, without a big budget.

(10:38):
That's all stuff that you cando, just bettering your own
craft.

Speaker 1 (10:40):
Yep, yep, yep.
So I put a lot of this on thedirectors.

Speaker 2 (10:44):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (10:44):
I really do.
Directors and editors they'rethe superstars of the future.
Yeah, that's what I look for.

Speaker 4 (10:49):
Okay, great, thank you so much, julia.
Yeah, before we wrap it up, Iwant to know what category do
you hope that you judge nexttime?

Speaker 1 (11:00):
Oh wow, You're going to make me put myself on the
hook.
Best editing.

Speaker 4 (11:07):
Daryl White wants to judge best editing for your film
festival.
Great, thank you so much forbeing with us.

Speaker 3 (11:13):
You got it.
See you all next time.
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