i'm thinking positive...
because if she DOES pull it off...
we need to show 100x more love since we showing all this DOUBT now.
Black Woman of the Day: Ava DuVernay - Award Winning Filmaker
- Thread starter playahaitian
- Start date
i'm thinking positive...
because if she DOES pull it off...
we need to show 100x more love since we showing all this DOUBT now.
great drop. all praises Playa
Met her for a short Q&A and her energy had me ready to smash. Real aware and sexy
I'll be the first one openly apologizing for any doubt I had as I eat my crow and humble pie platter....IF she does.
* two cents *
respect
....
Ava DuVernay Advice on Hollywood: ‘Follow the White Guys, They’ve Got This Thing Wired’
Ava DuVernay is never short on advice to Hollywood hopefuls, and during the 2015 BlogHer annual conference in New York City on Friday, the Selma director was blunt about how to get ahead in Hollywood.
“You gotta follow the white guys. Truly. They’ve got this thing wired,” DuVernay advised. “Too often, we live within their games, so why would you not study what works? Take away the bad stuff—because there’s a lot—and use the savvy interesting stuff and figure out how they can apply. It’s a good one for the ladies.”
DuVernay continued, telling attendees that as women, they need to stop asking permission and go after what they want.
“Women have been trained in our culture and society to ask for what we want instead of taking what we want. We’ve been really indoctrinated with this culture of permission. I think it’s true for women, and I think it’s true for people of color. It’s historic, and it’s unfortunate and has somehow become part of our DNA. But that time has passed,” DuVernay stated.
DuVernay also opened up about rumors circulating that she was directing Marvel’s Black Panther film, which she debunked during July’s Essence Festival.
“It was really an enlightened day in terms of the quality of journalism. For me, it was a process of trying to figure out, ‘Are these people I want to go to bed with?’ Because it’s really a marriage, and for this, it would be three years. It’d be three years of not doing other things that are important to me. So it was a question of, ‘Is this important enough for me to do?’
“At one point, the answer was yes, because I thought there was value in putting that kind of imagery into the culture in a worldwide, huge way, in a certain way: excitement, action, fun, all those things, and yet still be focused on a black man as a hero—that would be pretty revolutionary,” she continued. “These Marvel films go everywhere, from Shanghai to Uganda, and nothing that I probably will make will reach that many people, so I found value in that. That’s how the conversations continued, because that’s what I was interested in. But everyone’s interested in different things.
“What my name is on means something to me—these are my children,” she said of her body of work. “This is my art. This is what will live on after I’m gone. So it’s important to me that that be true to who I was in this moment. And if there’s too much compromise, it really wasn’t going to be an Ava DuVernay film.”
DuVernay definitely will have her hands full during the upcoming TV season. She has her OWN series, Queen Sugar, and her CBS civil rights crime-drama pilot, For Justice, both airing in the fall.
http://www.theroot.com/blogs/the_gr...al&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer
http://www.theroot.com/blogs/the_gr...al&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer
Ava DuVernay is never short on advice to Hollywood hopefuls, and during the 2015 BlogHer annual conference in New York City on Friday, the Selma director was blunt about how to get ahead in Hollywood.
“You gotta follow the white guys. Truly. They’ve got this thing wired,” DuVernay advised. “Too often, we live within their games, so why would you not study what works? Take away the bad stuff—because there’s a lot—and use the savvy interesting stuff and figure out how they can apply. It’s a good one for the ladies.”
DuVernay continued, telling attendees that as women, they need to stop asking permission and go after what they want.
“Women have been trained in our culture and society to ask for what we want instead of taking what we want. We’ve been really indoctrinated with this culture of permission. I think it’s true for women, and I think it’s true for people of color. It’s historic, and it’s unfortunate and has somehow become part of our DNA. But that time has passed,” DuVernay stated.
DuVernay also opened up about rumors circulating that she was directing Marvel’s Black Panther film, which she debunked during July’s Essence Festival.
“It was really an enlightened day in terms of the quality of journalism. For me, it was a process of trying to figure out, ‘Are these people I want to go to bed with?’ Because it’s really a marriage, and for this, it would be three years. It’d be three years of not doing other things that are important to me. So it was a question of, ‘Is this important enough for me to do?’
“At one point, the answer was yes, because I thought there was value in putting that kind of imagery into the culture in a worldwide, huge way, in a certain way: excitement, action, fun, all those things, and yet still be focused on a black man as a hero—that would be pretty revolutionary,” she continued. “These Marvel films go everywhere, from Shanghai to Uganda, and nothing that I probably will make will reach that many people, so I found value in that. That’s how the conversations continued, because that’s what I was interested in. But everyone’s interested in different things.
“What my name is on means something to me—these are my children,” she said of her body of work. “This is my art. This is what will live on after I’m gone. So it’s important to me that that be true to who I was in this moment. And if there’s too much compromise, it really wasn’t going to be an Ava DuVernay film.”
DuVernay definitely will have her hands full during the upcoming TV season. She has her OWN series, Queen Sugar, and her CBS civil rights crime-drama pilot, For Justice, both airing in the fall.
http://www.theroot.com/blogs/the_gr...al&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer
http://www.theroot.com/blogs/the_gr...al&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer
Ava DuVernay Advice on Hollywood: ‘Follow the White Guys, They’ve Got This Thing Wired’
Ava DuVernay is never short on advice to Hollywood hopefuls, and during the 2015 BlogHer annual conference in New York City on Friday, the Selma director was blunt about how to get ahead in Hollywood.
“You gotta follow the white guys. Truly. They’ve got this thing wired,” DuVernay advised. “Too often, we live within their games, so why would you not study what works? Take away the bad stuff—because there’s a lot—and use the savvy interesting stuff and figure out how they can apply. It’s a good one for the ladies.”
DuVernay continued, telling attendees that as women, they need to stop asking permission and go after what they want.
“Women have been trained in our culture and society to ask for what we want instead of taking what we want. We’ve been really indoctrinated with this culture of permission. I think it’s true for women, and I think it’s true for people of color. It’s historic, and it’s unfortunate and has somehow become part of our DNA. But that time has passed,” DuVernay stated.
DuVernay also opened up about rumors circulating that she was directing Marvel’s Black Panther film, which she debunked during July’s Essence Festival.
“It was really an enlightened day in terms of the quality of journalism. For me, it was a process of trying to figure out, ‘Are these people I want to go to bed with?’ Because it’s really a marriage, and for this, it would be three years. It’d be three years of not doing other things that are important to me. So it was a question of, ‘Is this important enough for me to do?’
“At one point, the answer was yes, because I thought there was value in putting that kind of imagery into the culture in a worldwide, huge way, in a certain way: excitement, action, fun, all those things, and yet still be focused on a black man as a hero—that would be pretty revolutionary,” she continued. “These Marvel films go everywhere, from Shanghai to Uganda, and nothing that I probably will make will reach that many people, so I found value in that. That’s how the conversations continued, because that’s what I was interested in. But everyone’s interested in different things.
“What my name is on means something to me—these are my children,” she said of her body of work. “This is my art. This is what will live on after I’m gone. So it’s important to me that that be true to who I was in this moment. And if there’s too much compromise, it really wasn’t going to be an Ava DuVernay film.”
DuVernay definitely will have her hands full during the upcoming TV season. She has her OWN series, Queen Sugar, and her CBS civil rights crime-drama pilot, For Justice, both airing in the fall.
http://www.theroot.com/blogs/the_gr...al&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer
http://www.theroot.com/blogs/the_gr...al&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer
Great advice ...she's a smart sista
‘Selma’ director Ava DuVernay says dashcam video of Sandra Bland arrest was doctored
http://www.bgol.us/board/showthread.php?t=857778
http://www.bgol.us/board/showthread.php?t=857778
Ava DuVernay opens up about why she passed on directing Black Panther
For months, rumors swirled about Ava DuVernay potentially being on board to direct Marvel’s Black Panther — the first Marvel superhero movie to star a black character. And although DuVernay ultimately passed on the gig, she’s been open about her reasons for her decision.
During the recent 2015 BlogHer conference in New York, DuVernay delivered the closing keynote where she shared advice about how to get ahead in the industry when you’re a minority. Unsurprisingly, the conversation about her Marvel meetings came up and DuVernay went into detail about why she decided to not take the project.
And while she was intrigued by the cultural impact the film would have, especially with a black superhero at the helm, she also went on to explain that “everyone is interested in different things.”
These kinds of talks aren’t uncommon — Alan Taylor recently shared his frustration about working with a big studio like Marvel, and DuVernay has openly admitted that the film she would have wanted to make would have been different than what the studio wanted. But for DuVernay, the most important thing was being able to stay true to the work she wanted to create (she also said she plans to see Black Panther when it’s released).
“This is my art. This is what will live on after I’m gone,” she said. “So it’s important to me that that be true to who I was in this moment. And if there’s too much compromise, it really wasn’t going to be an Ava DuVernay film.”
For months, rumors swirled about Ava DuVernay potentially being on board to direct Marvel’s Black Panther — the first Marvel superhero movie to star a black character. And although DuVernay ultimately passed on the gig, she’s been open about her reasons for her decision.
During the recent 2015 BlogHer conference in New York, DuVernay delivered the closing keynote where she shared advice about how to get ahead in the industry when you’re a minority. Unsurprisingly, the conversation about her Marvel meetings came up and DuVernay went into detail about why she decided to not take the project.
“For me, it was a process of trying to figure out, are these people I want to go to bed with? Because it’s really a marriage, and for this it would be three years,” DuVernay said of the intense commitment Marvel films tend to put on their creative teams. “It’d be three years of not doing other things that are important to me. So it was a question of, is this important enough for me to do?”
And while she was intrigued by the cultural impact the film would have, especially with a black superhero at the helm, she also went on to explain that “everyone is interested in different things.”
These kinds of talks aren’t uncommon — Alan Taylor recently shared his frustration about working with a big studio like Marvel, and DuVernay has openly admitted that the film she would have wanted to make would have been different than what the studio wanted. But for DuVernay, the most important thing was being able to stay true to the work she wanted to create (she also said she plans to see Black Panther when it’s released).
“This is my art. This is what will live on after I’m gone,” she said. “So it’s important to me that that be true to who I was in this moment. And if there’s too much compromise, it really wasn’t going to be an Ava DuVernay film.”
Ryan Coogler, Ava DuVernay, and Hannibal Buress Are Throwing a Free Event in Flint the Night of the Oscars
If you want to do something other than white actors win Academy Awards on February 28, Ryan Coogler, Ava DuVernay, Hannibal Buress, Jesse Williams, and Janelle Monáe are hosting a free event in Flint, Michigan, to raise awareness of the city's water crisis and human-rights violations across the U.S. Dubbed #JUSTICEFORFLINT, the event will be hosted by Buress and livestreamed on revolt.tv. Along with the performances, organizers have asked members of the Flint community to share their experiences with the audience.
Coogler, whose Creed earned Sylvester Stallone an acting nomination but was otherwise ignored by the Academy, told BuzzFeed that organizers chose to hold #JUSTICEFORFLINT this Sunday because it fell on the final weekend of Black History Month. According to him, the fact that it's the same night as that big, white entertainment awards show is merely a coincidence.
http://www.buzzfeed.com/jaimieetkin/ryan-coogler-justice-for-flint-event#.fkkRXz8ML
https://revolt.tv/
If you want to do something other than white actors win Academy Awards on February 28, Ryan Coogler, Ava DuVernay, Hannibal Buress, Jesse Williams, and Janelle Monáe are hosting a free event in Flint, Michigan, to raise awareness of the city's water crisis and human-rights violations across the U.S. Dubbed #JUSTICEFORFLINT, the event will be hosted by Buress and livestreamed on revolt.tv. Along with the performances, organizers have asked members of the Flint community to share their experiences with the audience.
Coogler, whose Creed earned Sylvester Stallone an acting nomination but was otherwise ignored by the Academy, told BuzzFeed that organizers chose to hold #JUSTICEFORFLINT this Sunday because it fell on the final weekend of Black History Month. According to him, the fact that it's the same night as that big, white entertainment awards show is merely a coincidence.
http://www.buzzfeed.com/jaimieetkin/ryan-coogler-justice-for-flint-event#.fkkRXz8ML
https://revolt.tv/
On Feb. 28, comedian Hannibal Buress, Creed director and co-writer Ryan Coogler, singer Janelle Monae, Grey’s Anatomy star Jesse Williams, Selma director Ava DuVernay, and other entertainment notables will be joining forces onstage for a free event in Flint, Michigan, BuzzFeed News can exclusively reveal. The Buress-hosted gathering, dubbed #JUSTICEFORFLINT, is open to the public and presented by Blackout for Human Rights, an activist collective founded by Coogler which is devoted to addressing human rights violations in the U.S.
For almost two years, Flint’s residents — many of whom are black and impoverished — have been subjected to massive lead and bacterial contamination in Genesee County’s water supply, and forced to avoid tap water.
#JUSTICEFORFLINT will take place at the Whiting Auditorium (1241 E. Kearsley St.) on Sunday, Feb. 28 at 5:30 p.m. ET to raise both awareness and funds for those affected by the water crisis. It will also be live-streamed via revolt.tv, and donations will be collected at the event and via text. Along with all the star power, organizers have also invited members of the Flint community to share their stories with the audience.
“With the #JUSTICEFORFLINT benefit event we will give a voice to the members of the community who were the victims of the choices of people in power who are paid to protect them, as well as provide them with a night of entertainment, unity, and emotional healing,” Ryan Coogler told BuzzFeed News in a statement. “Through the live stream we will also give a chance for people around the world to participate, and to donate funds to programs for Flint’s youth.”
Though the event does coincide with the Academy Awards — which largely snubbed Creedin nominations and did the same with DuVernay’s Selma last year — Coogler said Feb. 28 was chosen because it fell on the final weekend of Black History Month, and that the date overlap was a coincidence.
The idea for #JUSTICEFORFLINT emerged at Blackout’s last event #MLKNOW held on Martin Luther King Day (Jan. 28), which took place at Riverside Church in Harlem and drew more than 2,200 attendees and nearly half a million views online.
Flint’s water problem began in April 2014 when, in an attempt to save money, the city stopped purchasing Lake Huron water from Detroit and instead began using water from the nearby Flint River, which was not treated with anti-corrosion chemicals that the former water supply had. The water started to decimate the pipes, and lead — which is known to cause permanent mental and physical disabilities — began leaching into the system. In the wake of the recent discovery of emails revealing that officials knew about potential water issues even before the switch was made, many city and state administrators have resigned or been fired.
For almost two years, Flint’s residents — many of whom are black and impoverished — have been subjected to massive lead and bacterial contamination in Genesee County’s water supply, and forced to avoid tap water.
#JUSTICEFORFLINT will take place at the Whiting Auditorium (1241 E. Kearsley St.) on Sunday, Feb. 28 at 5:30 p.m. ET to raise both awareness and funds for those affected by the water crisis. It will also be live-streamed via revolt.tv, and donations will be collected at the event and via text. Along with all the star power, organizers have also invited members of the Flint community to share their stories with the audience.
“With the #JUSTICEFORFLINT benefit event we will give a voice to the members of the community who were the victims of the choices of people in power who are paid to protect them, as well as provide them with a night of entertainment, unity, and emotional healing,” Ryan Coogler told BuzzFeed News in a statement. “Through the live stream we will also give a chance for people around the world to participate, and to donate funds to programs for Flint’s youth.”
Though the event does coincide with the Academy Awards — which largely snubbed Creedin nominations and did the same with DuVernay’s Selma last year — Coogler said Feb. 28 was chosen because it fell on the final weekend of Black History Month, and that the date overlap was a coincidence.
The idea for #JUSTICEFORFLINT emerged at Blackout’s last event #MLKNOW held on Martin Luther King Day (Jan. 28), which took place at Riverside Church in Harlem and drew more than 2,200 attendees and nearly half a million views online.
Flint’s water problem began in April 2014 when, in an attempt to save money, the city stopped purchasing Lake Huron water from Detroit and instead began using water from the nearby Flint River, which was not treated with anti-corrosion chemicals that the former water supply had. The water started to decimate the pipes, and lead — which is known to cause permanent mental and physical disabilities — began leaching into the system. In the wake of the recent discovery of emails revealing that officials knew about potential water issues even before the switch was made, many city and state administrators have resigned or been fired.
Here come the vultures. Popping up for a photo op. They like black twitter will forget about Flint soon. Al, and others have already been there like leeches sucking up camera time.
Don't get in your feelings. I'm telling the hard truth about our own folks.
Don't get in your feelings. I'm telling the hard truth about our own folks.
yeah....that that sh*t I don't like
I hope they pat Hannibal Burress down and check him for a wire because he will be the first NEGRO to snitch on you to the press if he gets a chance.
Hannibal Burress aka Confidential Informant #1
Hannibal Burress aka Confidential Informant #1
Ava DuVernay Is Directing Disney’s A Wrinkle in Time Adaptation Before She Has to Head Back to the Fifth Dimension
Deadline reports she's officially signed on to direct Disney's adaptation of Madeleine L'Engle's A Wrinkle in Time, with a script coming from Frozen's Jennifer Lee. That's in addition to her Hurricane Katrina movie with David Oyelowo that's shooting this year, as well as her rumored team up with Lupita Nyong'o on the sci-fi film Intelligent Life. How does Ava DuVernay do so much? Does she have a magical tesseract that allows her to get anywhere in the universe instantly? She'll never tell.
Deadline reports she's officially signed on to direct Disney's adaptation of Madeleine L'Engle's A Wrinkle in Time, with a script coming from Frozen's Jennifer Lee. That's in addition to her Hurricane Katrina movie with David Oyelowo that's shooting this year, as well as her rumored team up with Lupita Nyong'o on the sci-fi film Intelligent Life. How does Ava DuVernay do so much? Does she have a magical tesseract that allows her to get anywhere in the universe instantly? She'll never tell.
Was ANYONE watching this?
Thought it was good event...hope it becomes an annual event.
Thought it was good event...hope it becomes an annual event.
Ava DuVernay Will Direct The Battle of Versailles, Which Sounds Like a War Movie But Is Actually About a Fierce Fashion Battle
Deadline reports that HBO Films has tapped Ava DuVernay to direct The Battle of Versailles, a film about the legendary 1973 Palace of Versailles fashion show. DuVernay will also co-write the film with Michael Starrbury. The fashion show served as a fundraiser for Versailles and pitted the five best French designers, Yves Saint Laurent, Hubert de Givenchy, Pierre Cardin, Emanuel Ungaro, and Marc Bohan, against five American designers the world had not yet heard of: Oscar de la Renta, Bill Blass, Anne Klein, Halston, and Stephen Burrows. Spoiler alert: The Americans won. The show was also a trailblazer for diversity: Ten of the 30 models from the winning American side were African-American. This film will likely be Selma levels of inspiring with fashion-battle–worthy levels of shade.
http://www.vulture.com/2016/03/ava-duvernay-to-direct-the-battle-of-versailles.html
Deadline reports that HBO Films has tapped Ava DuVernay to direct The Battle of Versailles, a film about the legendary 1973 Palace of Versailles fashion show. DuVernay will also co-write the film with Michael Starrbury. The fashion show served as a fundraiser for Versailles and pitted the five best French designers, Yves Saint Laurent, Hubert de Givenchy, Pierre Cardin, Emanuel Ungaro, and Marc Bohan, against five American designers the world had not yet heard of: Oscar de la Renta, Bill Blass, Anne Klein, Halston, and Stephen Burrows. Spoiler alert: The Americans won. The show was also a trailblazer for diversity: Ten of the 30 models from the winning American side were African-American. This film will likely be Selma levels of inspiring with fashion-battle–worthy levels of shade.
http://www.vulture.com/2016/03/ava-duvernay-to-direct-the-battle-of-versailles.html
Oprah and Ava DuVernay Will Reunite for the Director’s Next Film, A Wrinkle in Time
Ava DuVernay’s adaptation of the beloved book A Wrinkle in Time just got blessed from on-high, as Oprah Winfrey has entered final negotiations for the role of Mrs. Which. Mrs. Which is one of three celestial beings that accompany the story’s protagonists on their journey to find the father of the only girl in the group, Meg. Appropriately, Which is also the oldest of the three beings, because Oprah can only play the wisest figure in any story, and she typically appears as a shimmering kind of specter instead of a corporeal being, and that also feels so Oprah. DuVernay has not directed a feature film since 2014’s Selma, which also featured Oprah, flung both her and star David Oyelowo into the mainstream consciousness. She famously turned down an offer to helm Marvel’s Black Panther, saying she didn’t know if she could give it the identity of “an Ava DuVernay film,” but apparently felt comfortable enough with Marvel’s parent company, Disney, to proceed with bringing Madeleine L’Engle’s story to life under their banner. You will be able to give DuVernay and Oprah more of your money sometime in 2017.
Ava DuVernay’s adaptation of the beloved book A Wrinkle in Time just got blessed from on-high, as Oprah Winfrey has entered final negotiations for the role of Mrs. Which. Mrs. Which is one of three celestial beings that accompany the story’s protagonists on their journey to find the father of the only girl in the group, Meg. Appropriately, Which is also the oldest of the three beings, because Oprah can only play the wisest figure in any story, and she typically appears as a shimmering kind of specter instead of a corporeal being, and that also feels so Oprah. DuVernay has not directed a feature film since 2014’s Selma, which also featured Oprah, flung both her and star David Oyelowo into the mainstream consciousness. She famously turned down an offer to helm Marvel’s Black Panther, saying she didn’t know if she could give it the identity of “an Ava DuVernay film,” but apparently felt comfortable enough with Marvel’s parent company, Disney, to proceed with bringing Madeleine L’Engle’s story to life under their banner. You will be able to give DuVernay and Oprah more of your money sometime in 2017.
Ava DuVernay Is the First Woman of Color to Direct a Live-Action $100 Million Movie
Ava DuVernay is hitting an overdue milestone with her upcoming adaptation of A Wrinkle in Time, becoming the first woman of color to direct a live-action film with a budget over $100 million. The news came to light when DuVernay's project was included on a list of big-budget films receiving California tax incentives, with Deadlinenoting that A Wrinkle in Time's budget tops $100 million. Women in Hollywood put together the significance of that information, as DuVernay is the first women of color to helm such a film and only the third women overall. Despite the increasing frequency of tentpole movies, the only women behind the camera on such projects, until DuVernay, have been Kathryn Bigelow for 2002's K-19: The Widowmaker and Patty Jenkins for the upcoming Wonder Woman. DuVernay, who's having a pretty dang good week with Queen Sugar's early renewal, reacted to news of the milestone on Twitter, writing that she's "Not the first capable of doing so. Not by a long shot. Thanks to @DisneyStudios for breaking this glass with me." Looks like you can only hang with Oprah for so long until you, too, are touching the big bucks.
Ava DuVernay is hitting an overdue milestone with her upcoming adaptation of A Wrinkle in Time, becoming the first woman of color to direct a live-action film with a budget over $100 million. The news came to light when DuVernay's project was included on a list of big-budget films receiving California tax incentives, with Deadlinenoting that A Wrinkle in Time's budget tops $100 million. Women in Hollywood put together the significance of that information, as DuVernay is the first women of color to helm such a film and only the third women overall. Despite the increasing frequency of tentpole movies, the only women behind the camera on such projects, until DuVernay, have been Kathryn Bigelow for 2002's K-19: The Widowmaker and Patty Jenkins for the upcoming Wonder Woman. DuVernay, who's having a pretty dang good week with Queen Sugar's early renewal, reacted to news of the milestone on Twitter, writing that she's "Not the first capable of doing so. Not by a long shot. Thanks to @DisneyStudios for breaking this glass with me." Looks like you can only hang with Oprah for so long until you, too, are touching the big bucks.
http://www.vulture.com/2016/09/ava-duvernay-directing-queen-sugar.html
Ava DuVernay on Directing Queen Sugar, Properly Lighting Actors of Color, and Why She Used to Be More Brave
Ava DuVernay has been making films for the past eight years, and OWN'sQueen Sugar is her first foray into television. Why TV, and why now? "Because it's the golden era of television," the Academy Award-nominated director of Selma told Vulture, "and I want in." In a conversation for the Vulture TV Podcast, Matt Zoller Seitz and DuVernay go deep on what makes the filmmaker's directing style so distinctive, properly lighting actors of color, and why she feels she's not brave as she used to be. Listen to the conversation, and read an edited transcript below:
Matt Zoller Seitz: It's not as if you're lacking for feature film work these days, and TV is a longer commitment, it's like adopting a kid almost. Why television?
Ava DuVernay: I really can directly trace it to Cary Fukunaga and True Detective -- first of all you directed every episode, secondly it's badass. I saw that, and then Soderbergh and The Knick. I just loved that first season so much and that's when I became very aware -- you know Fincher had already done House of Cards, but I think it was like the pilot--
MZS: He did the pilot and then he set the style.
AD: He set the style, and that's something that we'd seen for a while. But it seemed like maybe four years ago or so it turned into auteursreally coming in and putting their whole stamp on a series beyond the pilot, beyond setting the stage. and I just thought that was fascinating, to tell the 13-hour story, the eight-hour story, you know? I wanted to try it.
MZS: You directed the first two episodes of the show, but you also co-wrote it. Can you run through all your roles?
AD: I show ran, so it was picking every director, all the casting decisions throughout all the episodes, costumes, prepping that stuff because when you go in so fast the episodic directors aren't able to, final cut on every single thing that we did. You know, it's fast -- it's much different than filmmaking. This pace is nuts if you're approaching it as a director. I talked to Shonda Rhimes about it and said, “how do you do this – producer-ily and writing wise? Churning this thing out?” Ten years she's been doing it. Multiple series. I mean, of course she's superwoman, but because I was trying to do it with the directors eye and all of the details, it was nuts.
MZS: Speaking of the director's eye, here's a question that I get from readers a lot and feel like I know in general what to tell them, but since I have you here maybe you can get a little more specific. How does a show maintain a consistent style over a period of time when there are so many directors?
AD: This was my big concern with the first season, and I think that's why I probably held it even more tightly then I needed because I was afraid of going off the rails a little bit and not being consistently what I set when I started out. And when I look at all of the episodes, it's changed, but not in a bad way. Like making a sculpture, you're making a piece and it's just your hands. What it would be like if there were 30 hands on it? How do you keep the same form if everyone is putting their hands on it? It may not be exactly the same thing, but that doesn't mean it's bad. That was something that I had to learn in having other directors kind of come in.
MZS: On Miami Vice there's a legendary anecdote about how Michael Mann issued this edict “no earth tones" for the first few seasons and I know that other shows have particular rules. Do you have anything?
AD: Yeah, yeah I hate inserts. I hate them.
MZS: Inserts meaning tight close ups--
AD: Shots--
MZS: Of objects and things?
AD: Yeah. Like someone goes to pick up the phone, and I don't need another shot of the hand picking up the phone. Like, I'm good. I saw it in the wide. Yeah it's a phone. iPhone? Blue case? I got you. I just don't like it. But the main thing in terms of look that keeps the steady hand is the cinematographer. The DP knows what the look is like, knows what the framing is. The editors all know what the editorial rhythm is, and so with a director and actor doing maybe something outside of it, it's all good because they'll bring their sensibility to a piece that already has an established aesthetic.
MZS: The show is filmed on location in Louisiana, right?
AD: Yeah.
MZS: How does that affect the look of the show when you're actually shooting in the place where something is set as opposed to faking it somewhere else?
AD: I was really aware of not wanting to do New Orleans, like, the word that comes to mind is porn. The city has been photographed so much, you think of New Orleans and you think of the same tropes, Bourbon Street, French Quarter, now Katrina. And it's more than that. I did not treat the city as character. That's the thing that filmmakers say: the city was a character. No, the city was not a character. Our characters lived there. New Orleans is a fabric that just exists. The city is so distinct that you don't have to overcorrect and show it off because it just is in the pores. Like you know when you drink too much… I don't drink, but people who drink too much and they come home at night and you're like, “you've been drinking,” and they're like, “no I haven't!” And you're like, “yes!” You're sweating whatever you drink, you know? It's like smoke, it sticks to it. That's New Orleans.
MZS: My brother went to college at Tulane and when I went to visit him there I felt like I was swimming through tomato soup. That's how humid it was, it was unreal. The show does have that quality to it. There's also something about the light on this show. One thing I've noticed on a lot of shows that are directed or produced by white filmmakers is a lot of times the actors of color are not properly lit. What do you do to make sure that doesn't happen?
AD:This is a historical thing. Usually you have two people in a scene, and in the history of cinema the hero is most likely going to be the white guy. And the other guy is his friend who is carrying the bag or whatever, and you're not going to light for that guy. Historically you've had really muddy, unforgiving, unintentional images of black people. So I learned a lot from Bradford Young and Arthur Jafa and Malik Sayeed and the great black cinematographers about how to actually light our skin in a way that's intentional -- anyone can do it if you are favoring the darker skin tone. But that doesn't happen. Only because of the context by which most of these scenes in films have happened for so long. The black character, the character of color, is usually the lesser of the two characters in terms of prominence.
MZS: What sort of things as a filmmaker can you do with production design and costumes that will make actors of color pop more?
AD:Gosh, there are lots of tricks. The main thing with lighting characters of color is there's just such a variance of tints in in skin tone. There are characters we shot in Queen Sugar where their skin looks like yours, and then you see Rutina Wesley or Kofi Siriboe --Nigerian! You know? It's like, woah, these are two characters I need to favor both, how do I light for both? And you do exactly that, you light each one as if they're the hero of the story, and it takes a little bit longer and everyone doesn't know how to do it -- it's not just putting light on -- but it's not impossible for people to learn. Our Latino cinematographer Antonio Calvachewas really extraordinary -- he shot Todd Field's films Little Children and In the Bedroom. I wanted to have a cinematographer who'd never shot television, who had more a cinematic eye. He agreed, and he was very intentional with the brown skin tones.
MZS: How much leeway do the actors have to move about in the frame when they're acting in a scene? Do you block them out like you go here and you say this or you go there and say that, or do they have the freedom to move in some unexpected way?
AD: Wow. This is really great -- this is a directing conversation!
MZS: I told you!
AD: How cool. Being a black woman director I very rarely, I can count on one hand and it wouldn't be a full hand the conversations that I've had about craft. Because it's always about diversity, about the first this, the first that. No one is asking me about blocking scenes. Or rehearsal. So I really appreciate that.
MZS: Hey, it's my pleasure. But this is one of my pet hobby horses, I'm kind of on a critical jihad against shows that cut all the time.
AD: Well we sure don't!
MZS: No you don't! And that was another thing I wanted to ask you about. You were talking about the camera distance, the role camera distance plays, and you've actually got a scene when the grandfather goes to pick up Blue from school and you let most of that play out in wide shot. And then you've got the scene with Ralph Angel and his estranged wife, when he gets out of the pick-up truck to confront her, that's also in a wide shot. Most shows, most movies wouldn't do that. They wouldn't stay that far back from people in a moment of extreme emotion. They would go right into their face. Why don't you go right into their face?
AD: Because the story is so emotional, I really have to calibrate the time, the close ups. So there are some scenes -- like the one where the grandfather, the son, and Ralph Angel and his son, Blue, are all in the hospital room - that's all mediums and extreme close up. ECU, macro, tight -- you can't even see a chin and forehead. You're eyebrow to bottom lip on some of that stuff. I know that's coming, so it's just a calibration of it. But also, that scene that you talked about in the parking lot is about distance, you know what I mean?
MZS: Emotional distance.
AD: Emotional distance. And actually he's moving away, he's trying to get away from here -- she's chasing him across the parking lot.
MZS: Right, he walks out of the building and she follows him all the way out to his truck.
AD: Yeah, and so literally it's a bit of a chase scene. We have to really find the moments where he would turn back. Why do you turn around here? You can't just do it unmotivated. You would keep walking to the truck. So I had to figure out the pieces -- why he would turn? We found a really nice thing -- Kofi Siriboe, such a great young actor -- where he turned just to hear her out just so he could say a mean thing to her. He turns and says, "Yeah tell me," and she says, "I got the job," and he's like "I don't care what you do." Bam.
MZS: There's a saying that I like to quote that a great show or a great movie teaches you how to watch it. The way you get used to the language in a book. And it's interesting when you feel like you've gotten used to the language of a show and then it does something like, oh that was out of character! One example of that is Ralph Angel with Blue at Blue's birthday party -- there's a shot where he looks right into the camera and then the boy looks right into the camera. That hadn't happened yet and I don't think you did it after that.
AD: And it doesn't happen again in the whole series.
MZS: Why did you do that?
AD: Because it was there, and you have to be brave enough to say I'm going to shoot it. I said, “I'm going to shoot it and I don't even know if I'm going to use it,” but I saw it lined up and I said, “gosh this does something to me emotionally.” Even though it's not our visual language, it’s very moving to me when I cut it. It says so much about what this boy means to him and what the father means to the boy, and I feel like it really does something to the scene which I really think is a big jewel of this episode, one that's close to my heart. It's this binding together of father and son, and that happens in a really unexpected way by changing those frames.
I'm working on A Wrinkle in Time right now, and every scene has six people in it. I'm like, what? Sometimes my mind just goes to there's six people in this. The camera movement and where the blocking is is going to be a real fantastic challenge. Because I've done the dinnertable scenes, I've done crowd scenes, I've done marches, I've done some scenes with a lot of people in it, but six people -- I mean 90 percent of the movie there are six people standing around.
MZS: Is it true, as directors say, that the hardest thing to shoot is a dinner table scene? With a lot of people around the table?
AD: I find it easy. Just because they're all on certain axis and you can get it done. I do it in pieces. People who are trying to do too much: Get out of that scene. Because it can bury you. It can take all day to get a dinner scene done. It is hard if you make it hard, but I enjoy them.
MZS: How many of your decisions visually are driven by what the actors are doing?
AD: Quite a bit. Like the scene you're talking about, with the center frame shot, I just saw it -- it was happening in the moment. But to answer that along with your other question is, how much are the actors allowed to move in the frame? I have an idea about what will work, and then I'll usually do a blocking rehearsal where I'll hear what they say. And sometimes with actors I found early on in my work, don't just let them in the room and say, “hey what do you think?” Ooh, no. Don't do it. Because what they think is going to be, “I think I turn to the camera here and then the camera follows me here and then—” you know what I mean? So I usually start it with, “I'm thinking it starts in this area and it ends here. Do we want to talk about how it will be a piece?” And then as they start moving around the room, it's like, “oh no this is a better idea” or “oh no go back.” But I always go into a blocking rehearsal with an anchor, with a blocking plan. And sometimes they'll step into the room and they'll be in costume and you're like, “that sucks that's not going to work. Let's think of something new.”
MZS: It seems to me -- and if I'm wrong I'm sure you'll tell me -- that this show has a lot in common with your first two features. The feel of it -- not just thematically, like some of the issues that come up like the loss of the matriarch or the patriarch, or a guy adjusting to life after doing time. But also the sparseness of it. The intimacy of it. This is not a big show. This is a small show. You’ve got like a dozen characters, you don't got 80.
AD: That's right, and I loved it. I love going back to that kind of storytelling. Because doing A Wrinkle in Time or Selma or a couple of the other big pilots, I found myself longing for the indie spirit of getting a few actors on a set that's just a house. They say indie films are just people talking in rooms. Um, I love people talking in rooms. I wanted to have people talking about really great stuff in rooms, and yeah, it is really a filmmaking that's similar to what I did before. I was interrogating for myself how much that filmmaking style has changed now that I've done other things. I feel like I was little braver, earlier.
MZS: In what way?
AD: Because I didn't know what I was doing. And so it's like, “let's try it.” And I'd get in the editing room and find really interesting things. Now I know how to manage my time, I know how to get more material which allows me to go into the editing room and put something together, but I don't if the material has, for me, as much of the edge as I feel like I had early on.
MZS: So a couple of really quick, really geeky questions.
AD: Speed round! I'll answer faster.
MZS: You've got a lot of close ups in the show where a character’s head is on the extreme left or on the extreme right hand side of the frame. Sometimes they're looking off screen and there's like two thirds of negative space. There's a lot of that kind of thing.
AD: Yeah, I love it. When you short side them it makes this person now feels enclosed and imprisoned, right? I usually use that when there's something I want them to feel trapped [in] or I want them to feel less free in whatever they're talking about.
MZS: You also do a lot of things where you've got close ups of people where there's nothing in the frame except their face – it’s almost like they’re a painting. Why do you do that?
AD: Because the terrain of the face is the most dynamic thing you can point the camera at, to me. I love production design and bells and whistles and all of that. I love a technograin as much as the next gal, but a great actors face? What else should we be looking at?
MZS: That's a perfectly great place to end.
Ava DuVernay on Directing Queen Sugar, Properly Lighting Actors of Color, and Why She Used to Be More Brave
Ava DuVernay has been making films for the past eight years, and OWN'sQueen Sugar is her first foray into television. Why TV, and why now? "Because it's the golden era of television," the Academy Award-nominated director of Selma told Vulture, "and I want in." In a conversation for the Vulture TV Podcast, Matt Zoller Seitz and DuVernay go deep on what makes the filmmaker's directing style so distinctive, properly lighting actors of color, and why she feels she's not brave as she used to be. Listen to the conversation, and read an edited transcript below:
Matt Zoller Seitz: It's not as if you're lacking for feature film work these days, and TV is a longer commitment, it's like adopting a kid almost. Why television?
Ava DuVernay: I really can directly trace it to Cary Fukunaga and True Detective -- first of all you directed every episode, secondly it's badass. I saw that, and then Soderbergh and The Knick. I just loved that first season so much and that's when I became very aware -- you know Fincher had already done House of Cards, but I think it was like the pilot--
MZS: He did the pilot and then he set the style.
AD: He set the style, and that's something that we'd seen for a while. But it seemed like maybe four years ago or so it turned into auteursreally coming in and putting their whole stamp on a series beyond the pilot, beyond setting the stage. and I just thought that was fascinating, to tell the 13-hour story, the eight-hour story, you know? I wanted to try it.
MZS: You directed the first two episodes of the show, but you also co-wrote it. Can you run through all your roles?
AD: I show ran, so it was picking every director, all the casting decisions throughout all the episodes, costumes, prepping that stuff because when you go in so fast the episodic directors aren't able to, final cut on every single thing that we did. You know, it's fast -- it's much different than filmmaking. This pace is nuts if you're approaching it as a director. I talked to Shonda Rhimes about it and said, “how do you do this – producer-ily and writing wise? Churning this thing out?” Ten years she's been doing it. Multiple series. I mean, of course she's superwoman, but because I was trying to do it with the directors eye and all of the details, it was nuts.
MZS: Speaking of the director's eye, here's a question that I get from readers a lot and feel like I know in general what to tell them, but since I have you here maybe you can get a little more specific. How does a show maintain a consistent style over a period of time when there are so many directors?
AD: This was my big concern with the first season, and I think that's why I probably held it even more tightly then I needed because I was afraid of going off the rails a little bit and not being consistently what I set when I started out. And when I look at all of the episodes, it's changed, but not in a bad way. Like making a sculpture, you're making a piece and it's just your hands. What it would be like if there were 30 hands on it? How do you keep the same form if everyone is putting their hands on it? It may not be exactly the same thing, but that doesn't mean it's bad. That was something that I had to learn in having other directors kind of come in.
MZS: On Miami Vice there's a legendary anecdote about how Michael Mann issued this edict “no earth tones" for the first few seasons and I know that other shows have particular rules. Do you have anything?
AD: Yeah, yeah I hate inserts. I hate them.
MZS: Inserts meaning tight close ups--
AD: Shots--
MZS: Of objects and things?
AD: Yeah. Like someone goes to pick up the phone, and I don't need another shot of the hand picking up the phone. Like, I'm good. I saw it in the wide. Yeah it's a phone. iPhone? Blue case? I got you. I just don't like it. But the main thing in terms of look that keeps the steady hand is the cinematographer. The DP knows what the look is like, knows what the framing is. The editors all know what the editorial rhythm is, and so with a director and actor doing maybe something outside of it, it's all good because they'll bring their sensibility to a piece that already has an established aesthetic.
MZS: The show is filmed on location in Louisiana, right?
AD: Yeah.
MZS: How does that affect the look of the show when you're actually shooting in the place where something is set as opposed to faking it somewhere else?
AD: I was really aware of not wanting to do New Orleans, like, the word that comes to mind is porn. The city has been photographed so much, you think of New Orleans and you think of the same tropes, Bourbon Street, French Quarter, now Katrina. And it's more than that. I did not treat the city as character. That's the thing that filmmakers say: the city was a character. No, the city was not a character. Our characters lived there. New Orleans is a fabric that just exists. The city is so distinct that you don't have to overcorrect and show it off because it just is in the pores. Like you know when you drink too much… I don't drink, but people who drink too much and they come home at night and you're like, “you've been drinking,” and they're like, “no I haven't!” And you're like, “yes!” You're sweating whatever you drink, you know? It's like smoke, it sticks to it. That's New Orleans.
MZS: My brother went to college at Tulane and when I went to visit him there I felt like I was swimming through tomato soup. That's how humid it was, it was unreal. The show does have that quality to it. There's also something about the light on this show. One thing I've noticed on a lot of shows that are directed or produced by white filmmakers is a lot of times the actors of color are not properly lit. What do you do to make sure that doesn't happen?
AD:This is a historical thing. Usually you have two people in a scene, and in the history of cinema the hero is most likely going to be the white guy. And the other guy is his friend who is carrying the bag or whatever, and you're not going to light for that guy. Historically you've had really muddy, unforgiving, unintentional images of black people. So I learned a lot from Bradford Young and Arthur Jafa and Malik Sayeed and the great black cinematographers about how to actually light our skin in a way that's intentional -- anyone can do it if you are favoring the darker skin tone. But that doesn't happen. Only because of the context by which most of these scenes in films have happened for so long. The black character, the character of color, is usually the lesser of the two characters in terms of prominence.
MZS: What sort of things as a filmmaker can you do with production design and costumes that will make actors of color pop more?
AD:Gosh, there are lots of tricks. The main thing with lighting characters of color is there's just such a variance of tints in in skin tone. There are characters we shot in Queen Sugar where their skin looks like yours, and then you see Rutina Wesley or Kofi Siriboe --Nigerian! You know? It's like, woah, these are two characters I need to favor both, how do I light for both? And you do exactly that, you light each one as if they're the hero of the story, and it takes a little bit longer and everyone doesn't know how to do it -- it's not just putting light on -- but it's not impossible for people to learn. Our Latino cinematographer Antonio Calvachewas really extraordinary -- he shot Todd Field's films Little Children and In the Bedroom. I wanted to have a cinematographer who'd never shot television, who had more a cinematic eye. He agreed, and he was very intentional with the brown skin tones.
MZS: How much leeway do the actors have to move about in the frame when they're acting in a scene? Do you block them out like you go here and you say this or you go there and say that, or do they have the freedom to move in some unexpected way?
AD: Wow. This is really great -- this is a directing conversation!
MZS: I told you!
AD: How cool. Being a black woman director I very rarely, I can count on one hand and it wouldn't be a full hand the conversations that I've had about craft. Because it's always about diversity, about the first this, the first that. No one is asking me about blocking scenes. Or rehearsal. So I really appreciate that.
MZS: Hey, it's my pleasure. But this is one of my pet hobby horses, I'm kind of on a critical jihad against shows that cut all the time.
AD: Well we sure don't!
MZS: No you don't! And that was another thing I wanted to ask you about. You were talking about the camera distance, the role camera distance plays, and you've actually got a scene when the grandfather goes to pick up Blue from school and you let most of that play out in wide shot. And then you've got the scene with Ralph Angel and his estranged wife, when he gets out of the pick-up truck to confront her, that's also in a wide shot. Most shows, most movies wouldn't do that. They wouldn't stay that far back from people in a moment of extreme emotion. They would go right into their face. Why don't you go right into their face?
AD: Because the story is so emotional, I really have to calibrate the time, the close ups. So there are some scenes -- like the one where the grandfather, the son, and Ralph Angel and his son, Blue, are all in the hospital room - that's all mediums and extreme close up. ECU, macro, tight -- you can't even see a chin and forehead. You're eyebrow to bottom lip on some of that stuff. I know that's coming, so it's just a calibration of it. But also, that scene that you talked about in the parking lot is about distance, you know what I mean?
MZS: Emotional distance.
AD: Emotional distance. And actually he's moving away, he's trying to get away from here -- she's chasing him across the parking lot.
MZS: Right, he walks out of the building and she follows him all the way out to his truck.
AD: Yeah, and so literally it's a bit of a chase scene. We have to really find the moments where he would turn back. Why do you turn around here? You can't just do it unmotivated. You would keep walking to the truck. So I had to figure out the pieces -- why he would turn? We found a really nice thing -- Kofi Siriboe, such a great young actor -- where he turned just to hear her out just so he could say a mean thing to her. He turns and says, "Yeah tell me," and she says, "I got the job," and he's like "I don't care what you do." Bam.
MZS: There's a saying that I like to quote that a great show or a great movie teaches you how to watch it. The way you get used to the language in a book. And it's interesting when you feel like you've gotten used to the language of a show and then it does something like, oh that was out of character! One example of that is Ralph Angel with Blue at Blue's birthday party -- there's a shot where he looks right into the camera and then the boy looks right into the camera. That hadn't happened yet and I don't think you did it after that.
AD: And it doesn't happen again in the whole series.
MZS: Why did you do that?
AD: Because it was there, and you have to be brave enough to say I'm going to shoot it. I said, “I'm going to shoot it and I don't even know if I'm going to use it,” but I saw it lined up and I said, “gosh this does something to me emotionally.” Even though it's not our visual language, it’s very moving to me when I cut it. It says so much about what this boy means to him and what the father means to the boy, and I feel like it really does something to the scene which I really think is a big jewel of this episode, one that's close to my heart. It's this binding together of father and son, and that happens in a really unexpected way by changing those frames.
I'm working on A Wrinkle in Time right now, and every scene has six people in it. I'm like, what? Sometimes my mind just goes to there's six people in this. The camera movement and where the blocking is is going to be a real fantastic challenge. Because I've done the dinnertable scenes, I've done crowd scenes, I've done marches, I've done some scenes with a lot of people in it, but six people -- I mean 90 percent of the movie there are six people standing around.
MZS: Is it true, as directors say, that the hardest thing to shoot is a dinner table scene? With a lot of people around the table?
AD: I find it easy. Just because they're all on certain axis and you can get it done. I do it in pieces. People who are trying to do too much: Get out of that scene. Because it can bury you. It can take all day to get a dinner scene done. It is hard if you make it hard, but I enjoy them.
MZS: How many of your decisions visually are driven by what the actors are doing?
AD: Quite a bit. Like the scene you're talking about, with the center frame shot, I just saw it -- it was happening in the moment. But to answer that along with your other question is, how much are the actors allowed to move in the frame? I have an idea about what will work, and then I'll usually do a blocking rehearsal where I'll hear what they say. And sometimes with actors I found early on in my work, don't just let them in the room and say, “hey what do you think?” Ooh, no. Don't do it. Because what they think is going to be, “I think I turn to the camera here and then the camera follows me here and then—” you know what I mean? So I usually start it with, “I'm thinking it starts in this area and it ends here. Do we want to talk about how it will be a piece?” And then as they start moving around the room, it's like, “oh no this is a better idea” or “oh no go back.” But I always go into a blocking rehearsal with an anchor, with a blocking plan. And sometimes they'll step into the room and they'll be in costume and you're like, “that sucks that's not going to work. Let's think of something new.”
MZS: It seems to me -- and if I'm wrong I'm sure you'll tell me -- that this show has a lot in common with your first two features. The feel of it -- not just thematically, like some of the issues that come up like the loss of the matriarch or the patriarch, or a guy adjusting to life after doing time. But also the sparseness of it. The intimacy of it. This is not a big show. This is a small show. You’ve got like a dozen characters, you don't got 80.
AD: That's right, and I loved it. I love going back to that kind of storytelling. Because doing A Wrinkle in Time or Selma or a couple of the other big pilots, I found myself longing for the indie spirit of getting a few actors on a set that's just a house. They say indie films are just people talking in rooms. Um, I love people talking in rooms. I wanted to have people talking about really great stuff in rooms, and yeah, it is really a filmmaking that's similar to what I did before. I was interrogating for myself how much that filmmaking style has changed now that I've done other things. I feel like I was little braver, earlier.
MZS: In what way?
AD: Because I didn't know what I was doing. And so it's like, “let's try it.” And I'd get in the editing room and find really interesting things. Now I know how to manage my time, I know how to get more material which allows me to go into the editing room and put something together, but I don't if the material has, for me, as much of the edge as I feel like I had early on.
MZS: So a couple of really quick, really geeky questions.
AD: Speed round! I'll answer faster.
MZS: You've got a lot of close ups in the show where a character’s head is on the extreme left or on the extreme right hand side of the frame. Sometimes they're looking off screen and there's like two thirds of negative space. There's a lot of that kind of thing.
AD: Yeah, I love it. When you short side them it makes this person now feels enclosed and imprisoned, right? I usually use that when there's something I want them to feel trapped [in] or I want them to feel less free in whatever they're talking about.
MZS: You also do a lot of things where you've got close ups of people where there's nothing in the frame except their face – it’s almost like they’re a painting. Why do you do that?
AD: Because the terrain of the face is the most dynamic thing you can point the camera at, to me. I love production design and bells and whistles and all of that. I love a technograin as much as the next gal, but a great actors face? What else should we be looking at?
MZS: That's a perfectly great place to end.