YouSaid · the spoken record

Ava DuVernay

lines on the record: 119
first: 2023-09-18
most recent: 2023-09-18
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“Not change the lives of the five men. It doesn't completely revolutionize who they are as human beings and they live differently than they did when it first came out because no one saw it and it didn't make a difference. But that did. And so, you know, there's only so far that the work can get you. And that's far. Like, I believe I would have gotten far from just sheer hard labor. But there's been a furthering beyond that that has been blessings that have come into my life that are beyond my control. And some people call that luck. I'll take it.”
2023-09-18 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · ARRAY: Filmmaker Ava DuVernay (2021) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Guess I attribute it to luck, but I don't call it luck. Know, I think it's my path, and these are blessings. This is designed. And it's up to me to... Work to live up to these moments that are put in front of me, but certainly in the way that you're defining it, I would say luck really hard, but you could work really hard and never get the brakes. You know, work really hard and never be seen, be heard. You can work really hard. And, you know, no one read your scripts on a plane and calls you the next day and says, let me be in it who ends up being the same guy who gets you Selma that gets nominated for the Oscar, that does da. You could make 13th and it sits on the back channels of Netflix and doesn't really get seen or move, but it moved. You can make when they see us, you know, and”
2023-09-18 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · ARRAY: Filmmaker Ava DuVernay (2021) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, I think it will happen. It may not happen and be fully realized in my time. Someone's going to see it right in the future, or someone's going to be activated by it. And, you know, this whole journey is just all of us taking. Our own little steps, like especially the journey of black people, the journey of women, the journey of black directors, like each person's lifetime is just one step in a long walk to get to a certain place. And so I'm hoping that my step can be a big one. I'm like trying to leap and get us a lot further. In my time, and that's really my hope for, Ray, that this is something that even after I'm gone, you know, even after my time on this planet is done. The principles and the work and the way of working that I'm trying to embed in this kind of array way, can that continue on without me? That's the goal.”
2023-09-18 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · ARRAY: Filmmaker Ava DuVernay (2021) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“The four building campus in historic Filipino town in Los Angeles, we're vaccinating people and community screenings and literacy and a three-day film festival to educate the community about Philippine X films or the French New Wave or to teach kids how to read subtitles or to. There's all kinds of stuff going on, right? That stuff is magic, it's beautiful to me, and it's come out of a place of absence, but it has become a place of abundance.”
2023-09-18 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · ARRAY: Filmmaker Ava DuVernay (2021) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“But within that, the joy, right? The freedom of expression, the building of new ideas, the disrupting of systems, the innovation that I've experienced by doing all that outweighs the days where I think, I wish I didn't have to do all this. So I think right now Array is 10 years old. It is a nonprofit that has community outreach and educational initiatives and learning guides for everything that I create”
2023-09-18 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · ARRAY: Filmmaker Ava DuVernay (2021) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“You know, I talk to filmmaker friends at a, you know, these days it's a Zoom, but you run into someone in the store or something. And what are you working on? And they're telling you about a film. What am I working on? Dude, you don't want to friggin' know. Like, I'm talking to CEOs about inclusion. I'm fighting for to get more black folks in these unions so that they can be hired as crew. Like, I'm doing a lot more than just being able to sit home and make my movie. And so I'm in a place right now where. I really have to interrogate my feelings about doing that where in some moments of the day I'm like I shouldn't have to do this, you know, if this is an equal playing field, then it should be equal for all of us without me having to do this extra work on top of my art making”
2023-09-18 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · ARRAY: Filmmaker Ava DuVernay (2021) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Like, who can just make his film? Who doesn't also have to go make the speech to the independent film, right? Cinema houses, who doesn't have to try to create film literacy in our community and build a screening room that's free for the community to learn about films from around the world because there's no movie theaters in our neighborhoods. have to create initiatives on my sets where I have to focus on equalizing opportunities for women directors who just doesn't have to do that. My white guy friends don't sit on panels about this stuff. Like they don't get called for articles about this stuff. They don't have to do it. They just can make their stuff.”
2023-09-18 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · ARRAY: Filmmaker Ava DuVernay (2021) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, I mean, that's interesting, this idea of doing it on your own because I was just talking to, I just did a panel with some fellow artists for Freeze in New York, this kind of art week in New York. And I was talking about like sometimes wishing that I was. One of my white male counterparts who does not have to Labor on top of the film.”
2023-09-18 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · ARRAY: Filmmaker Ava DuVernay (2021) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Some filmmakers, if I was ever presented with something like that and it was something that meant something to me and I was attracted to sure, but you know right now the things that I'm focused on are much you get more leeway When you are spending less money. So I'd rather have leeway and less money.”
2023-09-18 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · ARRAY: Filmmaker Ava DuVernay (2021) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I've had the most success with the work that I have done unhindered. Whether it's the independent films and the success that they had, Selma, which was a really hands-off process, thirteenth, which was and when they see us, which is Netflix saying Hello, ma'am, would you like this money to make something that's important to you? Well, yes, thank you. When will I see you again? Oh, when you're finished, that is the perfect time for me to see you again. Thank you Whether it's my film, my TV projects now, you know, I have the most success with networks that are really saying, hey, ma'am, we're paying you for your voice and we're gonna let you do you. That's the stuff that really works. So if there was something that was big budget where that kind of space was allowed or given to me, afforded to me, and it exists, it exists for.”
2023-09-18 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · ARRAY: Filmmaker Ava DuVernay (2021) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Still mine I thrive in smaller environments. And so after that went on to do thirteenth and to do when they see us in spaces where I could get 100% of what I wanted out, out. And so that's my deficit is I kind of have to have room to move and can't really make movies by committee. I can make movies with collaborators. I can hear, you know, insight and criticism and ideas, but I can't really give up parts. You know, I can't, it's hard for me.”
2023-09-18 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · ARRAY: Filmmaker Ava DuVernay (2021) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And the closer you can get to that being kind of 100% is, you know, now you're in Freedom Land. And that's what I experienced on I will follow because no one cared. Middle of nowhere because no one cared. Selma, because really no one cared. You know, I mean, they cared, but they really let me have that.”
2023-09-18 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · ARRAY: Filmmaker Ava DuVernay (2021) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Compromise and you get to the end, and you say, Okay, I think this will be okay, you know, and sit back and say, oh, okay, that wasn't quite what I meant. Not quite what I started out wanting to do. And that was okay. That's what that experience was for me in my career. And so many directors go through that. There are many people around the world that continue to hear from about the film, you know, in ways that are nourishing and necessary and beautiful. But I look at the film and I remember the process. And it was a process that wasn't all my process. So I think that, you know, the successful film is the film that The filmmaker can say that is more of what I had in mind than it's not”
2023-09-18 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · ARRAY: Filmmaker Ava DuVernay (2021) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“For me, it's a film that I can look at a film and say, oh, Person got their vision out like They told the story that they wanted to tell. Like, I made a film called Ree Clintheim. I look at that film. And for all of Beautiful experiences that I had on it and for the beauty that I think is in the film. It's not my film, right? It was the first time I made a film for a massive studio and went through a process. Of like group filmmaking, you know what I mean? Like a lot of people with a lot of opinions who have a lot more power than you do. And ultimately you”
2023-09-18 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · ARRAY: Filmmaker Ava DuVernay (2021) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“No, I don't think so because I think, I mean, I think that's a part of it. But, I mean, you can have a great actor give a fantastic performance in a film that's yeeks not working. We've all seen that.”
2023-09-18 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · ARRAY: Filmmaker Ava DuVernay (2021) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“My branch, the director's branch. I did not go to film school. I did not interface with them, I did not live in the same places, I did not speak the same film language I didn't know them and they didn't know me. On top of that No black women director. Had ever been nominated in the history of the academy, which at that point is many decades, so that's against me. So, when I say no, I wasn't pushed out of shape about it. People have to remember what the times were. There was no precedent for it to ever happen. So I was not delusional enough to think, oh, I'm going to be the one.”
2023-09-18 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · ARRAY: Filmmaker Ava DuVernay (2021) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It is a campaign and it is a very specific route to denomination and it just wasn't going to happen. I do not know at that time, did not know any of those people and they did not know me”
2023-09-18 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · ARRAY: Filmmaker Ava DuVernay (2021) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“The reason why I wasn't hurt by getting best directors is because statistically speaking there was no way for that to happen. And people are like, Ava, what are you talking about? I just, I had worked in the industry as a publicist. I've done Oscar campaigns.”
2023-09-18 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · ARRAY: Filmmaker Ava DuVernay (2021) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I wasn't hurt by not getting best director, and I'll tell you why, I was hurt by David not getting best actor nomination for him not to be nominated. That was, I remember the moment was the moment where I was really at the wind knocked out of me.”
2023-09-18 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · ARRAY: Filmmaker Ava DuVernay (2021) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Even when Selma came out, it was and is widely praised, but you were not nominated for best director. I know that this is probably kind of a sensitive question, but I don't know. Did it matter? Were you hurt by that?”
2023-09-18 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · ARRAY: Filmmaker Ava DuVernay (2021) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“The way that this film came about, I always trace back to that random flight that David had on the film before. And I know that that's not random. For me, that's a part of the design of why I'm supposed to be doing what I'm doing and how things fall into place. I believe that everything's for a reason. And so that set was really intense with a spirit of This is meant to be.”
2023-09-18 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · ARRAY: Filmmaker Ava DuVernay (2021) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, yeah, a lot of heavy prep and really important to have people around you who know what they're doing. The challenge with the period piece, as one can imagine listening is, if I'm making a movie about now. I can go out, find a location, and if there's a scene in a grocery store, I just walk into the grocery store and I shoot. If I'm making a movie about the 60s, I've got to find a grocery store that still looks like the 60s or change it to look like the 60s in every single thing that's on the shelf has to look like the 60s and every actor has to be dressed like they're in the 60s so I can't just pull clothes off the Everything has to be made and rented. And so that's why period pieces cost so much and that's why the 20 million goes quickly because every street light sign shoe car everything has to be period.”
2023-09-18 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · ARRAY: Filmmaker Ava DuVernay (2021) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It took you thirty days, feels like, oh, it just took you 30 days, for you had only 30 days. Okay, maybe that's where it was”
2023-09-18 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · ARRAY: Filmmaker Ava DuVernay (2021) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It was about taking what I'd learned as an African-American studies major at UCLA, what I learned as a daughter of my father who was from Lowndes County, Alabama, which sits right two minutes from Selma. What I knew about all of my summers growing up visiting my father's family in Alabama in the summers. And to just pour all of that into the screenplay. And then afterward, I tackled the speeches. And I remember submitting it and getting a really fast answer back. We're going to run a budget on it, but this is fantastic. And if we can get this down to 20 million, you're going to be in production. And then we were”
2023-09-18 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · ARRAY: Filmmaker Ava DuVernay (2021) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I don't know I I remember writing it. I remember doing the story first, which needed to be changed from something that was a lot of kind of trying to have political intrigue. It was a lot of stuff with the president and to really imbue it with a sense of black people on the ground in Selma. The film was called Selma, not President Johnson, right?”
2023-09-18 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · ARRAY: Filmmaker Ava DuVernay (2021) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“At this guy, well researched. Yes, Steven Spielberg got the rights. The speeches in film at that time. And so in order to tell the story, the way around it was to approximate or to rewrite Dr. King's speeches. Easy. No problem, right?”
2023-09-18 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · ARRAY: Filmmaker Ava DuVernay (2021) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“The king family doesn't have rights to his speeches, but an estate As the right to speeches in the estate had already given the rights to the speeches to another filmmaker who was much more famous than I was, because nobody knew who I was, who knew who it was?”
2023-09-18 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · ARRAY: Filmmaker Ava DuVernay (2021) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And I thought, ah, that's interesting. And having not a lot of options on the table at that time? And having that challenge from him, I started to become very attracted to the idea of doing it. And so I said I will take a swing at this script and I will try and the whole deal was if I could write a script that could be made for twenty million, that was good, they would make it.”
2023-09-18 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · ARRAY: Filmmaker Ava DuVernay (2021) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So, when Lee Daniels left the film, basically David being scrappy, the same scrappy guy that's going to take a stranger on the plane to steak dinner to advocate to invest in a film for a woman he doesn't know in a film he's not in. Said just because the director's left doesn't mean I can't still play Dr. King. So he says to the producers If I can find another director who will do it for twenty million dollars? Can you consider still making a film? And I can still play Dr. King. So cut to this woman he just worked with on this film, one Sundance. He says to me, You're going to need to rewrite this film and make it for twenty million dollars, would you consider doing it? I never saw myself making a civil rights drama. It's just the kind of movie that I would never watch. And he said, well, could you make one that you would watch”
2023-09-18 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · ARRAY: Filmmaker Ava DuVernay (2021) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“He was casting in Selma by the director who left the film before because of budget. He had always knew, and his mother In peace had been very much a champion of him playing Dr. King, and he always knew that somehow he's going to play Dr. King. Is something that's been with him for many many years. So, this king movie is moving around town. I think the story is that he had auditioned for it with another director and didn't get it. And when the director before me auditioned him he was cast as doctor King. When that director, I don't know why I'm pretending like it's leading. It's Lee Daniels. Okay. I mean, what the heck? You can Google. There's a thing called Google Now Guy. We've got to say the names. Yep.”
2023-09-18 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · ARRAY: Filmmaker Ava DuVernay (2021) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Who called you because he read your screenplay on an airplane and then was in your film middle of nowhere, he was cast in Selma. And how did what happened? I mean, how did he get you involved in the film?”
2023-09-18 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · ARRAY: Filmmaker Ava DuVernay (2021) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“$20 million. Imagine I just told you what I was making films with before. So imagine someone says $20 million to make a film. I'm like, are you crit? Yes, I can do it. I can do it. I have no idea, but I promise you I can do it. And of course, that opportunity only came to me because of David.”
2023-09-18 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · ARRAY: Filmmaker Ava DuVernay (2021) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“No, I think it was the eighth. The eighth, seventh, or eighth or something, and not like seventh or eighth director that they called sixth or seventh director who was actually had a contract to make the movie. Like that many people had dropped out.”
2023-09-18 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · ARRAY: Filmmaker Ava DuVernay (2021) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“You were not originally meant to be the director of the film that really became the first major Film that you would direct in terms of budget, which was Selma, you were originally not meant to be the director of that film, right?”
2023-09-18 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · ARRAY: Filmmaker Ava DuVernay (2021) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“No. Nope, I didn't. There were some things that came through. I got an opportunity to make a short film for a fashion brand. And while very different than the trajectory of my white male counterparts who had won the award the years before me, who basically slid into movie deals? You know, I found myself making a short afterward for a brand. I was grateful for it. I got to make something on someone else's money and I loved what I made, a piece for prada called the door. But it was much different than, you know. One of my fellow filmmakers at Sundance who won the screenwriting award that year, who within six months had a deal to direct the sequel to Jurassic Park. You know, there were differences. But, you know, kept going. What can you do?”
2023-09-18 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · ARRAY: Filmmaker Ava DuVernay (2021) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, I think of the director as the mayor of a small town because a film has every element of a small town. I mean, a fire department, a hospital, a medic, you know what I mean? There's some people working construction, there's some people working with the food, there's someone that's in charge of the bathrooms, there's someone that's in charge of the stuff that's going to come after the visual effects, the color, the actors. I mean, it is literally, you know, it's dozens of departments of everyone doing their little piece, just like in a town. Like everyone has to know what we're doing, but also feel I like people to feel free to contribute beyond their role if you have an idea, say it. If something's not working, say it, and to be able to kind of manage all of that.”
2023-09-18 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · ARRAY: Filmmaker Ava DuVernay (2021) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, for sure it's a crafting story. Yeah, I agree. The main thing about being a director is you have to convince people or inspire people to want to do the thing that you need done. And through it all talking to actors, which is a big part of if you ask any director, young director. What is the peace that they're scared of? Almost all of them will say talking to the actor. But it is your job to talk to the actor and get out of that other human being with their own history, mind and thoughts and heart what you think will service the whole project. So talking to the actor, I mean it's not like talking to your grandma. Like these are the actor has their own. Some of them are warm and fuzzy and some of them aren't. But for me, publicity had prepared me to talk to the actor to deal with actors and to be comfortable around them.”
2023-09-18 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · ARRAY: Filmmaker Ava DuVernay (2021) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“What's so interesting is that I'm sure at that time there were people who interviewed you and were surprised to learn that you weren't a full time filmmaker or that you were You in a publicity company, but when you think about it, like what you were doing as a publicist was shaping stories and telling stories, and that's what you do as a filmmaker. So actually, as you explain your evolution from one to another, it makes total sense because they're actually slightly. Different versions of the same thing.”
2023-09-18 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · ARRAY: Filmmaker Ava DuVernay (2021) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah. And so I remember thinking, wow, this is, I cannot believe I've won this and that if I'm ever going to do this, the time is now to try to strike out and do this full time so I can be Lynn Shelton and maybe make a film a year that I don't have to pay for. And that was truly, I thought, gosh, I could just support myself on movies. That's the first time that idea came to my head. I remember giving myself six months to wean myself off of my business and give my clients to other PR firms and just kind of transition the business into being more of a film distribution entity because at that point I had distributed two of my own films and I thought if nothing else if this fails I know I can distribute films for other filmmakers if my films don't continue on Help other people. So that's how my filmmaking and”
2023-09-18 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · ARRAY: Filmmaker Ava DuVernay (2021) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Look, I'm going to give you a hug at the end. There's no check. It's hugs. What are you talking about? But thank you. And he said, Oh, that's kind of you to say, but I just want you to realize one thing. If I say I'm going to do something, I'm going to do it. And you should know my agents work for me. I don't work for them. I was like, okay. And sure enough, cut to three months later, we're on the set and his seatmate was an investor in the film.”
2023-09-18 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · ARRAY: Filmmaker Ava DuVernay (2021) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“That night, like they get a complaint? Like that or the next night or something. Wherein David convinces this guy to invest in the film and then calls me when he lands at LAX and says Hi, my name is David Oelo. And he said, you know, if there's any part for me in this, I would hope, and I ask you to consider me. And I said, Oh, this is really lovely. You've really boosted my confidence today. I just want to thank you because this is really lovely. I know by the time this gets to your agents, they're going to kill. They're going to say, no.”
2023-09-18 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · ARRAY: Filmmaker Ava DuVernay (2021) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“The guy was like, this is an actor on a show that I was watching on my laptop? Yeah, let's go have dinner. They go have a steak dinner.”
2023-09-18 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · ARRAY: Filmmaker Ava DuVernay (2021) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“The guy in about a half hour in says, Can I ask you your advice on just something that's come my way, this weird thing that's come my way? He's like, I have nothing to do with entertainment industry. But I've been asked by my friend to invest in this independent film. Should I? David's like, oh bad idea. Never invest. Don't invest. In a film, you know, who is it? And he said, yeah, it's by this woman. Black woman, I thought you might know her name. Just a week before he had seen me on CNN talking about a firm which was our distribution thing. He had said, I just saw her on CNN. He said, Can I read the script? So the guy gives him the script. He reads the script on the rest of the flight, gives it back to the guy afterward, he says to the guy. We should go have dinner”
2023-09-18 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · ARRAY: Filmmaker Ava DuVernay (2021) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Me out of the blue one day. I knew who he was as an actor, but he wasn't huge at that time. I mean, I knew he was because I know all the black actors. But he had been like, he had had a small part, one scene. In Planet of the Apes. You know, he had had like small roles in good films. He had been on a plane to do looping, which is additional dialogue recording ADR on Planet of the Apes. He was flying from LA to Toronto to do ADR and sitting next to a man so strange who says Oh my gosh Is this you? The man opens his laptop and he's been watching on his laptop a show that David was in in the UK called Spooks. And David's like, oh, yeah, that's me. Thank you. Thank you. They get to talking.”
2023-09-18 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · ARRAY: Filmmaker Ava DuVernay (2021) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, the second one I use prophets from the first one plus my landlord in my office building said Oh I have some friends who Might invest. And so he collected twenty thousand, ten thousand, fifty thousand from some people he knew that were doing pretty well. I mean, like not film people, just people who had an extra 20 grand to spare. And we put together like $250,000 and made middle of nowhere.”
2023-09-18 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · ARRAY: Filmmaker Ava DuVernay (2021) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“That film I will follow ended up getting some pretty great reviews. I mean, Roger Ebert was basically telling everyone to go see it. I think he said it was one of the best films he'd seen about the death of a loved one. And then after that, you start working in your next film called Middle of Nowhere. And I want to ask you about funding for that, because as I understand it, you were financing these films with your own money. Like, for I Will Follow, you used the money you'd saved up for down payment on a house. So when you started to work on Middle of Nowhere, did you also sell finance or did you try to raise money?”
2023-09-18 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · ARRAY: Filmmaker Ava DuVernay (2021) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And that was covered on CNN and, you know, New York Times and this new way of distributing black film in a very kind of grassrooted way. Eventually, you know, I'm not stopping knocking on doors. I'm eventually got us into AMC theaters. But yeah, also was really accepting and really thinking about where other spaces where we can show film? Why can't I show film at the museum? They have a screen. Why can't I show film at the university? Why can't I show film at the Black Women's Sorority Rotary Club, whatever? So started to count those as screens.”
2023-09-18 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · ARRAY: Filmmaker Ava DuVernay (2021) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Right, and basically a firm becomes like this sort of independent distribution company, I think, like sort of sending out indie films to theaters and festivals. And later, of course, which we'll get to, a firm becomes a ray, which is what it's known as today.”
2023-09-18 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · ARRAY: Filmmaker Ava DuVernay (2021) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Black film lovers, they had relationships with theaters where they showed their festivals. They had a marketing apparatus around their festivals, so I was able to convince those festivals. Pull the trigger on their marketing apparatus when their festival was not in session and to split the profits of whatever I made at the box office with them. And so that's how I created the African American Film Festival releasing movement, which we call a firm.”
2023-09-18 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · ARRAY: Filmmaker Ava DuVernay (2021) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And so that distribution is we take this film and we somehow get it into the local bakery, into the bigger chains. And so that was what we did store by store, cake by cake, hand to hand. And so one of the things we tapped into was all the beautiful black film festivals around the country who had supported me as a filmmaker early on with the short films, the early documentary. I went to them and I said, look, you're the only person I know in Boston, Boston Black Film Festival, Urban World in New York. I don't know people out there, but I know you. Would you help me get this film out? Would you help me present this film? And so started to put together a coalition of black film festivals that not only supported my work outside of their festival because they had lists of film lovers.”
2023-09-18 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · ARRAY: Filmmaker Ava DuVernay (2021) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT