00:00But can you each talk
00:27about the notion of visual style in conveying a certain emotion or an idea?
00:34Because each of these films have those kinds of ideas.
00:37Yeah.
00:38If you'd like to start.
00:39For sure.
00:41The visual identity for the film really kind of started with the passion of Joan of Arc
00:44and like the close-up.
00:45Yeah.
00:46Like the idea of how a close-up can really invite the viewer into a certain emotional
00:51frame where you can't escape.
00:54And kind of putting that on top of the story that is the plight of a lot of young black
01:00men, which is like, we don't want to be seen because there's so much pain underneath.
01:03And so it's like, what are you looking at?
01:05Don't look at me.
01:06But in this film, you are forced to look at them.
01:08And so you're forced to be reckoned with their humanity, the entirety of the film.
01:12And that in conversation with some of my other kind of inspirations, which were like Maria
01:17Brominovic and the artist is present.
01:19And like that exhibition where she just sat in front of people and just stared at them.
01:24And also just some of my other influences like Terrence Malick and Tarkovsky in terms
01:29of like how I shot some of the B-roll and some of those scenes.
01:33And so like the visual language really came out of a lot of the inspirations that informed
01:37the film.
01:38And so me and my director of photography really just kind of went back and forth on that to
01:41create the visual language that made the film.
01:42I have remembered reading my eighth grade yearbook and realized all the chances I had
01:49squandered as girls floated in jail pen.
01:57Take one summer of heartbreak.
02:01It turned out exactly how I saw it in my head.
02:03And so in order to get the image that was already in my head out, I met with the costumer
02:09because costume is a character.
02:11The light is such a character.
02:13The production designer, Arnella Barbara, she really captured it.
02:17You know, it's a period piece.
02:18So it really captured the vibe of the time period in 1928.
02:23And I wanted the tone of it to be quite dark and foreboding in places.
02:30But there's also a really strategic use of light that is quite metaphorical throughout
02:35it.
02:36But the overall, and even sound is a character in it and where it empties out.
02:43And having the conversation also with my director of photography, Jake McPherson, and knowing
02:47that he understood that space in a film and lighting is so incredibly important.
02:54And so all those things cohesively came together of having those conversations of trying to
03:01pull the idea out of the brain and get it out onto the film.
03:05So that was really the thing is it had to have a darkness, but also show these moments
03:11of not epiphany necessarily, but in a sense to experience.
03:24They both deal with the essence of what time means and how time impacts you.
03:47Yeah.
03:47Obviously, yours is done almost in a more literal form, where hers is done in more like a
03:53ephemeral form, where it's just like, this is how we become who we are, which is an
03:59interesting idea because it's about environments, about circumstance.
04:02It's about...
04:03Expectations.
04:04Yeah.
04:04Yeah.
04:05Could you each talk about that in reference to it?
04:07Yeah.
04:08I think you talked about it like the expectation in my film is the thing that weighs heavy over
04:17a period of time.
04:18And what does that do to a person?
04:20What does life circumstances do to a person in terms of time?
04:23And in a more literal sense, as you see the character kind of grow older, for me growing
04:29up, I was obsessed with time.
04:30I never knew why.
04:31I would ask my brother all the time, like, what time is it?
04:33He's like, it's 4 or 5.
04:34You asked me at 4 o'clock.
04:36It's five minutes later.
04:37And so this idea of time.
04:39But then as a filmmaker, having time as a tool that I can use, right?
04:44And so moments of really elongated, like, pause or silence.
04:50There's a scene at the beach where it's just this kind of breaking moment of just silence
04:55in the midst of everything else.
04:56Or the extended stares that some of the characters have, where you're just forced to kind of look
05:00at them.
05:01And so just playing with time in different kind of ways, really quickly or really extending
05:20a moment beyond what feels comfortable and kind of using as a mechanism to also help
05:24tell the story.
05:26Malik is so good at that.
05:27Oh, yeah.
05:27100%.
05:28Yeah.
05:28Yeah.
05:29And I love that because I think so often that filmmakers, I think we have gotten to a point
05:36where we just want to be done this too, nonstop, right?
05:40And sometimes it works, right?
05:42Like, you know, a Marvel film, you want to have everything coming at you all the time.
05:45But I think there's something really to be said about allowing the audience to sink into
05:50the moment because there's a morphing that happens.
05:55I know it does for me is that when I'm watching a film that allows me to sink into it and gives
06:02me that space, the first reaction is usually discomfort.
06:05And then as you start to get into that, not emptiness, it's actually, I think space is
06:12more full than the browbeat thing, you know?
06:16So, yeah, I really appreciate it.
06:18It's one of our greatest tools that we have as filmmakers.
06:19I agree.
06:20Yeah.
06:35How much longer must we wait, Father?
06:46Patience.
06:48Yes.
06:51Sometimes they call it films that are demanding because it requires our attention in a way
06:55that some other films don't, you know?
06:57Yeah.
06:57We can just kind of put them on and it just gives us everything we need versus other films
07:02which require something of us.
07:04Which I think is kind of a really sweet spot for some films.
07:08But it's also about, you know, subtlety.
07:11Yeah.
07:11Because that's the thing is that you can do have these sort of, you know, benchmark moments,
07:16but it's about those little things between the lines.
07:19You know, I mean, your character is, the character has been around for a long time and that creates
07:26a sense of who we are.
07:27Your character, we see him all through his life.
07:31Yeah.
07:31But he even says, that's why that voiceover is so key.
07:34He's like, okay, I should have done this in my relationships.
07:38Did I?
07:39No.
07:39Right.
07:39This is, but I understood.
07:41Right.
07:42Which is a really interesting sort of, you know, psychology.
07:45Yeah.
07:45Yeah.
07:45And even the voiceover for the film wasn't part of the original idea.
07:51Okay.
07:51Like I said, the film started in one place.
07:55The idea in ways died and then I had to resurrect it.
07:59And, you know, that was really important for me to not let it go.
08:02So the death of an idea that I thought was like, oh, this is washed.
08:05Like, this is not going to work anymore.
08:07Really laid the foundation for an idea that built upon that.
08:10And then even after the first shoot, the voiceover still wasn't part of it.
08:15I had to go back out and shoot additional B-roll just because it wasn't quite there.
08:19Yeah.
08:19And so that, like you said, really making sure that what came out on the screen was exactly
08:25what was in my head was so important and trusting that along the way until I got to
08:29a place where I could sit back and say, okay, this is, this is good.
08:32Wow.
08:32There's something here.
08:33Some day you'll do great things, she told me.
08:53Details are so important.
09:05Obviously, the crown, fire, all, there's all these things that are almost grounded earth.
09:12Yeah.
09:12You know, and yet, and the colors in yours and the way she does things.
09:17No spoilers.
09:18I was going to say.
09:19No, those are choices.
09:22Those are specific choices, you know, and that has to do with direction of your actors
09:26too.
09:27Yeah.
09:27Because you talk about details, A, but then direction beyond that.
09:31Or uncomfortable with our greatness, right?
09:33Oh.
09:34So we might put on the crown, but it's, it's at a tilt because we're not ready to wear
09:39it full on.
09:40And that's what I, when I look, I know that that's not answering your question yet, but
09:43I was going to say when I, because I haven't seen your film yet, but the poster, it was,
09:47as I said earlier, it was so evocative because I thought, oh, that kid, he's like, he's got
09:52it in him, but he's not yet comfortable with having, that was just my immediate response.
09:56So even something as, as what's seemingly minute as a poster, it has such a huge impact.
10:03Yeah.
10:03Yeah.
10:04And spoke to.
10:06Well, thank you.
10:06Yeah, for sure.
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