Questlove & Joseph Patel on the Challenges of Creating 'Sly Lives!' | THR Studio at Park City

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'Sly Lives!' director Questlove shares that making the film was both emotional and a "rollercoaster of storytelling" during his interview at THR's studio at Park City. Plus, producer Joseph Patel shares the hardest challenges they faced while making the film as well as Sly Stone's involvement.

Transcript

00:00I will say that probably In Time on Fresh is my favorite Sly song, but it's hard to say because he has so many gems.

00:11You know my favorite.

00:13Oh, God. Why do you like Time for Living?

00:15No, not Time for Living. My favorite favorite is Family Fair.

00:18Oh, okay.

00:19We were editing Summer Soap and Sly and the Family Stone was who we were editing.

00:30And in my head, I was like, wow, Sly doesn't know that 10 days from this very performance,

00:36his life is going to completely shift upside down.

00:39And what happens in the next four years after Woodstock should be one for the history books.

00:47And I'm just kind of saying like, man, that's the documentary we really should be doing.

00:53And literally 24 hours later, out of nowhere, of all people, Common calls me.

00:59It's like, yeah, I've written Variety.

01:00Y'all doing that Black Woodstock film.

01:03Hey, you interested in Sly and the Family Stone?

01:06Because he's in that Woodstock film, right?

01:08And literally I thought like, you know, Siri was giving me away or whatever.

01:12I'm like, I literally just said this to those guys yesterday that this is what we need to be doing.

01:17So the project found us, for this one, it's a roller coaster of storytelling as far as emotions are concerned.

01:27I think one of the biggest differences with this film versus Summer of Soul is it's not a particular time and place.

01:35It's one person's story across 50 years.

01:39And I think, you know, I think one of the hardest things that we had to do was like, how much of the story, you know, do we put in the movie?

01:4850 years is a lot to cram into two hours.

01:50And so I think the challenge of making those choices is part of what the fun part was.

01:55You know, that part of that acquiring his rights was his blessing, right?

02:00We couldn't interview him for this film because his health problems prevent him from, and it just wouldn't be good to put him on camera.

02:07And that's kind of how the title came about, right?

02:10It's like whether he's here in physical form or not, because we weren't sure, you know, if he would still be alive.

02:16That's how we finished the movie.

02:17Whether he's here in physical form or not, his music lives on, his influence lives on.

02:24We showed him the film at the end as a courtesy.

02:28And through his manager and caretaker, she said that he loved it and was very proud.

02:34And then, you know, Thursday night we had our premiere here.

02:37And the three kids, his three kids were here and they were seeing it for the first time.

02:42And that was such a special feeling.

02:43I don't know if you got a chance to talk to Novena after, but she was like, there's things in there that I didn't know about my father.

02:48For me, the best part of this process was going through the hundreds and hundreds of hours of reels of music,

02:56listening to alternate takes, listening to songs morph drastically into what we now know it as,

03:08but starting off totally different, squabbles with the engineer,

03:12sly, playfully chastising band members, you know, it was, it's like a music freaks, ideal fly on the wall situation.

03:28So that said, I mean, that people know, you know,

03:37I will say that probably In Time on Fresh is my favorite sly song,

03:46but it's, it's hard to say because he has so many gyms.

03:49You know, my favorite.

03:51Oh God, why do you like Time for Living?

03:53No, not Time for Living, my favorite favorite is Family Affair.

03:56Oh, okay.

03:57And what's funny is that song is so short, the version that's out in the world is like three minutes long.

04:03So when we were putting together the soundtrack, Amir did an edit of that song

04:07that sort of mimics a little bit the original version, which is like four minutes and 50 seconds.

04:13Yeah, almost five minutes.

04:14Yeah, almost five minutes.

04:15Yeah, that was pretty cool.

04:17How Amir and I even know each other is I was a music journalist.

04:21And in 1996, I got assigned a story on The Roots that would be my first cover story.

04:26It was also the first time The Roots were on a cover of an American music magazine.

04:29I got flown to Philadelphia to interview them and that's how we met and we clicked right away

04:35because at his heart, Amir is a fan, but also I think deep down inside wanted to be a music journalist.

04:44He knew what pieces I had written, what reviews I had written.

04:47And for many years after that meeting, we would argue about rap records.

04:51And it's really kind of incredible to work with one of your musical heroes,

04:58but it's also really kind of incredible to see Amir on the other side now being the storyteller

05:03and getting to sort of fulfill that dream.

05:05So that's a real joy for me.

05:07It's also us being in a place where we want to be the change that we want to see.

05:13And oftentimes you'll see, you know, like music documents, not to put anyone that's ever attempted

05:22because there's some music documentaries that are life-changing,

05:25but more often than not, it's just, you know, typical talking head says,

05:31that's incredible and you just, you know, you got to teach people why something's incredible,

05:37put it in proper context.

05:39And that's the fun part.

05:40I think that's the difference between our level of storytelling is you could immediately

05:48tell that music is like our wheelhouse, our passion in the shows.

05:53There's a scene in the movie where we break down dance to the music.

05:57And, you know, I think very intentionally we wanted to give the viewer and the audience

06:02the tools to see why that was such a, why it's such a catchy song,

06:07but also why it's very sophisticated and what, what, what slide did that isn't easy to replicate

06:12and having Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis and Niall Rogers who, you know,

06:17break down exactly the parts of the song and why it's catchy.

06:20Like that kind of part of the storytelling is really exciting.

06:26And I think that's the thing, at least I, I think Amir would agree,

06:30is we, we take that technique, that'll probably be used in future documentaries we do.

06:37We take that technique, I think.

Questlove & Joseph Patel on the Challenges of Creating 'Sly Lives!' | THR Studio at Park City

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