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[Davis] Hi, this is Zeinabu Irene Davis.

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I am the producer, director,
and creditor of Compensation.

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<i>[Cheryl My name is Marc Chery,
and I am the writer and coproducer.</i>

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[D�sir] This is Pierre D�sir,

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and I am the cinematographer
and the storyboard artist.

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[Davis] So the title
of the film, Compensation,

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includes the word "compensation�
written in regular print

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but also with ASL letters.

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The film itself is dedicated
to Toni Cade Bambara,

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who was a writer

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as well as an important influence
on many of us,

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Scott Eddins, who was one of my students,

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who passed away from HIV/AIDS
right before the film started,

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and then lastly, it was for my auntie
Winifred Davis as well.

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The music was done
by Reginald R. Robertson,

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who did all of the ragtime score.

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And the original African percussive music
was done by Atiba Jali.

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Sound design was done in Chicago
with Maestro-Matic.

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And we had
a wonderful art director, Janina,

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who came from theater background.

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Cathy Cook is an experimental filmmaker
as well as a good friend of mine.

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We know who this guy is.

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[Davis and D�sir chuckle]

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-[D�sir] Yeah.
-[Davis] He's sitting right here.

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And Yvonne was from Chicago.

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Yvonne and Dana were both

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at the School of the Art Institute
in Chicago.

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So they were really instrumental
in making sure the film got done.

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And the film is introduced
by Haitian v�ve� symbols.

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The first one is Legba,
Keeper of the Crossroads,

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because that's how you begin a story.

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And then this is the text
of the poem "Compensation�

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that was written by Paul Laurence Dunbar
before he passed away

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from tuberculosis in 1906.

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So it's one of the last poems
that he wrote,

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and we were introduced to it

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because it used to be on a plaque
outside of his home in Dayton, Ohio.

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I just love Dunbar's eyes in this photo.

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It's one of my favorite photos of him,
as a young man.

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The title cards themselves
are styled after early silent cinema.

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So you see the two heads
of my logo for my company,

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Wimmin With a Mission.

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The heads are book ended on that,

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and then we used whatever script
that seemed most appropriate.

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It took me many years

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to find these photographs
that introduce us to Chicago.

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As an independent--

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Alternative independent cinema
that we are a part of,

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I did not have the funds

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to actually redesign streets
on contemporary Chicago

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to look like 1905 Chicago.

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The best way for us to do that was
to actually incorporate still photography,

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historical photographs.

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So many of these photographs

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were specifically
from the Chicago History Center.

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[D�sir] I think also, because we had
a limited budget and limited time,

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we couldn't look for places

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that would convey the time
that we were trying to recreate.

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[Davis] Right, right, right.

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And I played
a little fast and dirty with it,

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so the photo of the people on the street
is actually from Richmond, Virginia.

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It's not from Chicago.

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But it was very difficult at that time
to access photographs.

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The Chicago Defender
was one of the early papers

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that was dedicated to serving
the Black community of Chicago

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at the time.

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It's where I got a lot
of my source material

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about where the films were started.

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We had to actually physically go
to the archives.

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This wasn't when you can actually
look stuff up digitally online.

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This is pre-online digital archives.

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So a lot of these
were from different places

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from all over the country.

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Unusual places too.

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There's no folder that says
"African American early life."

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There were different places
where you had to find things,

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like Visiting Nurses' Association

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or something that had to do
with, like, labor or other subject matter.

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And the archivists
were really, really good to me.

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And the longer I was there,

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the more they would bring out materials
for me to use.

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So I really appreciated them.

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Scott Joplin was such a big influence
on American music,

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and I don't think that he gets the due
that he should have.

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This sequence introduces Malindy.

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And you notice that each character
will have a different type of script

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and a symbol.

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Hers is a sewing needle and thread.

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So we do that for each character.

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These were from Gallaudet University.

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So these were photographs
that actually came from Gallaudet

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that showed the history
of Deaf education in this country.

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And this incident did also happen,

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that the Kendall School for the Deaf
segregated in 1906,

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and then Black and, at that time,
Indigenous Americans

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were segregated out of the school.

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So this is them before that happened.

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So basically, those title cards
are trying to contextualize the film

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for our audiences

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so that they know this is not just
something that was done fictionally.

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It's actually based
in historical fact and record.

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We were influenced by what we knew
to build the film.

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[D�sir] I really enjoyed shooting
in the dunes,

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and I took influence

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from both Rashomon and La Strada

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as great black-and-white cinema.

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I looked at them

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because we had videotapes
at Ithaca College, where I was working.

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So... Ah, yes, this was strictly chance.

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[Davis] The scene with the ducks
and the girls catching the ducks

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were found by
one of our production assistants,

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Christine Minor.

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She said, "Z, come on,
you gotta come see this!

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Come see. Come look at this."

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And we rushed over,

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and Pierre and Greg, who was our AC,
were able to capture that really quickly.

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So... independent film making:

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Use the resources
that are available to you

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or the opportunities
that open themselves to you.

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[D�sir] Now, this is
not Chicago, obviously.

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This is the Indiana Dunes
on Lake Michigan.

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It was a great location.

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[Davis] Yeah, it was called Kemil Beach,
is where we were filming here.

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And this young girl, Tildy Evans,

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was the daughter of one of my good
also-filmmaker friends, Portia Cobb,

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who is also in the film later on.

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And that's her daughter Nirvana.

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I wanted to talk a little bit
about the sound in this scene too.

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We-- Of course,
because we're shooting at the beach,

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we have to do all of the sound
for the chalkboard

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in an ADR session later on.

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But it was really important to make sure

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that the emotion that happens between
these two characters gets expressed

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through the way
that the chalk is percussively hit

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on the little slate that she has.

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So when you see this,

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it's actually me in the edit room

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going through and writing this text,

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but I'm actually trying to, like,

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capture the emotion
of Malindy in particular here,

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when she responds to Tildy
that she's not deaf and dumb.

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So I hit the slate really hard

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to make sure that that percussive emotion
reflected the anger and hurt

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that Malindy felt.

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And then, of course, Tildy realizes
what she says and says that she's sorry,

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and she's learning sign language
and alphanumeric text.

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She's learning sign language
at the same time.

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And again, trains were a really big way

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that folks emigrated
from the South to the North.

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A lot of folks in Chicago were coming up

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from places like Alabama
and Mississippi, Louisiana.

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So by not having dialogue
in the beginning of this film...

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There is no dialogue
until about 20 minutes in.

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...we wanted to get you
into the world of silent cinema,

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so sound effects and sound design
were super important,

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along with the photographs,

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to set you contextually back
into this early-1900s time period.

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And I also love this photograph,
which was...

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There was a flood,
and people were waiting to be recuperated.

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So the idea was to, like, just make sure

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that you kind of felt like
you were back in that time period

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through the use of the photographs
and the sound and the live action.

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So integrating all of those together

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to kind of build this world
in the early 1900s

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was super important for us.

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[Ch�ry] But it is also
to kind of build a world

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that folks were running all away from.

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For example, you see the cotton fields

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and hard domestic work in the South.

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It's to set...

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It's to try to show
what people like Malindy

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and the other folks are getting away from,
from the South.

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[D�sir] Especially that zoom-in
on that face, you can see the...

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The careworn face of that woman.

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-Obviously it appealed to you.
-[Davis] Yeah.

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-[D�sir] Because you zoom in on it.
-[Davis] Mm-hm.

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[Davis] This was a church
in Evanston that actually...

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You can tell from our sign

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that we kind of co-opted it

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to be what we needed it to be.

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But the idea was, again,

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to show how Malindy
was really a part of the community...

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and welcoming--
She's a woman who's well-off.

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She's not a migrant.

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Her family's been established
in Chicago for quite some time.

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And so she's part of the group of people

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who would welcome new migrants
into the city

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and provide, you know,
whatever needs they might have,

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being clothing, jobs, food,
so on and so forth.

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[D�sir] But I also think
that's very important,

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that you show an African American family

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that has been established
and is living in an established way,

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while American cinema
has rarely shown that,

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-at least till recently.
-[Davis] Yeah.

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[D�sir] But most of the time,
you just see servants and slaves,

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and it's as if that's the only thing
that existed back then.

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And to show that now...

198
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Especially if you could then talk
about somebody like Scott Joplin.

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He wrote music.

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He was an educated man,
which there were a lot of.

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-[Davis] Exactly.
-[D�sir] And so, you know,

202
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that's a part
of what you're trying to convey.

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[Davis] Mm-hm.

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This is one of my favorite shots
in the film,

205
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when Arthur's coming up
at the Kemil Beach in Indiana Dunes.

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[D�sir] And I'm getting wet.

207
00:15:32,597 --> 00:15:35,142
[Davis laughs] Yeah,
you were definitely getting wet.

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And there are those smokestacks
in the background,

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which did exist back in the late 1800s.

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So they're actually correct.

211
00:15:50,657 --> 00:15:54,536
And you notice that Arthur
has a mandolin for his symbol.

212
00:15:54,703 --> 00:15:58,373
Malindy had the spool and thread,
and Arthur has a mandolin.

213
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So he brings music
and he brings new perspective to Malindy.

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00:16:04,546 --> 00:16:07,424
He's found a penny on the shore,

215
00:16:07,591 --> 00:16:11,344
and then he looks up and sees Malindy.

216
00:16:15,390 --> 00:16:18,101
Hopefully, what Reginald's music does
at this point

217
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is also kind of open you up
to these new experiences

218
00:16:22,063 --> 00:16:23,064
and this new chapter

219
00:16:23,231 --> 00:16:26,193
that each of these characters
is gonna have

220
00:16:27,027 --> 00:16:31,490
as part of their experiences
of meeting each other here.

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And of course, this part of the film
is very much influenced

222
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by Julie Dash's Daughters of the Dust.

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We have the women in white
and the umbrellas on the beach,

224
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as they did in Daughters of the Dust

225
00:16:47,756 --> 00:16:50,717
and as you will see
in more contemporary works

226
00:16:50,884 --> 00:16:53,303
with Beyonc�'s Lemonade album.

227
00:16:53,470 --> 00:16:56,515
Same references that are being made there.

228
00:16:57,766 --> 00:17:00,477
We thought a lot
and did a lot of research,

229
00:17:00,644 --> 00:17:02,187
Marc especially,

230
00:17:02,354 --> 00:17:05,524
on making sure
that things got incorporated

231
00:17:05,690 --> 00:17:08,693
from literature into this film.

232
00:17:08,860 --> 00:17:11,363
So you see Malindy reading a book.

233
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We have the title cards
that talk about Du Bois' contributions

234
00:17:17,118 --> 00:17:19,788
and also the Chicago Defender.

235
00:17:19,955 --> 00:17:25,460
So we're trying to establish
that African Americans were reading.

236
00:17:25,627 --> 00:17:28,004
[chuckles] They were writing.
They were reading.

237
00:17:28,171 --> 00:17:32,133
They were very productive members
of American society

238
00:17:32,801 --> 00:17:38,181
back from the beginning
of our introduction to this country.

239
00:17:38,348 --> 00:17:44,521
So those things were important
for us to reflect in the film.

240
00:17:46,106 --> 00:17:50,402
The film is a silent film
very much as a response

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00:17:50,569 --> 00:17:56,116
to the racist film,
D.W. Griffith's Birth of a Nation.

242
00:17:56,992 --> 00:18:01,580
So when we're in film school,
we get bludgeoned with watching that film.

243
00:18:02,080 --> 00:18:03,790
And professors will often talk

244
00:18:03,957 --> 00:18:08,003
about that film's, you know,
great technological achievements,

245
00:18:08,169 --> 00:18:10,547
but they don't talk about the racism

246
00:18:10,714 --> 00:18:15,594
and the ideas of white supremacy
that are inculcated by that film.

247
00:18:15,760 --> 00:18:18,471
So we very much are trying
to go against that.

248
00:18:19,222 --> 00:18:23,727
You just saw that Malindy
is writing a letter to one of the women

249
00:18:23,893 --> 00:18:30,191
who's a fearless campaigner
against racism and lynching in America,

250
00:18:30,817 --> 00:18:32,360
Ida B. Wells-Barnett,

251
00:18:32,527 --> 00:18:39,034
and she was a very brave
and very active journalist

252
00:18:39,200 --> 00:18:40,994
in the early 1900s.

253
00:18:41,494 --> 00:18:45,540
So it was important to make sure
that people who were historical

254
00:18:45,707 --> 00:18:49,544
were also referenced in this film
even though it's fiction.

255
00:18:49,711 --> 00:18:54,257
We still borrow very much
from historical memory

256
00:18:54,424 --> 00:18:57,218
and, you know, actual events.

257
00:18:57,927 --> 00:19:00,305
And if you notice, through the film,

258
00:19:00,472 --> 00:19:04,643
the text "Malindy" is written in cursive.

259
00:19:05,393 --> 00:19:06,394
Go ahead, Marc.

260
00:19:06,895 --> 00:19:09,564
[Ch�ry] I was gonna say
that the other thing to mention too

261
00:19:09,731 --> 00:19:14,861
is that Dunbar and the Malindy character

262
00:19:15,028 --> 00:19:18,990
and the rise of the Chicago Defender,

263
00:19:20,116 --> 00:19:22,369
they're part of this generation,

264
00:19:22,535 --> 00:19:26,081
of what was the second generation,
you could say,

265
00:19:26,247 --> 00:19:27,791
after the Civil War.

266
00:19:28,917 --> 00:19:31,670
So they're coming into their own.

267
00:19:31,836 --> 00:19:36,591
Black Americans are building culture,

268
00:19:36,758 --> 00:19:38,551
specifically a literary culture,

269
00:19:38,718 --> 00:19:42,138
with lots of newspapers being born.

270
00:19:42,305 --> 00:19:44,557
And you have the sense that...

271
00:19:45,809 --> 00:19:48,436
I would say African Americans
have the sense that...

272
00:19:49,688 --> 00:19:53,983
In this period, which is pre-NAACP,

273
00:19:54,567 --> 00:19:59,531
you have a lot of writers,
you have a lot of newspapers.

274
00:19:59,698 --> 00:20:06,162
It's the growth of newspapers
from Chicago to Pittsburgh.

275
00:20:06,996 --> 00:20:12,210
It's just phenomenal,
and it was important to reflect that.

276
00:20:12,377 --> 00:20:16,548
For example, Dunbar is the first writer

277
00:20:16,715 --> 00:20:20,510
of African descent in the U.S.

278
00:20:20,677 --> 00:20:27,267
who actually is making a living
as a writer.

279
00:20:27,434 --> 00:20:31,354
Before him, that does not exist.

280
00:20:33,565 --> 00:20:39,028
And he's actually very popular
in a popular-culture sort of way.

281
00:20:39,195 --> 00:20:42,657
And he's giving voices
to the frustrations,

282
00:20:42,824 --> 00:20:46,244
aspirations of African Americans,

283
00:20:46,411 --> 00:20:50,290
which you see reflected
in that period and in the film.

284
00:20:51,541 --> 00:20:57,839
[Davis] So this scene is actually shot
in the studios at Northwestern University.

285
00:20:58,423 --> 00:21:01,968
We used period wallpaper
to establish the scene.

286
00:21:02,135 --> 00:21:03,887
And over here on the wall,

287
00:21:04,053 --> 00:21:09,851
you see pictures of Frederick Douglass,
Booker T. Washington, Ida B. Wells,

288
00:21:10,018 --> 00:21:12,812
Paul Laurence Dunbar's in the cameo,
in the circle,

289
00:21:12,979 --> 00:21:14,939
and then Lucy Parsons,

290
00:21:15,106 --> 00:21:20,862
who's one of the early women
who influenced the Haymarket riot

291
00:21:21,029 --> 00:21:23,531
and also is part of the reasons

292
00:21:23,698 --> 00:21:28,703
why we have Labor Day
or unions and workers' rights today.

293
00:21:28,870 --> 00:21:34,375
So it was important to have these
be people that were in Malindy's place

294
00:21:34,542 --> 00:21:37,212
so that those photographs on the wall

295
00:21:37,378 --> 00:21:41,341
are kind of like an homage
or an altar, whatever,

296
00:21:41,508 --> 00:21:46,638
that also celebrates that culture
in that particular time period as well.

297
00:21:47,514 --> 00:21:49,682
[Ch�ry] The picture of Lucy Parsons

298
00:21:49,849 --> 00:21:54,020
represents sort of
an internationalist perspective,

299
00:21:54,187 --> 00:21:57,148
connection with working-class struggles

300
00:21:57,315 --> 00:22:00,527
not only in the U.S. but also in Europe.

301
00:22:01,694 --> 00:22:05,073
The Haymarket people and what they rep,

302
00:22:05,240 --> 00:22:08,576
and the slave labor struggles
that they represented,

303
00:22:08,743 --> 00:22:13,957
was one of the few integrated struggles
in the U.S,,

304
00:22:14,499 --> 00:22:16,835
even around 1875.

305
00:22:17,001 --> 00:22:20,672
So to show Malindy being aware of that

306
00:22:20,839 --> 00:22:25,426
definitely places her in a sort of
class consciousness that she has

307
00:22:25,593 --> 00:22:29,472
that most people in
the old settler Black community of Chicago

308
00:22:30,431 --> 00:22:31,891
would have disapproved of.

309
00:22:35,937 --> 00:22:39,691
[Davis] So this is the introduction
to the present-day,

310
00:22:39,858 --> 00:22:42,318
at that time 1990s, Chicago.

311
00:22:43,152 --> 00:22:49,576
The percussive music, done by Atiba Jali
and my good friend Asma Feyijinmi,

312
00:22:49,742 --> 00:22:51,369
were done with an udu.

313
00:22:51,536 --> 00:22:55,039
So it's a water-sounding
percussive instrument.

314
00:22:55,206 --> 00:22:56,916
So that was very important to me,

315
00:22:57,083 --> 00:23:03,131
to also kind of reflect on how Deaf people
have experiences of sound.

316
00:23:03,298 --> 00:23:06,217
It might not be the way
hearing people have it,

317
00:23:06,384 --> 00:23:08,553
but they do have some sensation of sound.

318
00:23:08,720 --> 00:23:11,598
And in talking to Michelle
when we were doing research,

319
00:23:11,764 --> 00:23:15,727
that led us to include certain types
of audio elements

320
00:23:15,894 --> 00:23:18,563
that would reflect
her experiences of sound.

321
00:23:19,564 --> 00:23:22,400
This, again, is shot at the Indiana Dunes.

322
00:23:22,567 --> 00:23:25,069
Again, each character
has their own symbol.

323
00:23:25,236 --> 00:23:27,864
"Malaika" is "angel" in Swahili.

324
00:23:28,031 --> 00:23:32,994
I spent time in Kenya,
so that's reflected in her name.

325
00:23:33,161 --> 00:23:36,706
And then Nico here

326
00:23:36,873 --> 00:23:39,876
also has a v�v� of Ogun

327
00:23:40,418 --> 00:23:45,632
from Haitian religious practices
known as Vodou.

328
00:23:46,215 --> 00:23:51,262
So that was important for us
to represent here in the film.

329
00:23:52,096 --> 00:23:54,390
And we wanted the film to have some...

330
00:23:54,557 --> 00:23:58,895
You know, it's a serious film,
but there's still humor in what happens,

331
00:23:59,062 --> 00:24:02,023
and this is one of those times
when it does, is...

332
00:24:02,523 --> 00:24:05,944
The thought bubbles
that are in the title cards

333
00:24:06,110 --> 00:24:10,531
kind of reflect the goofiness
that Nico has

334
00:24:10,698 --> 00:24:13,743
when he's trying
to get Malaika's attention.

335
00:24:14,327 --> 00:24:17,997
[D�sir] Also, I noticed several times
when we were shooting on the dunes,

336
00:24:18,164 --> 00:24:20,959
I got lucky with an overcast sky.

337
00:24:21,668 --> 00:24:25,672
That shot of modern Chicago,
there was an overcast as well.

338
00:24:26,673 --> 00:24:33,054
Because a lot of it, I'm fighting
with very dark skin, very bright sky.

339
00:24:33,221 --> 00:24:36,683
But if it's overcast, it helped me.
It's like a big scrim.

340
00:24:37,308 --> 00:24:39,185
But in this scene, we've got sun.

341
00:24:39,352 --> 00:24:42,563
And... [chuckles] I was hoping--
And it came out pretty good.

342
00:24:43,231 --> 00:24:44,524
At least, I think it did.

343
00:24:46,025 --> 00:24:47,735
[Davis] I would agree. [chuckles]

344
00:24:49,904 --> 00:24:52,865
[D�sir] But you can see the way
the sky is washed out here,

345
00:24:53,866 --> 00:24:55,827
while, if you look at the earlier shots

346
00:24:55,994 --> 00:25:00,289
when we had the...
Malindy and Tildy, was it?

347
00:25:00,456 --> 00:25:02,083
-[Davis] Mm-hm. Yes.
-[D�sir] Yeah.

348
00:25:02,250 --> 00:25:04,919
-That had a nice scrim over the sky.
-[Davis] Mm-hm.

349
00:25:05,586 --> 00:25:08,047
[D�sir] I was really working
with two different concepts.

350
00:25:08,214 --> 00:25:11,718
There's the concept of the silent film,
the early films,

351
00:25:12,260 --> 00:25:14,137
and then this more modern one,

352
00:25:14,303 --> 00:25:18,683
and trying to at least make a difference
in the image between the two,

353
00:25:18,850 --> 00:25:19,976
but not too much,

354
00:25:20,143 --> 00:25:25,398
because we think of silent film
as very basic, very simple,

355
00:25:25,565 --> 00:25:27,942
and in actuality, no,

356
00:25:28,109 --> 00:25:32,488
they developed a visual language
that was quite complex.

357
00:25:33,114 --> 00:25:36,409
And I tried to portray that
in the earlier shots

358
00:25:36,909 --> 00:25:38,453
so that it's not as different.

359
00:25:38,619 --> 00:25:41,956
But this... This location was amazing,

360
00:25:42,498 --> 00:25:46,919
as far as what it gave me,
as far as background,

361
00:25:47,086 --> 00:25:52,425
and I'm thinking of the whole frame
and then the characters in it.

362
00:25:54,427 --> 00:26:00,975
Again, this very white sand,
these very dark complexions.

363
00:26:01,142 --> 00:26:06,355
But I believe we were shooting with 7231,
which is a Kodak Plus-X film,

364
00:26:06,522 --> 00:26:09,192
and it has great latitude.

365
00:26:10,234 --> 00:26:13,905
And it's really replicating those images.

366
00:26:16,199 --> 00:26:18,951
And I'm quite happy when I saw the rushes.

367
00:26:21,537 --> 00:26:27,335
[Davis] And we also shot
on an Arri SR camera?

368
00:26:27,502 --> 00:26:29,212
[D�sir] Yeah, an Arriflex SR.

369
00:26:30,379 --> 00:26:33,883
It was always a zoom lens.
We didn't have any prime lenses.

370
00:26:34,050 --> 00:26:36,427
[Davis] No--
Okay, you got that wrong, bro. Sorry.

371
00:26:36,594 --> 00:26:37,637
[D�sir] Oh, yeah? We did?

372
00:26:37,804 --> 00:26:39,931
[Davis] Yeah, we had prime lenses.
I'm looking...

373
00:26:40,098 --> 00:26:42,308
- I got the script supervisor's sheets.
-[D�sir] Okay.

374
00:26:42,475 --> 00:26:48,272
[Davis] We were basically shooting with,
like, 10-12 mm lenses all the time.

375
00:26:48,439 --> 00:26:50,608
So, no, we did not have a zoom lens.

376
00:26:50,775 --> 00:26:52,151
-[D�sir] Okay.
-[Davis] Yeah.

377
00:26:52,318 --> 00:26:53,736
We wouldn't have had a zoom lens,

378
00:26:53,903 --> 00:26:56,572
because we were trying
to replicate silent cinema.

379
00:26:56,739 --> 00:26:59,367
-[D�sir] Right.
-[Davis] So we stuck to primes.

380
00:26:59,534 --> 00:27:01,410
And I rented those primes. [laughs]

381
00:27:01,577 --> 00:27:03,579
[D�sir] We did zoom in a couple of times.

382
00:27:03,746 --> 00:27:05,498
-I'm looking for that.
-[Davis] Yeah. Okay.

383
00:27:05,665 --> 00:27:07,083
[D�sir] But, yeah, I believe you.

384
00:27:07,250 --> 00:27:09,460
You're talking to a 76-year-old

385
00:27:09,627 --> 00:27:12,338
trying to remember what he did
30-odd years ago.

386
00:27:12,505 --> 00:27:15,007
[Davis laughs] No shade. No shade.

387
00:27:15,174 --> 00:27:18,261
I wouldn't have remembered if I didn't
have the script-supervisor notes.

388
00:27:18,427 --> 00:27:21,889
-[D�sir] Yeah, mm-hm.
-[Davis] So that's okay. [laughs]

389
00:27:31,607 --> 00:27:34,694
So this is a photograph
of a nickelodeon theater,

390
00:27:34,861 --> 00:27:39,532
which was started in Pittsburgh,
but, okay, we put it in Chicago anyway.

391
00:27:39,699 --> 00:27:42,785
But that's true, it was a nickel
to buy a movie-theater ticket,

392
00:27:42,952 --> 00:27:45,788
so that's why we have it incorporated here

393
00:27:45,955 --> 00:27:50,501
as an ode
to historical beginnings of cinema.

394
00:27:51,544 --> 00:27:55,256
This is actually in a screening room
at Northwestern University

395
00:27:55,423 --> 00:27:59,260
which we converted to be a movie theater.

396
00:28:00,261 --> 00:28:04,515
Mott Enterprises,
Pekin Stock Company Players,

397
00:28:04,682 --> 00:28:11,105
and Foster Photoplay
were actual entities that produced films.

398
00:28:12,023 --> 00:28:13,065
I love this scene,

399
00:28:13,232 --> 00:28:17,278
again because this was an incorporation
of our friends

400
00:28:17,445 --> 00:28:19,864
Lisa Brock and Otis Cunningham.

401
00:28:20,031 --> 00:28:23,326
And that's-- The guy in the white
with the porter hat

402
00:28:23,492 --> 00:28:27,288
is actually our composer,
Reginald R. Robinson.

403
00:28:27,455 --> 00:28:31,792
So part of our ethos
as L.A. Rebellion filmmakers

404
00:28:31,959 --> 00:28:34,795
is that we use people from our community

405
00:28:34,962 --> 00:28:37,548
to represent who they are in real life.

406
00:28:37,715 --> 00:28:42,053
And these were great activists in Chicago
and friends of ours,

407
00:28:42,220 --> 00:28:44,931
and we used their backyard
to film this scene.

408
00:28:45,097 --> 00:28:48,851
So it's nice to put ordinary people,

409
00:28:49,018 --> 00:28:52,271
who are basically playing themselves
to some degree, in there.

410
00:28:52,438 --> 00:28:56,525
And if you look hard, you can see Marc
in the audience in the background too.

411
00:28:57,693 --> 00:29:00,112
Marc has a lot of credits as an extra.

412
00:29:02,323 --> 00:29:04,492
-In many of our films. [laughs]
-[Ch�ry laughs]

413
00:29:04,659 --> 00:29:06,994
[Davis] Yeah, he's over
in the right corner right there.

414
00:29:07,620 --> 00:29:10,831
[Ch�ry] The other thing
to mention briefly, as Zeinabu mentions,

415
00:29:10,998 --> 00:29:13,251
throughout the country at this time,

416
00:29:13,417 --> 00:29:19,882
you have a lot of Black entrepreneurs
joining this cinema movement.

417
00:29:20,591 --> 00:29:23,261
And Foster...
I forgot his first name, but Foster--

418
00:29:23,427 --> 00:29:26,389
-[Davis] William Foster.
-[Ch�ry] William Foster in Chicago.

419
00:29:26,555 --> 00:29:32,478
His company was one of the early folk
in that field.

420
00:29:32,645 --> 00:29:35,064
They made a film, actually, called...

421
00:29:35,231 --> 00:29:38,693
-[Davis] The Railroad Porter.
-[Ch�ry] ... The Railroad Porter,

422
00:29:38,859 --> 00:29:42,113
which has been lost,
or at least hasn't been found.

423
00:29:43,864 --> 00:29:44,991
Essentially, Zeinabu,

424
00:29:45,157 --> 00:29:51,747
we created our own silent movie
within a movie

425
00:29:53,165 --> 00:29:56,919
to show that part
of the history of cinema.

426
00:29:57,628 --> 00:30:00,381
[Davis] Right, and again,
The Railroad Porter,

427
00:30:00,548 --> 00:30:04,510
the synopsis was actually
in the Chicago Defender,

428
00:30:04,677 --> 00:30:09,473
so that's where we borrowed from,
how to create that scene.

429
00:30:09,640 --> 00:30:10,891
I just changed the ending.

430
00:30:11,058 --> 00:30:14,437
Of course, it's a Zeinabu Davis film,
so the woman has a gun.

431
00:30:14,603 --> 00:30:17,440
Same way that good guys
have a gun, so... [laughs]

432
00:30:18,107 --> 00:30:24,864
But that's-- It was out of research
that that became a part of the film.

433
00:30:29,493 --> 00:30:35,249
And again, this scene is just
kind of illustrating the growing respect

434
00:30:35,416 --> 00:30:41,088
and admiration of each
of these characters for each other.

435
00:30:42,256 --> 00:30:47,136
Again, we're using the text,
the style of the text,

436
00:30:47,303 --> 00:30:51,015
to say something about the time period.

437
00:30:51,182 --> 00:30:55,436
So education is very important.

438
00:30:55,603 --> 00:30:58,564
And this is historical photographs from...

439
00:30:59,482 --> 00:31:03,402
Shoot, I think
these are from Tuskegee, actually,

440
00:31:04,153 --> 00:31:06,614
that were incorporated into the film.

441
00:31:12,078 --> 00:31:13,662
This actually was from Chicago.

442
00:31:13,829 --> 00:31:15,873
This was one of the photos
that I did find.

443
00:31:16,040 --> 00:31:20,503
This was preparation for a World's Fair--

444
00:31:20,669 --> 00:31:23,506
Or World's Fair exhibition
that was done in Chicago.

445
00:31:23,672 --> 00:31:27,051
So these were
from that particular time period.

446
00:31:36,477 --> 00:31:37,603
[D�sir] Ah.

447
00:31:39,021 --> 00:31:40,815
-There we go.
-[Davis] Mm-hm.

448
00:31:41,565 --> 00:31:45,069
Early photographers that were established.

449
00:31:45,694 --> 00:31:47,154
You know, these are not--

450
00:31:47,321 --> 00:31:49,448
These are professionals.

451
00:31:49,615 --> 00:31:52,451
So education, employment,
and enlightenment.

452
00:32:00,167 --> 00:32:03,379
This was done at the very beloved

453
00:32:03,546 --> 00:32:08,384
and famous Salsedo Press
in Chicago, which was--

454
00:32:08,551 --> 00:32:13,931
This is Chris Burke,
who ran Salsedo Press for many years.

455
00:32:15,474 --> 00:32:20,771
And they were very gracious
in letting us film here.

456
00:32:20,938 --> 00:32:24,984
And we had Malaika as a graphic artist,

457
00:32:25,151 --> 00:32:28,529
so it was important for us
to make sure that we placed her

458
00:32:29,280 --> 00:32:32,908
in a Chicago institution
in contemporary times.

459
00:32:33,784 --> 00:32:40,499
Salsedo Press was a press
that was worker-owned

460
00:32:40,666 --> 00:32:45,004
and it was also minority-owned

461
00:32:45,171 --> 00:32:49,341
and provided a lot of support

462
00:32:49,508 --> 00:32:53,679
to different progressive organizations
in Chicago.

463
00:32:53,846 --> 00:32:58,058
So it was important for us
to film here as well.

464
00:33:01,520 --> 00:33:04,648
You wanna say something about this scene,
the Chicago Public Library?

465
00:33:08,110 --> 00:33:09,653
[Ch�ry] Again, using--

466
00:33:09,820 --> 00:33:15,534
Independent film,
using the resources that you have.

467
00:33:15,701 --> 00:33:19,622
I am a public librarian by profession,

468
00:33:20,164 --> 00:33:24,460
and because of that,
this helps not only with research

469
00:33:24,627 --> 00:33:26,170
but also in terms of locations.

470
00:33:26,337 --> 00:33:29,089
The older man you see

471
00:33:30,174 --> 00:33:34,929
in the film was actually my supervisor
I had appear in here.

472
00:33:35,095 --> 00:33:39,850
We just explained
what independent film was,

473
00:33:40,017 --> 00:33:43,687
and he allowed us to shoot in the library.

474
00:33:44,396 --> 00:33:49,944
He interceded with the administration
of the library

475
00:33:50,110 --> 00:33:52,738
to allow us to shoot in there.

476
00:33:52,905 --> 00:33:53,989
So it's a very...

477
00:33:55,032 --> 00:33:58,536
At least for me,
it's a very personal scene,

478
00:33:58,702 --> 00:34:02,414
and the fact that Nico
is a Black librarian

479
00:34:02,581 --> 00:34:05,417
but also a Black children's librarian.

480
00:34:06,585 --> 00:34:08,420
Which is not necessarily rare

481
00:34:08,587 --> 00:34:13,050
but which is thought to be very,
very rare, and it's not.

482
00:34:13,217 --> 00:34:16,595
So it was a great thing to do.

483
00:34:20,391 --> 00:34:25,062
[Davis] And the voice here is my brother,
Kevin Davis, [chuckles]

484
00:34:25,229 --> 00:34:27,064
As a local DJ.

485
00:34:27,231 --> 00:34:30,609
And Kevin makes an appearance
in the film later on.

486
00:34:32,653 --> 00:34:37,700
But "Wee-funk" is something
that he says in another of my films...

487
00:34:38,784 --> 00:34:41,912
our films actually, A Powerful Thang.

488
00:34:48,085 --> 00:34:51,755
[Ch�ry] And going back
to the earlier scene

489
00:34:51,922 --> 00:34:58,554
and talking about the literariness
of the script and of the movie,

490
00:34:58,721 --> 00:35:02,099
and it's only now
that I'm seeing the connections

491
00:35:02,266 --> 00:35:06,353
between Nico being a librarian...
[chuckles]

492
00:35:06,520 --> 00:35:12,318
...and the callback to the literary nature

493
00:35:12,943 --> 00:35:15,946
of the screenplay and of the movie.

494
00:35:21,577 --> 00:35:25,831
[Davis] So in this scene,
Malaika is performing tai chi

495
00:35:26,457 --> 00:35:31,503
as a means of wellness,
of self-care, meditation.

496
00:35:31,670 --> 00:35:37,384
And it was influenced to me
by one of my best friends, who's also...

497
00:35:37,551 --> 00:35:41,305
Another silent partner or collaborator
in this film process

498
00:35:41,472 --> 00:35:43,182
is Doris Owanda Johnson.

499
00:35:43,932 --> 00:35:45,100
She does tai chi,

500
00:35:45,267 --> 00:35:48,228
and she also does the music for a scene

501
00:35:48,395 --> 00:35:51,440
that will occur a little bit later
in the film.

502
00:35:57,529 --> 00:36:01,867
And you notice that
Nico is wearing an ASL alphabet shirt,

503
00:36:02,034 --> 00:36:05,621
so he's really trying to get... [laughs]

504
00:36:05,788 --> 00:36:07,373
...In good with Malaika.

505
00:36:07,539 --> 00:36:12,711
He's bought into learning
about Deaf culture and community

506
00:36:12,878 --> 00:36:14,588
in big ways here.

507
00:36:15,089 --> 00:36:16,965
So we just saw him in the class

508
00:36:17,132 --> 00:36:21,261
where he was learning
sign language as well.

509
00:36:22,971 --> 00:36:24,807
I just wanna say, these actors,

510
00:36:24,973 --> 00:36:27,309
Michelle Angela Banks
and John Earl Jelks,

511
00:36:27,476 --> 00:36:28,519
they're incredible.

512
00:36:29,061 --> 00:36:32,815
Because it was alternative
independent film making,

513
00:36:32,981 --> 00:36:38,987
we rarely did more than two or three takes
on any of these scenes.

514
00:36:39,154 --> 00:36:41,824
And most of the times
when we did two or three takes,

515
00:36:41,990 --> 00:36:44,243
it was because the camera--

516
00:36:44,410 --> 00:36:46,995
The magazine either failed

517
00:36:47,162 --> 00:36:49,998
or there was an issue
with something that was going on.

518
00:36:50,165 --> 00:36:51,750
It wasn't because of performance.

519
00:36:53,669 --> 00:36:57,923
This, again, is to contextualize
the historical period.

520
00:36:58,090 --> 00:36:59,007
This is real.

521
00:36:59,174 --> 00:37:03,178
Black Patti was one of the first
Black opera singers.

522
00:37:03,929 --> 00:37:07,099
And she did perform
quite a bit in Chicago,

523
00:37:07,266 --> 00:37:11,395
so I wanted to also portray that as well.

524
00:37:12,896 --> 00:37:17,443
Then you notice
that the characters' costumes,

525
00:37:17,609 --> 00:37:20,070
these were all period costumes

526
00:37:20,237 --> 00:37:25,367
that we were, again, able to borrow
from the Goodman Theatre.

527
00:37:25,534 --> 00:37:27,953
I also wanna point out
that we have a quilt,

528
00:37:28,120 --> 00:37:31,373
and the connections
between African Americans

529
00:37:31,540 --> 00:37:34,793
and quilting is important.

530
00:37:37,171 --> 00:37:42,217
Quilts were a way that enslaved people
were able to somehow

531
00:37:42,384 --> 00:37:47,097
get the quote-unquote "road map�
to escape to freedom sometimes,

532
00:37:47,264 --> 00:37:50,893
based on the symbolism
that was put in the various quilts.

533
00:37:51,643 --> 00:37:54,021
And you also see a dress in the corner.

534
00:37:54,188 --> 00:37:56,023
Malindy is a dressmaker.

535
00:37:56,190 --> 00:38:02,112
So you see these elements
of what her whole person was

536
00:38:02,279 --> 00:38:04,114
embodied in the film as well.

537
00:38:17,461 --> 00:38:21,131
[Ch�ry] I think this section
establishes the fact

538
00:38:21,298 --> 00:38:27,638
that Arthur has immersed himself
in Deaf culture.

539
00:38:27,805 --> 00:38:33,393
There is a sense that this character,
who did not know how to read,

540
00:38:33,560 --> 00:38:35,354
learns how to read from someone else

541
00:38:35,521 --> 00:38:41,527
who doesn't verbalize,
or who speaks differently from him.

542
00:38:42,444 --> 00:38:46,156
And it's not a callback, a call-forward,

543
00:38:46,323 --> 00:38:49,618
to what we will see in the film later.

544
00:38:49,785 --> 00:38:53,038
For example,
that there's a distinct Deaf culture,

545
00:38:53,205 --> 00:38:57,167
there's a distinct Black Deaf culture,

546
00:38:58,210 --> 00:38:59,753
that is being displayed here.

547
00:38:59,920 --> 00:39:01,588
And just so surprising

548
00:39:01,755 --> 00:39:08,053
the fact that Malindy understands herself
as a whole being

549
00:39:08,637 --> 00:39:14,935
and not as a plaything on display
for hearing people to gawk at.

550
00:39:15,519 --> 00:39:17,521
I think that's...

551
00:39:17,688 --> 00:39:20,440
It's essentially the call-forward

552
00:39:20,607 --> 00:39:24,570
as well as the self-affirmation

553
00:39:26,655 --> 00:39:33,453
of Malindy and Arthur's acceptance of her
the way that she is.

554
00:39:33,620 --> 00:39:36,832
Which is why he's so hurt that she's hurt

555
00:39:37,583 --> 00:39:41,336
at this swanky affair that they went to.

556
00:39:44,590 --> 00:39:48,677
[Davis] Both John Earl Jelks,
the lead actor, and myself

557
00:39:48,844 --> 00:39:53,807
took sign language classes
before we shot the film.

558
00:39:55,100 --> 00:39:59,646
I have, unfortunately, not kept up with it
as much as I wish I could.

559
00:39:59,813 --> 00:40:04,234
I think I would if I was in communication
with more Deaf folks,

560
00:40:04,401 --> 00:40:07,821
but we did learn as much as we could

561
00:40:07,988 --> 00:40:12,576
so that we could use it on set
to communicate with Michelle

562
00:40:12,743 --> 00:40:15,078
when we didn't have interpreters.

563
00:40:15,245 --> 00:40:19,666
And Michelle was so good,
so kind and generous.

564
00:40:19,833 --> 00:40:23,629
And, you know, if we had to,
we went to pad and paper,

565
00:40:23,795 --> 00:40:26,798
because this was before cell phones.

566
00:40:28,008 --> 00:40:32,179
And here we have
some of the photographs of labor

567
00:40:32,804 --> 00:40:36,350
back in the early part
of the 20th century.

568
00:40:36,516 --> 00:40:38,977
So again, trying to establish Chicago

569
00:40:39,144 --> 00:40:43,815
as a place where these workers
kind of combine their efforts

570
00:40:43,982 --> 00:40:46,735
to build the city,
to build this community.

571
00:40:47,653 --> 00:40:50,864
So we go from the past,
and then we tilt up,

572
00:40:51,031 --> 00:40:53,659
and then we come down to the present.

573
00:40:53,825 --> 00:40:57,245
This is actually the first scenes
that we shot in the film,

574
00:40:57,412 --> 00:40:59,998
in July of 1993.

575
00:41:00,165 --> 00:41:04,586
This was part of the Chicago--
Taste of Chicago weekend

576
00:41:04,753 --> 00:41:08,674
that happens every year
just before the 4th of July.

577
00:41:09,883 --> 00:41:12,427
And sadly,
this building doesn't exist anymore,

578
00:41:12,594 --> 00:41:16,890
the Ebony/Jet building,
in the skyline of Chicago.

579
00:41:17,057 --> 00:41:22,688
But at that time, Ebony/Jet
was a very important publication

580
00:41:22,854 --> 00:41:24,439
for the Black community

581
00:41:24,606 --> 00:41:27,734
that gave people
all over the country and the world

582
00:41:27,901 --> 00:41:30,153
an idea of what was happening
in Black culture.

583
00:41:30,320 --> 00:41:33,782
So this was before social media,
so on and so forth.

584
00:41:33,949 --> 00:41:35,534
This was shot guerrilla-style.

585
00:41:35,701 --> 00:41:38,787
Pierre, you wanna talk
about how we shot this--?

586
00:41:38,954 --> 00:41:42,457
-[D�sir] Did we shoot this on a Bolex?
-[Davis] We shot this on a Bolex.

587
00:41:42,624 --> 00:41:46,128
[D�sir] Look, I remember something,
Jeez Louise, 'cause I was wondering.

588
00:41:46,294 --> 00:41:51,299
I'm saying-- We're in this big crowd
and people are leaving us alone,

589
00:41:51,466 --> 00:41:54,636
and I'm saying,
"I've got an Arri SR in this? No, no."

590
00:41:54,803 --> 00:41:58,557
And no, it was a--
Now I remember, yeah, it was a Bolex.

591
00:41:58,724 --> 00:41:59,641
[Davis] Mm-hm.

592
00:41:59,808 --> 00:42:02,144
-[D�sir] My favorite camera.
-[Davis] Yep.

593
00:42:02,310 --> 00:42:03,437
Maya Deren.

594
00:42:03,603 --> 00:42:05,480
[Davis and D�sir laugh]

595
00:42:06,064 --> 00:42:11,987
[Davis] Yeah. And this, again,
was a guerrilla shot as well.

596
00:42:12,696 --> 00:42:14,906
This one, I think, is back on the Arri.

597
00:42:15,073 --> 00:42:16,908
[D�sir] Well, everything
was guerrilla shot.

598
00:42:17,075 --> 00:42:19,077
I mean, we didn't have permission
for anything.

599
00:42:19,244 --> 00:42:20,912
[Davis] We had permission
for some things.

600
00:42:21,079 --> 00:42:23,373
-[D�sir] Okay.
-[Ch�ry] The library, we had permission.

601
00:42:23,540 --> 00:42:24,416
[D�sir] Yeah, okay.

602
00:42:24,583 --> 00:42:26,585
-But on the street?
-[Davis] On the street, no.

603
00:42:26,752 --> 00:42:27,586
[D�sir] No.

604
00:42:27,753 --> 00:42:31,548
-And the subways... [laughs] ...coming up?
-[Davis] No. The I station, yeah.

605
00:42:39,097 --> 00:42:42,809
This is a beautiful mural
at Legler Branch Library,

606
00:42:42,976 --> 00:42:47,981
where Marc used to work
and where we have Nico.

607
00:42:48,607 --> 00:42:53,236
You think you could tell the story
of the brother librarian real quickly?

608
00:42:53,403 --> 00:42:57,949
[Ch�ry] Oh, there's a story
in the library world

609
00:42:58,116 --> 00:43:01,578
of this Black children's librarian.

610
00:43:03,288 --> 00:43:07,334
I forgot which city,
but he was doing exactly--

611
00:43:07,501 --> 00:43:11,671
Something similar
to what Nico Jones is doing.

612
00:43:12,172 --> 00:43:15,675
And a white parent, a mother,

613
00:43:16,176 --> 00:43:20,472
didn't know, or didn't see him
as the real person,

614
00:43:20,639 --> 00:43:24,226
didn't see him as a librarian, and...

615
00:43:24,392 --> 00:43:28,438
I forgot the whole story,
but she either called the police

616
00:43:28,605 --> 00:43:29,523
or called...

617
00:43:30,482 --> 00:43:35,946
Or called the head librarian
to come and kick him out,

618
00:43:36,113 --> 00:43:39,449
not knowing that he was
the children's librarian.

619
00:43:39,991 --> 00:43:44,246
That person wrote something
in our literature

620
00:43:44,412 --> 00:43:48,375
and how his heart was broken.

621
00:43:48,542 --> 00:43:53,421
And Zeinabu, having heard that,
wanted to honor that story.

622
00:43:59,386 --> 00:44:05,058
[Davis] Okay, so this scene introduces
Malaika's best friend, Bill Young,

623
00:44:05,225 --> 00:44:09,938
as played by dancer
and performer Christopher Smith.

624
00:44:10,105 --> 00:44:15,110
And I like that we were able to kind of
reflect something of Deaf culture

625
00:44:15,277 --> 00:44:20,198
so that when the lights go up,
when they flicker like that,

626
00:44:20,365 --> 00:44:24,161
that's how Deaf folks know
that someone's at the door.

627
00:44:24,327 --> 00:44:29,749
And so we wanted to make sure that that
got reflected also in the film itself.

628
00:44:29,916 --> 00:44:35,338
So we have those little lighting effects
that occurred at the same time.

629
00:44:35,505 --> 00:44:39,259
And also with this scene,
music is really important,

630
00:44:39,426 --> 00:44:41,469
and the sound of the music
is really important.

631
00:44:41,636 --> 00:44:45,599
It's very heavy bass,
because you can feel bass.

632
00:44:45,765 --> 00:44:48,935
And we made this audio
a little bit too loud,

633
00:44:49,102 --> 00:44:53,106
just because Michelle
and Christopher would tell me

634
00:44:53,273 --> 00:44:56,818
that they respond
to the vibration in sound,

635
00:44:56,985 --> 00:45:00,822
and that's how they would know
how to do some of the dance moves

636
00:45:00,989 --> 00:45:04,242
or whatever kind of movement
that they were doing.

637
00:45:05,744 --> 00:45:10,290
And you got the librarian
with his "Read and Succeed" T-shirt on.

638
00:45:10,832 --> 00:45:13,335
One of Marc's T-shirts,
I think. [chuckles]

639
00:45:17,881 --> 00:45:23,553
And then you notice
that Bill has on the AIDS insignia

640
00:45:23,720 --> 00:45:27,265
on his T-shirt, for AIDS,
to support efforts

641
00:45:27,432 --> 00:45:29,726
towards fighting HIV/AIDS.

642
00:45:31,144 --> 00:45:33,313
I just love the joy in that scene.

643
00:45:33,480 --> 00:45:38,693
They had such good chemistry together,
Michelle and John.

644
00:45:40,278 --> 00:45:44,324
And this scene
is at the Warehouse in Chicago.

645
00:45:44,824 --> 00:45:49,788
It was a club that we did get permission
to use. [chuckles]

646
00:45:49,955 --> 00:45:52,374
And so this is a scene
that's supposed to be

647
00:45:52,540 --> 00:45:57,712
at the Black Deaf Advocates meeting,
or, you know, social occasion.

648
00:45:57,879 --> 00:46:00,257
So you see the little signs in there.

649
00:46:00,423 --> 00:46:05,971
And the guy who just had the interaction
with Nico is Devon Whitmore,

650
00:46:06,137 --> 00:46:08,223
who was one of our-- Or who--

651
00:46:08,390 --> 00:46:11,393
He was our still photographer on the set.

652
00:46:11,559 --> 00:46:12,978
He was from Chicago.

653
00:46:13,687 --> 00:46:18,775
And he is a member
of the Black Deaf community in Chicago.

654
00:46:22,445 --> 00:46:25,073
And then, again,
we use our little symbols here.

655
00:46:25,240 --> 00:46:28,994
I use symbols from both African

656
00:46:29,160 --> 00:46:32,080
and Indigenous peoples

657
00:46:32,247 --> 00:46:36,084
to symbolize some of my heritage.

658
00:46:36,251 --> 00:46:41,798
And this one is another reuse
of the same space,

659
00:46:42,507 --> 00:46:44,384
just in a different location.

660
00:46:47,971 --> 00:46:50,724
And this is Jen,

661
00:46:50,890 --> 00:46:55,228
who was a performer here in Chicago.

662
00:46:55,729 --> 00:46:59,232
That's my dad over there
on the left corner, his big head.

663
00:46:59,774 --> 00:47:01,693
So he got in this film too.

664
00:47:02,402 --> 00:47:09,367
And Bill dances
to an interpretation of "Compensation,�

665
00:47:09,534 --> 00:47:12,537
the poem by Paul Laurence Dunbar, here.

666
00:47:17,459 --> 00:47:19,836
It was beautiful to work with Chris

667
00:47:20,003 --> 00:47:24,966
to figure out how he could interpret
this poem through movement.

668
00:47:42,817 --> 00:47:45,612
You wanna say anything about this scene,
shooting this scene?

669
00:47:47,030 --> 00:47:49,991
[D�sir] I was worried about that light
in the corner. [laughs]

670
00:47:50,158 --> 00:47:53,036
-[Davis] Yeah, but I think it worked well.
-[D�sir] It worked, yeah.

671
00:47:53,203 --> 00:47:54,954
-It worked quite well.
-[Davis] Yeah.

672
00:48:01,795 --> 00:48:04,172
It's like his body is ethereal.

673
00:48:04,339 --> 00:48:09,052
This is my brother and his wife, Lee Ann,

674
00:48:09,219 --> 00:48:11,721
who came to be a part
of the filming process.

675
00:48:16,559 --> 00:48:18,812
[D�sir] She used everybody she could.

676
00:48:18,978 --> 00:48:21,940
[Davis] Yes, equal-opportunity film making.

677
00:48:22,107 --> 00:48:25,068
Include the community
and the professional community.

678
00:48:39,749 --> 00:48:42,710
[D�sir] Yeah, I like the way
this tilt down eliminates that light

679
00:48:42,877 --> 00:48:45,588
as she's talking about the boon of death.

680
00:48:45,755 --> 00:48:46,714
[Davis] Mm-hm.

681
00:48:49,175 --> 00:48:53,972
And the fact that we let Chris's ear,
his hearing aid--

682
00:48:54,139 --> 00:48:57,642
We left the high-pitched volume
of the hearing aid.

683
00:48:57,809 --> 00:49:01,479
And I also love
that Tyrone and his girlfriend,

684
00:49:02,105 --> 00:49:04,524
note they start to learn
sign language applause,

685
00:49:04,691 --> 00:49:07,694
so they raise their hands to mimic.

686
00:49:10,238 --> 00:49:13,116
And then we were very fortunate
the Northwestern Library

687
00:49:13,283 --> 00:49:17,662
let us take out issues of Crisis magazine

688
00:49:17,829 --> 00:49:23,042
from the early 1900s
so we could have Malindy reading it.

689
00:49:31,259 --> 00:49:33,803
And again, my little symbols in here.

690
00:49:34,971 --> 00:49:36,723
I think these ones were for...

691
00:49:39,100 --> 00:49:40,810
prosperity in life.

692
00:49:43,354 --> 00:49:47,233
This is Sissieretta Jones again,

693
00:49:47,400 --> 00:49:51,196
who showed earlier in the photographs.

694
00:49:58,495 --> 00:49:59,871
And here she is again.

695
00:50:03,583 --> 00:50:06,377
I love her look and how elegant she is.

696
00:50:09,547 --> 00:50:13,718
And again, the importance of quilt
to African American community.

697
00:50:14,219 --> 00:50:18,640
They're quilting by the side
of Lake Michigan.

698
00:50:18,806 --> 00:50:23,228
This is up in the Evanston area near--
On the campus of Northwestern.

699
00:50:30,443 --> 00:50:37,367
And this is Edith, who is a folklorist
and folktale performer from Chicago.

700
00:50:37,534 --> 00:50:40,495
And she also knew American Sign Language,

701
00:50:40,662 --> 00:50:46,793
so it was perfect for her and Michelle
to interact with each other in this scene.

702
00:50:46,960 --> 00:50:50,588
And again, we pay attention
to class background here,

703
00:50:50,755 --> 00:50:56,094
because clearly Malindy's mother
does not want her to associate with Arthur

704
00:50:56,261 --> 00:50:59,722
because he's, you know,
quote-unquote "lower class."

705
00:50:59,889 --> 00:51:02,517
He's a working-class person,

706
00:51:02,684 --> 00:51:04,978
and she wants her daughter to be engaged

707
00:51:05,144 --> 00:51:08,856
with only people who are
from a quote-unquote "better class."

708
00:51:17,532 --> 00:51:19,576
[Ch�ry] Probably should say here that...

709
00:51:20,910 --> 00:51:25,623
in the earlier title card,
it mentioned "old settler."

710
00:51:25,790 --> 00:51:27,792
"Old settler" is a term used

711
00:51:27,959 --> 00:51:33,339
to refer to both the pre-
and post-Civil War community,

712
00:51:33,506 --> 00:51:35,633
Black community, in Chicago,

713
00:51:35,800 --> 00:51:40,930
but before the beginning
of the Great Migration--

714
00:51:41,097 --> 00:51:44,475
Certainly before--
Even before the beginning

715
00:51:44,642 --> 00:51:51,524
of a lesser, minor migration
which began around the 1900s.

716
00:51:51,691 --> 00:51:54,986
And of course, as in any community,

717
00:51:55,153 --> 00:52:00,783
there are differences of class
and background and tensions.

718
00:52:00,950 --> 00:52:06,039
You can see a little bit of the tension
between Malindy and her mom there.

719
00:52:06,205 --> 00:52:08,207
Way less conservative than her mother.

720
00:52:27,977 --> 00:52:33,107
[Davis] And again, images of people
doing everyday things was important to me,

721
00:52:33,274 --> 00:52:37,695
that you saw that new part
of Chicago River does have these openings.

722
00:52:38,529 --> 00:52:41,115
Here we're back at the Indiana Dunes.

723
00:52:41,282 --> 00:52:43,034
It was supposed to be in Chicago,

724
00:52:43,201 --> 00:52:47,038
but we actually physically shot the scene
at the Indiana Dunes.

725
00:52:48,539 --> 00:52:52,335
[chuckles] And I remember getting
in big trouble with the Goodman people

726
00:52:52,502 --> 00:52:54,796
"cause we got their costumes wet.

727
00:52:55,421 --> 00:52:56,464
[D�sir] Yeah.

728
00:52:56,631 --> 00:53:00,635
[Davis laughing]
This was the actors improvising.

729
00:53:01,177 --> 00:53:05,056
[D�sir] I think my jaw hit the floor
watching this.

730
00:53:05,223 --> 00:53:07,308
[Davis] Yeah. [laughs]

731
00:53:07,475 --> 00:53:09,602
-[D�sir] This part.
-[Davis] Exactly.

732
00:53:16,275 --> 00:53:19,112
-[D�sir groans, then laughs]
-[Davis] Oh, man. [laughs]

733
00:53:19,278 --> 00:53:24,367
They had fun, but we paid for it later,
that's for sure. [laughs]

734
00:53:24,534 --> 00:53:26,577
[D�sir] "Cause these were period costumes.

735
00:53:26,744 --> 00:53:27,787
[Davis] Yeah, exactly.

736
00:53:29,288 --> 00:53:31,541
Okay, I know Pierre wants to talk
about this scene.

737
00:53:31,708 --> 00:53:34,293
[D�sir] This scene comes out of...

738
00:53:34,794 --> 00:53:36,629
The building she came out of,

739
00:53:36,796 --> 00:53:39,674
we were gonna shoot an interior in there.

740
00:53:39,841 --> 00:53:43,636
It's an old building,
and we're trying to light it...

741
00:53:43,803 --> 00:53:45,513
And I forget who the gaffer was.

742
00:53:45,680 --> 00:53:47,181
It was this young woman.

743
00:53:47,348 --> 00:53:51,602
And she was heroically running cable
up and down the floors,

744
00:53:51,769 --> 00:53:55,898
trying to find some way
to distribute the...

745
00:53:56,816 --> 00:54:00,570
To draw on the power
so that we didn't blow all the fuses

746
00:54:00,737 --> 00:54:02,613
that we were running out of.

747
00:54:03,197 --> 00:54:06,993
And while she was doing that,
I took a break outside in the back.

748
00:54:07,160 --> 00:54:10,955
And I'm sitting there and watching,
and I called Zeinabu,

749
00:54:11,622 --> 00:54:15,793
and I said, "Zeinabu, come here,"
and I pointed to the table out there

750
00:54:15,960 --> 00:54:18,671
and said, "Why can't we do it out here?"

751
00:54:19,797 --> 00:54:22,967
And it was like a light went off
in her head, and she said, "Oh!"

752
00:54:23,134 --> 00:54:25,845
And she went inside
and stopped everything.

753
00:54:27,722 --> 00:54:30,266
And it sure was a lot easier. [chuckles]

754
00:54:31,017 --> 00:54:32,393
[Davis] Exactly.

755
00:54:36,981 --> 00:54:41,319
And again, this was one of our contacts
from the community,

756
00:54:42,361 --> 00:54:47,283
Ms. Roberts, who, you know,
really helped us develop

757
00:54:47,825 --> 00:54:52,538
and get to know other members
of the Chicago Black Deaf community.

758
00:54:52,705 --> 00:54:56,292
So we cast her as Malaika's mom.

759
00:54:57,210 --> 00:55:00,922
[D�sir] I thought the actress on the left
did a very good job as well.

760
00:55:01,088 --> 00:55:02,173
[Davis] Yes, she did.

761
00:55:02,840 --> 00:55:05,468
-Karen Stephens, yes.
-[D�sir] Mm-hm.

762
00:55:07,053 --> 00:55:08,638
[Ch�ry] And she could sign.

763
00:55:08,805 --> 00:55:12,642
[Davis] Exactly. We wanted to make sure
people knew how to sign.

764
00:55:15,520 --> 00:55:19,941
[D�sir] And this is Zeinabu's brother,
having a good time being on film.

765
00:55:20,107 --> 00:55:21,609
[Davis laughs]

766
00:55:22,318 --> 00:55:23,861
[D�sir] He enjoyed himself.

767
00:55:24,362 --> 00:55:25,988
Did a damn good job.

768
00:55:27,490 --> 00:55:31,244
[Davis] This is the only time
I ever saw John stumble in a scene,

769
00:55:31,410 --> 00:55:32,411
because my brother--

770
00:55:32,578 --> 00:55:36,457
He thought he was gonna have to,
like, encourage my brother

771
00:55:36,624 --> 00:55:40,002
to figure out what he was supposed to do
as part of his performance.

772
00:55:40,169 --> 00:55:44,215
And my brother came on the scene
and just, like, slammed-- [laughs]

773
00:55:44,382 --> 00:55:46,717
Went through the whole scene real quickly,

774
00:55:46,884 --> 00:55:51,389
so we actually had to take multiple takes
because John was forgetting his lines,

775
00:55:51,556 --> 00:55:53,850
not because my brother
was forgetting his lines.

776
00:55:54,016 --> 00:55:57,061
But it was funny to look back
at the script supervisor's notes

777
00:55:57,228 --> 00:56:00,064
and see that she got frustrated
because, of course--

778
00:56:00,231 --> 00:56:04,277
Because my brother isn't really an actor.
He's basically playing himself.

779
00:56:04,443 --> 00:56:07,655
He never did anything
exactly the same way twice.

780
00:56:07,822 --> 00:56:09,824
So it drove the script supervisor crazy,

781
00:56:09,991 --> 00:56:13,995
but it made for a scene
that still gets laughs,

782
00:56:14,161 --> 00:56:16,247
you know, some 30 years later.

783
00:56:16,956 --> 00:56:19,458
And my brother's wearing
our production-company shirt,

784
00:56:19,625 --> 00:56:23,546
Wimmin With a Mission T-shirts
that we made back in the day.

785
00:56:35,057 --> 00:56:39,103
And again, another reference
to literature here

786
00:56:39,270 --> 00:56:42,440
from Marc as the screenwriter.

787
00:56:43,065 --> 00:56:44,358
We were paying homage

788
00:56:44,525 --> 00:56:48,154
to Paul Laurence Dunbar,
and the young woman reading the poem

789
00:56:48,321 --> 00:56:52,533
is the same young woman who plays Tildy
in the period section.

790
00:56:52,700 --> 00:56:55,661
And that's her mother
sitting in the middle there.

791
00:56:55,828 --> 00:56:56,871
That's Portia Cobb,

792
00:56:57,038 --> 00:57:01,000
and then that's her daughter
Nirvana Cobb who's performing.

793
00:57:01,959 --> 00:57:05,630
I mentioned that Portia Cobb
is also a filmmaker,

794
00:57:05,796 --> 00:57:07,632
and she's based in Milwaukee.

795
00:57:12,136 --> 00:57:14,764
[Davis] The interpreter, Bonnie Koss,

796
00:57:14,931 --> 00:57:20,478
was also a wonderful resource for folks,
getting us interpreters.

797
00:57:20,645 --> 00:57:24,065
We needed to have interpreters
on the set with us,

798
00:57:24,231 --> 00:57:28,945
and Bonnie was real helpful
in making sure that we got folks there.

799
00:57:31,864 --> 00:57:35,034
This is the same set as the period set.

800
00:57:35,201 --> 00:57:41,791
We just changed some of the artwork
so that it made it more contemporary.

801
00:57:42,583 --> 00:57:45,127
We still have the same futon.
That's our futon.

802
00:57:45,294 --> 00:57:47,213
[commentators laughing]

803
00:57:47,964 --> 00:57:49,465
Thirty years later.

804
00:57:49,966 --> 00:57:51,842
[D�sir] John was having a good time.

805
00:57:54,929 --> 00:57:59,600
[Davis] So one of the things
that happened in the '90s in Chicago

806
00:57:59,767 --> 00:58:06,273
that did not get reported enough
was the prevalence of HIV and AIDS

807
00:58:06,440 --> 00:58:07,900
in the Black community,

808
00:58:08,067 --> 00:58:12,113
and especially how it affected
African American women,

809
00:58:12,279 --> 00:58:14,281
and young African American women.

810
00:58:14,448 --> 00:58:18,744
So it was important for us
to incorporate Malaika

811
00:58:18,911 --> 00:58:24,417
as being someone who was living
with being HIV-positive.

812
00:58:24,583 --> 00:58:27,586
That she still had a life,
she wasn't about to die,

813
00:58:27,753 --> 00:58:33,926
but that she did have to carry this burden
of what was going on with her body.

814
00:58:34,093 --> 00:58:37,346
And so we incorporated that into the film

815
00:58:37,513 --> 00:58:39,682
to hopefully bring a little bit more light

816
00:58:39,849 --> 00:58:45,146
and to have people discuss
HIV and AIDS in the community.

817
00:58:45,312 --> 00:58:49,984
Because the film was, in part,
inspired by a dancer's response

818
00:58:50,151 --> 00:58:53,070
to the loss of folks in her community.

819
00:58:55,531 --> 00:59:00,703
One of the ways that I, as a director,
work with people from my community

820
00:59:00,870 --> 00:59:03,372
is to incorporate them into my films.

821
00:59:03,539 --> 00:59:09,378
And so, Asma Feyijinmi was Yasmine Allen
in A Powerful Thang.

822
00:59:09,545 --> 00:59:13,674
And to keep her in character
while she was on the set,

823
00:59:13,841 --> 00:59:19,680
I did have her write biographical notes
in a journal as her character.

824
00:59:19,847 --> 00:59:24,852
And Asma, as a dancer in real life
in Brooklyn, New York,

825
00:59:25,019 --> 00:59:29,440
had experienced a lot of loss
of some of her community

826
00:59:29,607 --> 00:59:32,276
because of HIV and AIDS.

827
00:59:32,443 --> 00:59:37,656
So that reflected
in her response to the poem

828
00:59:37,823 --> 00:59:40,034
"Compensation� by Paul Laurence Dunbar,

829
00:59:40,201 --> 00:59:47,041
and that's what planted the seed for Marc
to write Compensation a bit later on.

830
00:59:50,920 --> 00:59:53,589
John Earl Jelks is my muse.

831
00:59:53,756 --> 00:59:59,970
We write films for him, productions,
to use him whenever we can.

832
01:00:00,846 --> 01:00:02,431
We started knowing each other

833
01:00:02,598 --> 01:00:07,394
pretty much right from the time
that we started at UCLA.

834
01:00:07,937 --> 01:00:11,941
He came with a friend
to audition for a film,

835
01:00:12,108 --> 01:00:14,193
and he was supporting the friend,

836
01:00:14,360 --> 01:00:17,947
but then our friend Iverson White
asked him to read.

837
01:00:18,114 --> 01:00:22,409
And the next thing we know,
John is in a student short

838
01:00:22,576 --> 01:00:26,330
that won lots of awards
called Dark Exodus.

839
01:00:26,497 --> 01:00:28,958
And then John and I
just kept working together.

840
01:00:29,125 --> 01:00:33,087
He's in my first student film,
a student narrative film,

841
01:00:33,254 --> 01:00:35,673
which is called Crocodile Conspiracy.

842
01:00:35,840 --> 01:00:41,262
And so I always try to use him
as one of my actors as much as possible.

843
01:00:42,638 --> 01:00:47,309
Michelle Angela Banks was someone we found

844
01:00:47,476 --> 01:00:50,479
after Marc had written the screenplay.

845
01:00:50,646 --> 01:00:54,400
Marc and I traveled
to St. Paul, Minnesota,

846
01:00:54,567 --> 01:00:59,113
for a grant panel
for Independent Television Service.

847
01:00:59,280 --> 01:01:00,990
And in the evenings,

848
01:01:01,157 --> 01:01:04,160
we were basically
trying to find different things to do.

849
01:01:04,326 --> 01:01:08,706
And in the free paper
in St. Paul-Minneapolis,

850
01:01:08,873 --> 01:01:12,168
we found an ad
for the Northern Sign Theatre,

851
01:01:12,334 --> 01:01:16,213
and it had a photograph
of Michelle doing sign language

852
01:01:16,380 --> 01:01:18,716
for a production of Waiting for Godot.

853
01:01:18,883 --> 01:01:21,927
So we went to that production,

854
01:01:22,094 --> 01:01:26,849
and Marc and I were just blown away
by her performance.

855
01:01:27,016 --> 01:01:31,478
And we did the thing that
alternative independent filmmakers do:

856
01:01:31,645 --> 01:01:34,565
We stalked her... [laughs] ...backstage

857
01:01:34,732 --> 01:01:39,195
and asked her if she would be interested
in being in the film.

858
01:01:39,361 --> 01:01:42,907
So Marc and I rewrote--

859
01:01:43,073 --> 01:01:45,159
Well, Marc wrote. --the screenplay

860
01:01:45,326 --> 01:01:50,289
and incorporated as much information
as we could about Deaf community

861
01:01:50,456 --> 01:01:52,333
so that we reflect Deaf experiences.

862
01:01:52,499 --> 01:01:54,335
I took ASL classes.

863
01:01:54,501 --> 01:01:58,964
We started working with members of
the Black Deaf Advocates Group in Chicago

864
01:01:59,131 --> 01:02:01,967
and incorporated as much as possible

865
01:02:02,134 --> 01:02:07,056
about Black Deaf life and culture
that we could into the film.

866
01:02:21,278 --> 01:02:24,615
Packingtown was a real place in Chicago.

867
01:02:24,782 --> 01:02:28,994
Chicago was known
for its meatpacking industry,

868
01:02:29,161 --> 01:02:35,876
so that's reflected in the series
of photographs that you see in here.

869
01:02:37,086 --> 01:02:40,339
And also, this would be
very much influenced

870
01:02:40,506 --> 01:02:46,053
by the great director Charles Burnett's
film Killer of Sheep as well.

871
01:02:46,220 --> 01:02:50,474
So you hear the sound
of the sheep in the sheep house.

872
01:02:50,641 --> 01:02:54,353
There's another homage moment
that happens.

873
01:02:54,520 --> 01:02:57,356
Here's Marc again in another one of his...

874
01:02:57,940 --> 01:03:00,150
-[D�sir] Cameos.
-[Davis] ...cameos. [laughs]

875
01:03:00,609 --> 01:03:02,695
Smoking a cigarette, no less.

876
01:03:02,861 --> 01:03:05,072
-[D�sir] Indeed.
-[Davis laughs]

877
01:03:05,239 --> 01:03:07,074
-[D�sir] Shame on you.
-[Davis] Right?

878
01:03:14,540 --> 01:03:19,086
I loved working with Maestro-Matic
to kind of get the horror

879
01:03:19,253 --> 01:03:23,007
of the tuberculosis and the conditions,
the working conditions,

880
01:03:23,173 --> 01:03:26,468
that Arthur had to work through

881
01:03:27,511 --> 01:03:29,805
even though he's sick with tuberculosis.

882
01:03:29,972 --> 01:03:35,811
So it was reflecting on what
that experience must have been like.

883
01:03:46,196 --> 01:03:49,533
This was actually shot
in our garage in Chicago,

884
01:03:49,700 --> 01:03:54,663
but we have that low angle up on Arthur

885
01:03:54,830 --> 01:04:00,919
to kind of single out
how dire his situation is

886
01:04:01,086 --> 01:04:03,881
in terms of contracting tuberculosis.

887
01:04:05,966 --> 01:04:08,469
[D�sir] It was a very limiting location.

888
01:04:08,635 --> 01:04:10,220
We could only get that one shot.

889
01:04:10,387 --> 01:04:13,766
We couldn't move anywhere
because it was just a garage.

890
01:04:13,932 --> 01:04:15,809
It was supposed to be a packinghouse.

891
01:04:20,439 --> 01:04:22,232
But I think it got it across.

892
01:04:32,242 --> 01:04:37,039
[Davis] So here we have Malindy
expressing her frustration

893
01:04:37,206 --> 01:04:41,585
at not being understood
by someone in the hearing world.

894
01:04:41,752 --> 01:04:43,754
And we also reflect that

895
01:04:43,921 --> 01:04:48,926
with Malaika and Nico's relationship
at the same time.

896
01:04:49,093 --> 01:04:51,929
And it's important to understand

897
01:04:53,180 --> 01:04:56,058
that Deaf communities
have their own culture,

898
01:04:56,225 --> 01:05:01,355
their own language, and their own ways
of connecting with each other.

899
01:05:01,939 --> 01:05:07,611
I personally think, as a hearing person,
it's up to us to be more open

900
01:05:07,778 --> 01:05:14,201
in wanting to learn how
to communicate with Deaf folks.

901
01:05:14,368 --> 01:05:17,704
It shouldn't be the other way around,
that Deaf people have to accommodate us.

902
01:05:17,871 --> 01:05:20,999
It's more like we need to do things

903
01:05:21,166 --> 01:05:25,546
so that we can be a part
of their world as well.

904
01:05:25,712 --> 01:05:29,133
So it's been really important to me

905
01:05:29,299 --> 01:05:34,471
to be able to have interactions
with the Deaf community.

906
01:05:34,638 --> 01:05:37,891
Hopefully, we've made some friends
over the years

907
01:05:38,058 --> 01:05:43,105
and also that we've also encouraged
other Deaf filmmakers

908
01:05:43,272 --> 01:05:48,444
to be a part
of this alternative independent film making

909
01:05:48,610 --> 01:05:50,320
that we're trying to build.

910
01:05:56,201 --> 01:06:00,873
In this scene, Karen Stephens,
who's playing the sister to Malaika,

911
01:06:01,039 --> 01:06:02,416
she was very good at--

912
01:06:02,583 --> 01:06:06,211
She did come from a family where...

913
01:06:07,254 --> 01:06:10,174
She has a Deaf sibling, I believe.

914
01:06:10,340 --> 01:06:14,845
And so she is kind of portraying things
that she's gone through.

915
01:06:15,012 --> 01:06:19,099
And I think that's important,
not to kind of, like, gloss over that,

916
01:06:19,266 --> 01:06:24,396
is to actually show some of those tensions
and what is happening

917
01:06:24,563 --> 01:06:27,441
so that people understand
that we're human beings

918
01:06:27,608 --> 01:06:33,322
and we're still grappling with
these issues and tensions in our own way.

919
01:06:34,990 --> 01:06:38,577
Sometimes for good
and sometimes not necessarily for good.

920
01:06:39,369 --> 01:06:42,289
So I hope that kind of got across

921
01:06:42,456 --> 01:06:48,128
in these interactions
with the characters specifically.

922
01:06:49,713 --> 01:06:51,298
[Ch�ry] Also in this scene--

923
01:06:51,465 --> 01:06:52,883
Not necessarily in the scene

924
01:06:53,050 --> 01:06:57,221
but in the actor's,
in Karen's, personal life,

925
01:06:57,930 --> 01:07:00,724
she is totally fluent.

926
01:07:00,891 --> 01:07:04,978
And Zeinabu mentioned
that she has a Deaf sibling.

927
01:07:07,481 --> 01:07:13,070
It looks like, and it is true,
that in the actor's family,

928
01:07:13,237 --> 01:07:18,659
once they had a Deaf child,
it looks like everyone learned ASL.

929
01:07:19,660 --> 01:07:23,914
It is-- From what we learned
in the community,

930
01:07:24,081 --> 01:07:27,376
it is not always the case

931
01:07:28,126 --> 01:07:34,675
that hearing members
of the family learn ASL.

932
01:07:34,841 --> 01:07:39,054
Unfortunately, it tends to be
the other way around.

933
01:07:39,638 --> 01:07:44,518
There are some awful stories
of Deaf children

934
01:07:44,685 --> 01:07:47,437
being forced to vocalize

935
01:07:49,523 --> 01:07:52,025
or being sent to hearing schools

936
01:07:52,192 --> 01:07:57,364
and their special circumstances
not being acknowledged.

937
01:07:59,616 --> 01:08:01,159
So in that sense,

938
01:08:01,326 --> 01:08:06,915
Karen, the actor,
brought a lot of personal experience,

939
01:08:07,082 --> 01:08:12,421
which made her performance
better and deeper.

940
01:08:31,648 --> 01:08:37,404
[Davis] This letter just absolutely
killed me the first time I read it.

941
01:08:37,571 --> 01:08:43,619
And this is a tribute to Marc's writing
and how powerful it is.

942
01:08:43,785 --> 01:08:47,831
It's so--
It's such a simple letter that's--

943
01:08:47,998 --> 01:08:50,584
In the way that it's written
and constructed,

944
01:08:50,751 --> 01:08:57,382
but it just, like,
has so much impact and meaning.

945
01:08:57,549 --> 01:09:02,804
And I actually love to watch audiences,
because I've seen the film too many times,

946
01:09:02,971 --> 01:09:08,393
but I always like to watch the audience
when they read the letter along with Nico,

947
01:09:08,560 --> 01:09:12,230
and how it kind of, you know,
it's a gut punch,

948
01:09:12,397 --> 01:09:15,567
just like it is to the character Nico.

949
01:09:16,109 --> 01:09:22,532
And John really just did
an outstanding job as Nico in this scene.

950
01:09:22,699 --> 01:09:23,575
He just...

951
01:09:24,242 --> 01:09:28,872
Those are real tears, and he just...
You know, he just let them flow.

952
01:09:29,790 --> 01:09:34,252
He was comfortable
to show a kind of vulnerability

953
01:09:34,419 --> 01:09:36,546
that he had as that character.

954
01:09:40,634 --> 01:09:42,636
[D�sir] I was a little dissatisfied
with that

955
01:09:42,803 --> 01:09:44,846
because I wanted a shot from behind him,

956
01:09:45,013 --> 01:09:46,640
to hold on the back of his head

957
01:09:46,807 --> 01:09:49,935
just to let the audience
think about what was going on.

958
01:09:50,102 --> 01:09:53,188
But hey, I'm just a cinematographer.

959
01:09:59,111 --> 01:10:02,489
[Davis] This scene was shot
in the stairwell of our audience.

960
01:10:02,656 --> 01:10:06,493
Mr. Ike is my neighbor,
or was my neighbor, on the first floor

961
01:10:07,411 --> 01:10:09,246
in the three-flat in Chicago.

962
01:10:11,081 --> 01:10:13,542
So it was fun to shoot here.

963
01:10:23,260 --> 01:10:25,804
And this is the beginning of the...

964
01:10:25,971 --> 01:10:27,889
what we call "the depression montage,�

965
01:10:28,056 --> 01:10:33,145
where the contemporary characters
don't know what they're going to be doing

966
01:10:33,895 --> 01:10:38,275
in terms of how they're going to make
their relationship continue, so...

967
01:10:39,860 --> 01:10:42,195
We're going back and forth
between what's happening

968
01:10:42,362 --> 01:10:44,948
between each of the characters.

969
01:10:45,115 --> 01:10:48,034
Again, shooting at Legler Branch Library,

970
01:10:48,201 --> 01:10:53,039
and then the stuff on the train,
on the underbelly of the train,

971
01:10:53,206 --> 01:10:55,417
which, Pierre didn't shoot this part.

972
01:10:55,584 --> 01:10:59,629
You shot the static shots,
but the parts that we're going to see

973
01:10:59,796 --> 01:11:04,801
where the train is under
was actually shot by Rik Delisle.

974
01:11:09,973 --> 01:11:15,020
These parts, Rik Delisle's laying on top
of a station wagon,

975
01:11:15,187 --> 01:11:19,983
shooting up, and that's how we actually
got those shots underneath the I tracks

976
01:11:20,150 --> 01:11:21,818
on the North Side, I think along...

977
01:11:22,652 --> 01:11:24,279
[D�sir] But I shot these shots.

978
01:11:24,446 --> 01:11:25,447
[Davis] Yes, you did.

979
01:11:25,614 --> 01:11:29,201
[D�sir] I shot these shots on the station
and in the train,

980
01:11:29,367 --> 01:11:32,245
-and it was quite an adventure...
-[Davis] Mm-hm.

981
01:11:32,412 --> 01:11:38,084
...getting these, because, again,
this was guerrilla, so no permission.

982
01:11:38,251 --> 01:11:39,294
[Davis] Mm-hm.

983
01:11:40,796 --> 01:11:47,511
And we had to coordinate when John
and Kevin would be Tyrone and Nico

984
01:11:48,094 --> 01:11:53,225
and then when Malaika and Chris
were going to be on the car.

985
01:11:53,391 --> 01:11:58,814
So John and Nico are on the-- I'm sorry.
Nico and Tyrone are on the platform,

986
01:11:58,980 --> 01:12:03,527
but then Malaika and Bill
are actually on the train.

987
01:12:03,693 --> 01:12:08,365
So we had to do it a couple times
to make sure we could get that coordinated

988
01:12:08,532 --> 01:12:10,242
so we could see...

989
01:12:10,408 --> 01:12:13,954
[D�sir] What you'll notice is that
as the train pulls into the station

990
01:12:14,120 --> 01:12:19,292
-and we're on Malaika and Bill...
-[Davis] Mm-hm.

991
01:12:19,459 --> 01:12:25,465
...In the back-- Through the window,
we see Nico and Tyrone.

992
01:12:25,632 --> 01:12:26,550
[Davis] Mm-hm.

993
01:12:29,886 --> 01:12:30,929
Yeah.

994
01:12:40,272 --> 01:12:44,109
Each film, I try to set up a new thing
that I haven't done before.

995
01:12:44,276 --> 01:12:48,029
And I had not-- Up to that point,
I'd never done optical printing.

996
01:12:48,196 --> 01:12:52,742
So I was fortunate
to be able to use the facilities

997
01:12:52,909 --> 01:12:54,953
at the School of the Art Institute

998
01:12:55,120 --> 01:12:59,291
to learn how to do
optical printing for this.

999
01:12:59,457 --> 01:13:03,211
I also taught part-time
at School of the Art Institute as well.

1000
01:13:03,378 --> 01:13:05,797
So it was a good way
to kind of learn that.

1001
01:13:07,215 --> 01:13:12,596
Here we just wanted to show this is how
Malaika and Michelle, in real life,

1002
01:13:12,762 --> 01:13:14,681
watch TV, with the open captions.

1003
01:13:14,848 --> 01:13:17,267
So it was important to show

1004
01:13:17,434 --> 01:13:23,481
this is how Deaf are going to consume
or take part in different forms of media.

1005
01:13:23,648 --> 01:13:27,110
So we took short clips from the weather

1006
01:13:28,194 --> 01:13:30,989
and again, took a clip
from a film that I made.

1007
01:13:31,156 --> 01:13:32,616
This is from Mother of the River.

1008
01:13:32,782 --> 01:13:37,913
That's my short film that we made
the year after we did Compensation.

1009
01:13:38,622 --> 01:13:41,082
So I don't have to pay for rights
for my own film,

1010
01:13:41,249 --> 01:13:43,126
so that's why it got in here.

1011
01:13:44,794 --> 01:13:48,089
And then this is in our apartment.

1012
01:13:49,382 --> 01:13:52,594
And Nico's scenes are in an apartment

1013
01:13:52,761 --> 01:13:57,766
which was our apartment in Chicago
when Marc and I lived in Chicago.

1014
01:13:57,933 --> 01:14:03,855
And Malaika's is on the set,
which was at Northwestern University.

1015
01:14:06,650 --> 01:14:10,362
And this particular sequence
also has like...

1016
01:14:10,528 --> 01:14:15,867
I believe when we put it all together,
it's probably about 32 tracks of audio.

1017
01:14:16,034 --> 01:14:20,372
Spent a lot of time, like,
building the sequence here.

1018
01:14:20,538 --> 01:14:26,878
And again, we wanted to kind of reflect
Deaf perceptions of sound as well as,

1019
01:14:27,045 --> 01:14:29,005
like, what these characters
were going through,

1020
01:14:29,172 --> 01:14:33,343
to not kind of know where they were going
to take this particular relationship.

1021
01:14:34,344 --> 01:14:36,054
But we had, like, coins,

1022
01:14:36,221 --> 01:14:42,185
we did microphones with condoms
underneath water to get water sounds,

1023
01:14:42,352 --> 01:14:46,773
and we did a lot of clinking
on the sides of instruments

1024
01:14:46,940 --> 01:14:53,154
to get some of the percussive, like,
more high-pitched percussive sounds

1025
01:14:54,406 --> 01:14:58,326
to match the mood and the feelings
that the characters were going through

1026
01:14:58,493 --> 01:14:59,661
at this time.

1027
01:15:12,549 --> 01:15:14,759
You notice here, John starts--

1028
01:15:14,926 --> 01:15:19,514
Or Nico starts wearing
more traditional clothing,

1029
01:15:19,681 --> 01:15:23,351
and that's to reflect,
in terms of his spirituality,

1030
01:15:23,518 --> 01:15:28,064
he's going back to his roots, so to speak.

1031
01:15:28,898 --> 01:15:31,026
And who did this sculpture, Pierre?

1032
01:15:31,192 --> 01:15:32,944
[D�sir] Yeah, I made that sculpture.

1033
01:15:33,111 --> 01:15:35,030
[Davis and D�sir laughing]

1034
01:15:37,157 --> 01:15:39,993
-[D�sir] I thought that looked familiar.
-[Davis] Yeah.

1035
01:15:40,160 --> 01:15:43,621
[D�sir] I didn't get paid. [laughing]

1036
01:15:43,788 --> 01:15:44,956
[Davis] No one did, bro.

1037
01:15:45,123 --> 01:15:47,167
[Davis and D�sir laughing]

1038
01:15:47,333 --> 01:15:50,336
[Davis] Well, the actors did get paid.
We did pay the actors something.

1039
01:15:50,503 --> 01:15:51,337
[D�sir] Mm.

1040
01:15:53,298 --> 01:15:57,927
[Davis] This is kind of
a signature Pierre D�sir scene.

1041
01:15:58,094 --> 01:16:01,139
It's in Cycles, it's in Compensation.

1042
01:16:01,306 --> 01:16:07,937
We have these beautiful panning shots
of altar items.

1043
01:16:08,104 --> 01:16:12,025
And an altar is basically a sacred space
that you have in your home

1044
01:16:12,192 --> 01:16:17,864
that can be for a celebration
of your ancestors

1045
01:16:18,031 --> 01:16:22,619
or your spirit guides
or whoever you want to commemorate

1046
01:16:22,786 --> 01:16:25,580
and help guide you through your life.

1047
01:16:27,749 --> 01:16:31,544
And this is my mom, Dorothy Davis,

1048
01:16:31,711 --> 01:16:35,381
and my grandmothers, Geneva and Annie,

1049
01:16:35,548 --> 01:16:39,219
and that's my baby brother
when he was a baby, Kevin.

1050
01:16:41,262 --> 01:16:42,305
And...

1051
01:16:43,681 --> 01:16:48,436
we got some Cuban rum...
[laughs] ...on the altar as well.

1052
01:16:49,145 --> 01:16:52,357
And then again, Pierre's statues in...

1053
01:16:52,524 --> 01:16:55,026
-[D�sir] This is a different statue.
-[Davis] Yeah.

1054
01:16:55,193 --> 01:16:56,111
[D�sir] This is...

1055
01:16:56,778 --> 01:16:59,197
-[Davis] You did two.
-[D�sir] ...one of the male gods.

1056
01:16:59,364 --> 01:17:01,783
-[Davis] Yes. Mm-hm.
-[D�sir] This is Ogun.

1057
01:17:01,950 --> 01:17:04,744
[Ch�ry] Which Pierre made
specifically for the film, right, Pierre?

1058
01:17:04,911 --> 01:17:05,745
[D�sir] Yeah.

1059
01:17:05,912 --> 01:17:07,831
[commentators laughing]

1060
01:17:08,748 --> 01:17:11,543
[Davis] And I also want to point out,
we mentioned another person

1061
01:17:11,709 --> 01:17:13,670
who's important to us as a collaborator,

1062
01:17:13,837 --> 01:17:19,384
and that's Doris Owanda Johnson,
and this is her singing a mojuba,

1063
01:17:19,551 --> 01:17:22,595
which is a prayer from Yoruba

1064
01:17:22,762 --> 01:17:26,057
that also is recounting the ancestors

1065
01:17:26,224 --> 01:17:31,604
and our debt that we owe
to the ancestors you see.

1066
01:17:33,690 --> 01:17:35,567
Nico is dressed in white,

1067
01:17:35,733 --> 01:17:40,780
and it's specifically
so that he can recall

1068
01:17:40,947 --> 01:17:46,536
and reflect on whatever lessons
he needs to undertake

1069
01:17:46,703 --> 01:17:50,248
to go forward
in his relationship with Malaika.

1070
01:17:50,415 --> 01:17:53,001
Well, he doesn't know
if he's going to go forward yet,

1071
01:17:53,168 --> 01:17:58,047
but through these meditations
and incantations,

1072
01:17:59,007 --> 01:18:00,633
something happens for him.

1073
01:18:01,885 --> 01:18:06,890
And it was important to also kind of end
on those hands on the statue

1074
01:18:07,557 --> 01:18:12,020
because it's a static angle or uplift.

1075
01:18:12,187 --> 01:18:14,981
So it was important.

1076
01:18:18,985 --> 01:18:22,155
I absolutely love this photograph.

1077
01:18:22,322 --> 01:18:26,534
This photograph was
these two formerly enslaved women.

1078
01:18:26,701 --> 01:18:28,161
It was about 1903.

1079
01:18:28,328 --> 01:18:31,039
And I found that
at the Library of Congress.

1080
01:18:31,206 --> 01:18:36,169
I actually-- I just love the expression
that those ladies have on their faces,

1081
01:18:36,336 --> 01:18:37,629
and this one too.

1082
01:18:40,882 --> 01:18:45,220
Sadly, this stretch of beach
no longer exists in Chicago.

1083
01:18:45,386 --> 01:18:48,556
It kind of got washed away
due to climate change.

1084
01:18:48,723 --> 01:18:54,687
But this was the Howard Street Beach
in the North Side of Chicago.

1085
01:18:56,272 --> 01:18:59,275
And again, it's another altar.

1086
01:18:59,442 --> 01:19:02,403
This was the altar
that was done on the beach.

1087
01:19:02,570 --> 01:19:04,447
[D�sir] But this is back at the dunes.

1088
01:19:04,614 --> 01:19:06,449
[Davis] This part is back
at the dunes, yes.

1089
01:19:06,616 --> 01:19:08,117
-[D�sir] Mm-hm.
-[Davis] Mm-hm.

1090
01:19:13,831 --> 01:19:19,212
So again, this part of the film
takes a much more spiritual aspect

1091
01:19:19,379 --> 01:19:21,464
that's like,
does this really happen or not?

1092
01:19:21,631 --> 01:19:22,382
I don't know.

1093
01:19:22,548 --> 01:19:24,968
It's up to you, however you interpret it.

1094
01:19:25,134 --> 01:19:28,096
But this is Malaika and Nico.

1095
01:19:29,597 --> 01:19:30,932
Maybe in the future.

1096
01:19:34,185 --> 01:19:39,440
But it's very whimsical,
and hopefully encourages you

1097
01:19:39,607 --> 01:19:43,820
to understand the resilience
of these characters.

1098
01:19:44,654 --> 01:19:51,577
There's Nico on the other side
facing the stacks, smokestacks.

1099
01:19:53,871 --> 01:19:56,958
And again, these are photographs of...

1100
01:19:57,458 --> 01:20:02,714
Some of these were photographs
that were from the exhibition.

1101
01:20:02,880 --> 01:20:06,968
This is Ida Wells-Barnett,
activist and journalist.

1102
01:20:12,432 --> 01:20:16,102
This is a formerly enslaved couple

1103
01:20:17,937 --> 01:20:19,564
and the life they built.

1104
01:20:21,065 --> 01:20:23,109
So we give you some clues,

1105
01:20:23,276 --> 01:20:25,486
but it's up to you to interpret it
however you want.

1106
01:20:25,653 --> 01:20:31,284
This is the final scene
for the contemporary couple.

1107
01:20:31,451 --> 01:20:36,497
So the fact that we have this older couple
right before this couple... [chuckles]

1108
01:20:36,664 --> 01:20:39,667
...this shot of this couple,
I'm hoping that gives you an idea

1109
01:20:39,834 --> 01:20:44,505
that something happens with them
that's more on a positive note.

1110
01:20:44,672 --> 01:20:49,093
And we specifically
commissioned this... [laughs]

1111
01:20:49,260 --> 01:20:52,638
-...this flock of... [laughs]
-[D�sir] Gaggle of geese? Yeah, uh-huh.

1112
01:20:52,805 --> 01:20:56,225
...of geese to fly across
right at the perfect time

1113
01:20:56,392 --> 01:20:57,894
for Pierre to get the shot.

1114
01:20:58,061 --> 01:20:59,979
[D�sir] Yeah, no,
they were truly difficult.

1115
01:21:00,146 --> 01:21:01,606
We had to do it several times.

1116
01:21:01,773 --> 01:21:04,359
-Go back and start again, you know.
-[Davis] Right?

1117
01:21:04,525 --> 01:21:05,860
[Davis and D�sir laugh]

1118
01:21:06,027 --> 01:21:06,944
[Davis] Yeah.

1119
01:21:10,656 --> 01:21:13,534
And then the end of the film
follows through

1120
01:21:13,701 --> 01:21:18,373
with the end of the story
of Malindy and Arthur.

1121
01:21:18,539 --> 01:21:20,833
By the way, if you didn't figure it out,

1122
01:21:21,000 --> 01:21:22,418
Arthur is Marc's middle name,

1123
01:21:22,585 --> 01:21:25,254
so that's why the character has that name.

1124
01:21:26,464 --> 01:21:30,635
This is our beloved friend
from the L.A. Rebellion Filmmakers.

1125
01:21:30,802 --> 01:21:36,516
This is Ilverson White and John
interacting with each other.

1126
01:21:36,682 --> 01:21:37,975
Iverson is from Detroit.

1127
01:21:38,142 --> 01:21:42,438
He was an actor before he was a filmmaker,

1128
01:21:42,605 --> 01:21:47,318
and he's the person who cast John
in his first film.

1129
01:21:47,485 --> 01:21:52,115
So it was very meaningful
for John to be in a scene

1130
01:21:52,281 --> 01:21:54,158
where he was with lverson

1131
01:21:54,325 --> 01:21:59,622
because Iverson was the person
who gave him his first break into film,

1132
01:21:59,789 --> 01:22:01,874
through the film called Dark Exodus.

1133
01:22:05,211 --> 01:22:09,841
[Davis] And again, this is the same garage
where the meatpacking scene was.

1134
01:22:10,007 --> 01:22:13,010
We just-- You know,
alternative independent film making:

1135
01:22:13,177 --> 01:22:17,723
We repurpose and use our resources
as best we can.

1136
01:22:19,183 --> 01:22:21,894
[D�sir] And now we're back
at the dunes, and...

1137
01:22:23,396 --> 01:22:24,981
This shot was too much.

1138
01:22:26,190 --> 01:22:28,734
-[Davis] Why was it too much?
-[D�sir] I don't...

1139
01:22:28,901 --> 01:22:32,363
- I really enjoyed making it work.
-[Davis] Hmm.

1140
01:22:32,530 --> 01:22:35,241
[D�sir] You know,
catching him in the corner there.

1141
01:22:35,408 --> 01:22:37,493
-[Davis] Mm-hm.
-[D�sir] But for zooming out

1142
01:22:37,660 --> 01:22:39,162
and tilting up from...

1143
01:22:41,164 --> 01:22:43,541
Went against sort of
what I was supposed to be doing,

1144
01:22:43,708 --> 01:22:45,877
because it's supposed to be part
of the silent film,

1145
01:22:46,043 --> 01:22:47,837
so the zoom is not possible.

1146
01:22:48,004 --> 01:22:49,630
But I did anyway, and...

1147
01:22:51,424 --> 01:22:53,384
I think I caught him pretty good.

1148
01:22:53,885 --> 01:22:56,804
[Davis] Yeah, it's one of
my favorite shots in the scene.

1149
01:22:56,971 --> 01:22:59,432
The water looks so ethereal

1150
01:22:59,599 --> 01:23:04,061
and, you know, just has
this kind of, like, magic quality.

1151
01:23:04,228 --> 01:23:06,481
[D�sir] We were lucky with the sky.

1152
01:23:07,648 --> 01:23:11,152
There always seemed to be
a little bit of a haze.

1153
01:23:11,319 --> 01:23:12,236
[Davis] Mm-hm.

1154
01:23:24,165 --> 01:23:26,626
[Davis] The music also carries this too.

1155
01:23:26,792 --> 01:23:32,924
Reginald's, you know, simple piano notes
here really also give a lot of poignancy

1156
01:23:33,090 --> 01:23:34,717
to this particular scene.

1157
01:23:41,140 --> 01:23:46,020
And so Arthur has left the sanatorium
where he is

1158
01:23:46,187 --> 01:23:51,234
to come and give Malindy the letter
since he's been absent for so long.

1159
01:24:07,917 --> 01:24:09,835
[Davis] And we don't interpret this,

1160
01:24:10,002 --> 01:24:12,255
but you know that he's saying,
"I love you."

1161
01:24:13,089 --> 01:24:17,843
[D�sir] I like the roiling background,
the waves in the background.

1162
01:24:18,010 --> 01:24:18,803
[Davis] Mm-hm.

1163
01:24:19,762 --> 01:24:21,472
[D�sir] Yeah, this was too much.

1164
01:24:21,973 --> 01:24:27,061
[Davis] Yeah. Shot this with a polarizer
also on the lens as well.

1165
01:24:27,228 --> 01:24:28,145
[D�sir] Mm.

1166
01:24:31,190 --> 01:24:34,235
[Davis] Cut down to increase the contrast.

1167
01:24:34,819 --> 01:24:35,820
[D�sir] Mm.

1168
01:24:36,862 --> 01:24:41,075
[Davis] And heighten the blacks
that are in the scene, the resolution.

1169
01:24:43,911 --> 01:24:47,290
[D�sir] I remember watching him, saying,
"Please stay in character.

1170
01:24:47,456 --> 01:24:49,125
Please stay in character.�

1171
01:24:49,667 --> 01:24:52,461
[Davis] I still have
the script supervisor's notes.

1172
01:24:52,628 --> 01:24:56,340
"Quote: 'It was great. It was beautiful.

1173
01:24:56,507 --> 01:24:58,426
In other words, I got high.'

1174
01:24:59,010 --> 01:25:00,011
End quote.

1175
01:25:01,554 --> 01:25:03,514
Cinematographer Pierre D�sir."

1176
01:25:03,681 --> 01:25:05,600
[Davis and D�sir laughing]

1177
01:25:07,935 --> 01:25:09,895
-[Davis] I love--
-[D�sir] Like I said,

1178
01:25:10,062 --> 01:25:11,397
I could have been watching her,

1179
01:25:11,564 --> 01:25:14,859
but I was watching him
receding to the background, saying:

1180
01:25:15,026 --> 01:25:17,737
"Please stay in character.
Please stay in character.

1181
01:25:17,903 --> 01:25:21,115
Don't do anything." Because... [laughs]

1182
01:25:40,551 --> 01:25:45,848
[Davis] And again,
tribute to Marc Ch�ry's beautiful writing

1183
01:25:46,015 --> 01:25:47,016
in the letter--

1184
01:25:47,183 --> 01:25:49,894
The way he incorporated the poem
by Paul Laurence Dunbar

1185
01:25:50,061 --> 01:25:54,857
into the letter that Arthur
is giving to Malindy.

1186
01:26:00,571 --> 01:26:03,282
[Davis] Again, just make a note
that, you know,

1187
01:26:03,449 --> 01:26:05,368
there wasn't any cure for tuberculosis.

1188
01:26:05,534 --> 01:26:09,914
So unfortunately, most people
at the turn of the century

1189
01:26:10,081 --> 01:26:15,127
would turn to alcohol, whiskey,
whatever, moonshine,

1190
01:26:15,294 --> 01:26:18,547
to kind of take away the pain

1191
01:26:19,590 --> 01:26:25,930
of, you know, the hurt
or the pain in their lung areas.

1192
01:26:26,097 --> 01:26:30,267
And kind of ironic that we have COVID,

1193
01:26:30,434 --> 01:26:36,273
which also is a disease
that affects your lungs and your heart...

1194
01:26:36,440 --> 01:26:39,860
It can affect your heart.
...in the 21st century.

1195
01:26:52,873 --> 01:26:54,875
[D�sir] I really like this big tree.

1196
01:26:55,668 --> 01:26:58,879
-[Davis] Mm-hm.
-[D�sir] Laying there on the beach.

1197
01:26:59,046 --> 01:26:59,964
[Davis] Mm-hm.

1198
01:27:04,385 --> 01:27:07,930
Again, the happy accident
that that trunk was in the water,

1199
01:27:08,431 --> 01:27:11,434
and we saw it
as we were doing location scouting.

1200
01:27:17,606 --> 01:27:22,403
And the water as a healing source is...
You know, Toni Morrison's quote,

1201
01:27:22,570 --> 01:27:26,157
"All water has a memory,"
was kind of important.

1202
01:27:28,117 --> 01:27:33,497
And... we have this diffusion
with the filter.

1203
01:27:34,498 --> 01:27:40,045
So we go from period to contemporary.

1204
01:27:40,212 --> 01:27:42,465
We're staying period.

1205
01:27:45,718 --> 01:27:49,805
And we have the beach altar here
and white carnations,

1206
01:27:50,765 --> 01:27:53,434
which is a sign of purity.

1207
01:27:53,601 --> 01:27:55,269
Some people, it's a sign of death,

1208
01:27:55,436 --> 01:27:59,148
but for us, it was a sign of purity,
hope and resilience.

1209
01:28:07,740 --> 01:28:09,909
So we end on Ayizan,

1210
01:28:10,451 --> 01:28:16,624
who is a Haitian v�v�
for the healer and protector.

1211
01:28:20,127 --> 01:28:21,128
That was it.

1212
01:28:24,715 --> 01:28:27,426
Anything you want to add, Mr. D�sir?

1213
01:28:28,219 --> 01:28:31,514
[D�sir] No, I don't think so.
It was a great deal of fun.

1214
01:28:33,098 --> 01:28:36,977
In approaching it, we were trying to be...

1215
01:28:38,270 --> 01:28:41,232
almost Third Cinema in the United States.

1216
01:28:41,816 --> 01:28:47,029
We weren't trying to emulate
the Hollywood way of making movies.

1217
01:28:47,196 --> 01:28:50,032
We were actually working against that.

1218
01:28:51,325 --> 01:28:54,495
And we were hoping to develop a cinema

1219
01:28:54,662 --> 01:28:57,957
that would be accessible to the masses.

1220
01:29:00,376 --> 01:29:04,547
[Davis] We don't make films in a vacuum.
We make films for our community.

1221
01:29:04,713 --> 01:29:09,426
And I'm always trying to play
with pushing the audience further.

1222
01:29:09,593 --> 01:29:14,890
So that idea
of mixing historical evidence,

1223
01:29:15,057 --> 01:29:16,809
documentary film making techniques,

1224
01:29:16,976 --> 01:29:20,729
experimental film making techniques,
and narrative conventions,

1225
01:29:20,896 --> 01:29:23,023
I'm always trying to push

1226
01:29:23,190 --> 01:29:27,444
and make people see things
in a different way,

1227
01:29:28,779 --> 01:29:30,865
or a new way, if possible.

1228
01:29:32,575 --> 01:29:36,787
I think we learned that
because Pierre and I had experiences

1229
01:29:36,954 --> 01:29:39,582
of seeing cinema in Cuba

1230
01:29:39,748 --> 01:29:42,793
and going to the Havana Film Festival,

1231
01:29:44,128 --> 01:29:50,050
and also just Marc and I
going to Burkina Faso

1232
01:29:50,217 --> 01:29:54,221
for FESPACO,
which is an international celebration

1233
01:29:54,388 --> 01:29:59,602
of cinema from Africa
and the African diaspora.

1234
01:30:00,853 --> 01:30:07,401
Seeing audiences respond
to the visual language that is cinema

1235
01:30:07,568 --> 01:30:11,530
is, like, really--
There's nothing like that experience.

1236
01:30:12,323 --> 01:30:18,203
And so it was important to make sure
that the film could be reached

1237
01:30:18,370 --> 01:30:20,706
by as many people as possible.

1238
01:30:20,873 --> 01:30:26,962
So Marc is a master at making sure
that there's not too much dialogue.

1239
01:30:27,129 --> 01:30:29,840
There's just enough dialogue
to get the idea across--

1240
01:30:30,007 --> 01:30:32,551
Spoken dialogue to get the idea across,

1241
01:30:32,718 --> 01:30:36,847
because we have that experience
of watching cinema

1242
01:30:37,014 --> 01:30:42,853
of people from different
spoken languages, background,

1243
01:30:43,020 --> 01:30:47,149
but still being able to appreciate
the beauty of cinema

1244
01:30:47,316 --> 01:30:50,986
because you understand cinema
as a visual language.

1245
01:30:51,153 --> 01:30:53,948
So even if you don't know
what the words say,

1246
01:30:54,114 --> 01:30:56,450
you know what the intent or the emotion is

1247
01:30:56,617 --> 01:31:00,621
behind the performance
and the framing, composition,

1248
01:31:00,788 --> 01:31:02,414
style, lighting, whatever.

1249
01:31:03,374 --> 01:31:07,294
So those were things
that we wanted to make sure

1250
01:31:07,461 --> 01:31:10,631
that they got expressed in some way.

1251
01:31:10,798 --> 01:31:14,635
And my favorite part
about screening Compensation

1252
01:31:14,802 --> 01:31:17,596
is screening it with an audience

1253
01:31:17,763 --> 01:31:21,642
that consists of Deaf and hearing people.

1254
01:31:21,809 --> 01:31:24,186
Because we don't have enough experiences

1255
01:31:24,353 --> 01:31:27,773
or opportunities
to actually come together,

1256
01:31:27,940 --> 01:31:31,735
and when that happens in a live audience,

1257
01:31:31,902 --> 01:31:37,449
where people get to actually see
or interact with Deaf folks,

1258
01:31:37,616 --> 01:31:41,245
unfortunately, for better or for worse,
a lot of people for the first time,

1259
01:31:41,787 --> 01:31:47,459
I think that's making an intervention
between communication,

1260
01:31:47,626 --> 01:31:51,463
that we can reach and touch all of us
in different kinds of ways.

1261
01:31:51,630 --> 01:31:57,136
So that is and still is the mission
of Compensation

1262
01:31:57,302 --> 01:32:00,014
and what I think the film does

1263
01:32:01,515 --> 01:32:07,646
as a piece of cinema activism
or cinema intervention

1264
01:32:07,813 --> 01:32:10,190
in terms of modern society.

1265
01:32:16,530 --> 01:32:21,118
I was fortunate, as a faculty person,
I was able to get a donation,

1266
01:32:21,285 --> 01:32:27,458
significant donation, of film stock
from Kodak that we were able to use.

1267
01:32:27,624 --> 01:32:30,669
It was used as a teaching tool
so students would know

1268
01:32:30,836 --> 01:32:34,798
how to work with 16 mm black-and-white.

1269
01:32:34,965 --> 01:32:39,887
So we shot 7222,
which was the indoor stock,

1270
01:32:40,054 --> 01:32:43,640
and then 7231,
which was the outdoor stock,

1271
01:32:43,807 --> 01:32:46,560
the Plus-X and the Tri-X stocks.

1272
01:32:48,270 --> 01:32:50,439
[D�sir] Excellent Kodak product.

1273
01:32:51,190 --> 01:32:52,691
Does is it exist anymore?