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

“And so that's what we did. So we would go to them and we would talk about the film and try to get the film in these theaters. And there's a lot of segregation in those theaters, a lot of... Another part of the puzzle of Hollywood that's very close to. People of color, particularly black people, because they're not owned by us and you have to trust and hope. The person that you're pitching the story to sees the value in story. So if I'm pitching a story about a black woman, who is dying of cancer and her niece, and they both love you too, and they're just talking about life for death issues in the house, which is what I will follow us. You don't think that you have an audience for that if you're not sure how your audience will take to it, then you won't book it. Because you have seats to sell, right? It's a”
2023-09-18 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · ARRAY: Filmmaker Ava DuVernay (2021) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I would liken it to someone who bakes a cake in there kitchen and then has to somehow get it on the shelf of the grocery store. Like you're a lady who makes cakes. Okay, but how do you get it in the Walmart? So that's distribution. And so an independent film is a homemade cake, and theaters are Walmart's big chains or Walmart's. Now, it's going to be much easier for that homemade baker to get their goods in a small local bakery.”
2023-09-18 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · ARRAY: Filmmaker Ava DuVernay (2021) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It's about Martin Luther King. They're saying about Martin Luther King? Like, yeah, listen to it, Ava. Listen to it. I get emotional. I could cry right now thinking about it. So Bono in the Edge and Larry Muddle, they are up there rocking out to pride. I'm trying to catch the lyrics. I'm trying to, and I start to hear the story. And I start to put it together. I was like, I think that's, I think this is about Martin Luther King. And that was it. Hook line and sinker can't tell me nothing about YouTube. Love them. Love them, love him. So the title of the film, which is about my last year living with my Aunt Denise before she passed, is entitled I Will Follow, which is a famous YouTube song.”
2023-09-18 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · ARRAY: Filmmaker Ava DuVernay (2021) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“You too comes out and she said listen to this song. It was like all white people. And, like, this is a very white environment. Okay. And I was not used to that. But she walked on up there. We're in there. And she said, listen to this song. It's about Martin Luther King”
2023-09-18 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · ARRAY: Filmmaker Ava DuVernay (2021) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, the connection is that Denise, my aunt, was a big YouTube fan and really passed on that love of them to me. I remember One of the things about her is that she loved things that people in her family and in her community. Didn't necessarily have access to love. I won't say that in love it to say they didn't hear it, they didn't know it. I think they would have loved it if they would have. Had access to it and felt like it was something that they were exposed to, but she exposed herself to it and somehow she loved rock. And of course she loved all the quote unquote black music too, but she had a broader palette anyway. Within that, she loved you too. She took me to my first Amnesty International concert. You know, crap seats because she didn't have any money in a concert hall think it was the Coliseum. And then”
2023-09-18 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · ARRAY: Filmmaker Ava DuVernay (2021) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And so the film basically Tells that story of a young woman dealing with the loss of her beloved aunt, and you named it after, I guess you named it after the YouTube song. Will follow. So, tell me about that connection.”
2023-09-18 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · ARRAY: Filmmaker Ava DuVernay (2021) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, yeah, she had had a recurrence of her breast cancer Was like a stage two the first time she had a Surgery, and then it came back six years later, which was the cruel part, you know, say, oh, if you're five years, you're out of the woods, and then like in a sixth year it came back at stage four. And I remember because we moved into a house together after she got diagnosed, I gave up my apartment. I moved her out of her apartment and we moved to an apartment near the beach in an area that she always wanted to live in in Long Beach. Because at that point, she was basically given a death sentence a certain amount of time to live. And so I want to make sure that she was in a place that she found beautiful and enjoyed.”
2023-09-18 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · ARRAY: Filmmaker Ava DuVernay (2021) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“You went on to make a documentary about the Good Life Cafe, where you had performed back in college. Then I guess right after that you start to work on an entirely different kind of film, a narrative, which was based on your experience of taking care of your aunt, Antonise, who'd been sick with cancer a few years earlier, right?”
2023-09-18 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · ARRAY: Filmmaker Ava DuVernay (2021) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“But there were two of them, and they were black filmmakers, and she had made a great film called Love and Basketball, and they were out pitching their things and making work, but yet and still, you know, they were many years in between the films that they were making. And she was the only one I knew, like one person. So for me, what I could see was a woman named Lynn Shelton. A white woman out of Seattle, who was a filmmaker who made very tiny films that were so good, and she somehow made a film almost every year. And I thought, oh, maybe I can be like Lynn Shelton and make a little film every year that goes to festivals. Like she gets to travel with her film. There's a review in the paper. It's nice. I wanted to be like her. Still thinking I will have to have a job. I will have to have a job. That was the extent of it.”
2023-09-18 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · ARRAY: Filmmaker Ava DuVernay (2021) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Really enjoyed it. It was a passion. And the reason why is because there was no precedent for. Sustainable livelihood as a black woman filmmaker as recently as twenty twelve. I'm seriously telling you this is not humility or me saying, no, golly geez, I never saw it. Literally, I could look at no one to say she is making a full living in supporting her family, alone on making movies. Recently as 2012 There was a woman named Gina Prince Bythwood who was formative in that I knew her personally, knew her or was around her. I was a publicist on a couple of things. And she was actually, she and her husband were pretty instrumental in encouraging me and my script writing early on. They were my clients”
2023-09-18 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · ARRAY: Filmmaker Ava DuVernay (2021) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“When you made that film, right? So now you have a real film, like with real cameras that you used and real equipment and with a real cast was just 12 minutes, but it was a movie. It was a movie that you made, you were still also an entrepreneur. You had a business. You were running a publicity business. And did you... Think to yourself, I think this is where I'm headed. I think this is where I'm going into this direction. Or did you still think it was just something that you really enjoyed and was a passion?”
2023-09-18 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · ARRAY: Filmmaker Ava DuVernay (2021) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So you're watching the backs of heads have become really good at watching the backs of heads. Like, I can tell what you're feeling by your neck at this point. And watching, you know, just the side view of the light of the screen hit people's faces as they smile, as they nod, as they cry, whatever. That feeling just, you know, it was my first hit and I was addicted and I've been addicted ever since.”
2023-09-18 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · ARRAY: Filmmaker Ava DuVernay (2021) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I did not feel that same joy even when I got the Academy Award nomination. Like nothing has since felt as euphoric and like breaking me wide open. As the palm springs short film festival acceptance, I thought Oh my god, isn't this a miracle? And the first time seeing the film with an audience is in a shorts block, so it's like six other films. And I think my film was fourth or something. I remember it was coming up. I was so nervous. And for the first time being in the back of a theater, I mean, any filmmaker that's in a screening of their films not watching the film, they're watching the audience.”
2023-09-18 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · ARRAY: Filmmaker Ava DuVernay (2021) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, there was no market for shorts, you know, which is just further evidence of I didn't really care about the outcome. I remember my big goal was great if I can get this into a festival. And someone was telling someone said, Oh, People don't really care about shorts at the big film festivals. You got to go to a shorts festival. The biggest shorts festival. There were like three big festivals at the time in the world One of'em was in the United States. The Palm Springs Short Film Festival, really considered one of the top festivals at the time. Look at Palm Springs, that's possible. So I submitted it to Palm Springs and I remember the day I got the letter. I was in my office and I got this letter that the film was accepted and literally.”
2023-09-18 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · ARRAY: Filmmaker Ava DuVernay (2021) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“You know what? You're on your way to something. She said, You know what you might want to do? And I was like, What? She's like, You might want to put some music in here. I said, music? She's like, yeah, you know how you go to the movies and there's, you hear music? And I was like, oh yeah, music. Music. Yes. Music. I had shown this woman a cut with no music. Not a lick of a cue, not a piano string nothing was in it. That's how little I know about how to put a movie together.”
2023-09-18 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · ARRAY: Filmmaker Ava DuVernay (2021) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Wasn't a student. I was a grown woman with a PR firm. I went and I made it in. Had no clue how to edit it together, had no. I remember I showed a friend. I haven't thought about this since it probably happened. I showed a friend of mine who made independent films. Hey, come see my cut at this film. She was like, okay, so she watched it. Haven't thought about this and she said, This is really good. I think this is interesting. I think you're on your way to something. Like all the things I say to people now when clearly it's not good enough.”
2023-09-18 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · ARRAY: Filmmaker Ava DuVernay (2021) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Get ready for bed and just go to school the next day. But that was something that she did because she could get someone to say. You're okay, you're doing good, and to see her. So that's the short. It was a single mom who woke up, who was having a hard time. She dressed up the girl. She took them to the store. And it was the things that were said to her in the store. And then she drove them home. And I had no idea what I was doing. All I knew is I knew how to hustle up getting A grocery store. We got a store to let us shoot in there. And I think I made the whole thing on like, I don't know, five grand or something. But I made it.”
2023-09-18 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · ARRAY: Filmmaker Ava DuVernay (2021) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Grease us down now the greasing down is important so our skin shines so vaseline on our little brown faces and arms and chubby legs put us in our patent leather shoes our matching dresses because it was me and my two sisters so there were three of us Do our hair, take us in the car on hardly any gas to the alphabeta, which was the grocery store. And we would go there and she would dress us all up just to get a couple noodles or a bag of chips or whatever she could afford. And she would do that makes me emotional just to say it. She would do that because she knew that her girls were so beautiful that someone would say. Look at those girls, they're so pretty Doing a good job. And she'd buy her pack of gum or bottle of soda or whatever it was. We'd get in the car, we'd split it, and we'd drive home”
2023-09-18 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · ARRAY: Filmmaker Ava DuVernay (2021) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“The film was about, I told my mom I wanted to make a short film and try to make something. I had been taking kind of these extension classes at UCLA film extension classes Where you would, you know, the weekend courses on two days to talk about how to make a short film, that kind of thing. And so I decided I was going to make a short film. And I was asking my mom, I need to figure out a little story to tell. And she reminded me about this. Which is basically that she, when she, before she met my dad, We were little. And she was really, really struggling as a single mom, struggling with money, struggling with her confidence, everything. The way that she would cheer herself up was she would dress us up.”
2023-09-18 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · ARRAY: Filmmaker Ava DuVernay (2021) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And that, especially for women and for women of color, black women, you know, to feel like you won't be taken seriously if you don't know everything, to feel like you cannot ask a question were all things that I had to combat. But the reason why I felt entitled to do it is because I saw white men do it. Say white guys all the time don't know what the hell they're doing, but you know what they do have confidence. They're gonna get out there and say, I'm gonna figure it out, and I'm sure I'll be okay. I'm sure I can figure this out. And so, especially when you're an independent filmmaker, you're really putting together small crews of people who will work for whatever money you can give them. And so there's a lot more grace there because everyone's kind of learning together. So that's what I did in the early years.”
2023-09-18 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · ARRAY: Filmmaker Ava DuVernay (2021) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Not did you know the lens? Did you know you know the technical aspects? But there are a lot of filmmakers out there who are story and performance focused and less technically focused. I thought the most important thing is a story. And all these people around me are supposed to know that stuff. So if I can write the story, then I will be the leader of the story because it came out of my mind and no one will know more about it than I will. And from there, I made sure that I surrounded myself with people who did know their jobs. And one of the things that I learned from running my own business was to never be shy about saying I don't know.”
2023-09-18 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · ARRAY: Filmmaker Ava DuVernay (2021) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“That's a good question For me, early on, I had to embrace what I didn't know how to do and not be intimidated by what I didn't know how to do. I had been around enough filmmakers. As a publicist to see that not all filmmakers were technically proficient. That the core of what made a great filmmaker was did you know the story?”
2023-09-18 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · ARRAY: Filmmaker Ava DuVernay (2021) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I remember when I was twenty one and I am I was an intern at NPR. I'd never been done any radio in my life. I didn't know anything about it. I just liked listening. And the way I learned how to do it was by cutting reel to reel with a razor blade and doing it really badly. And over time I learned how to do that, the technical side. How did you start to learn the technical side of making movies?”
2023-09-18 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · ARRAY: Filmmaker Ava DuVernay (2021) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Takes a lot more because you can see we're out there, there's a good number, nice number of us. You can see, oh, I want to be like Shonda or Issa. And what did they do and how can I get to that level and do those things? I didn't have that, so I didn't have to think about it.”
2023-09-18 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · ARRAY: Filmmaker Ava DuVernay (2021) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“That was not in my head. And the reason why it wasn't in my head is because there was nobody doing that, right? Like there was, I won't say nobody, but there was nobody that looked like me. Like there were very few black women making films at the time. There were a couple I knew by name. And I'd seen that they'd made a film, but no one had gone on to great fame and acclaim and all of the things. So I think one of the core pieces of the journey was it started from such a pure place of just wanting to make a movie and to tell a story. It was all about that and it wasn't about the outcome or the things that would come after. I think now these days.”
2023-09-18 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · ARRAY: Filmmaker Ava DuVernay (2021) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It was my proximity to it that made it feel maybe this is possible to tinker with because I'd been on sets and so I knew that real people made movies that they did not you know appear I think the big piece of the puzzle is. And this is a big piece that I don't think I've ever articulated, but I've thought about for myself. I had no dreams. The outcome Other than making a movie. Like that was, it wasn't Let Me Make a movie to get famous, to get an Academy Award, to be rich, to be famous.”
2023-09-18 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · ARRAY: Filmmaker Ava DuVernay (2021) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“But it wasn't until I was on that set where I thought, oh, I want to do that. I want to use those cameras. I want to tell a story like this with actors like this. And so that really catalyzed the idea of trying to make some films.”
2023-09-18 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · ARRAY: Filmmaker Ava DuVernay (2021) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Thinking, oh, I want to do that. I've been on mini sets before and it never really hit me like I want to do that. I'd been on sets before where I thought I could do that. I could do what he's doing, you know. I mean, everyone's on a set watches now. I know people think that now because they're watching me on a set and they'd be like, I can totally do that.”
2023-09-18 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · ARRAY: Filmmaker Ava DuVernay (2021) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, that was a big deal for me to be on the set of collateral. First of all, it was just so cool the concept of the film, but also to sat very hot actors at the time. Tom Cruise, JD Pinkett, Jamie Fox, a young Javier Bardim, and it was just an exhilarating project to work on. But yeah, something happened on this, that set a couple things. First of all, he was using these digital cameras, and it was the first time I'd ever seen a film shot on a digital camera. He was one of the first to use these digital cameras called Vipers, which could shoot through the night. You could see the depth of the night. It would capture distance in the night, which is why that film looks so milky and gorgeous. And then also he was shooting in a part of town that I knew very well, East LA, shot a lot in East LA with brown people and black people, and the story had black people in it and brown people. And I thought, wow, he's shooting kind of like in the hoods that I know. And I just began watching him.”
2023-09-18 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · ARRAY: Filmmaker Ava DuVernay (2021) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I don't have to go home with you and be with you forever. You come over grandma's house, you have a nice time. She sends you home after a certain period of time. That's what I was. I was with you for the period of this film. And when the film is over, you go somewhere else. So it allowed me to be transparent, to be able to say what I meant and what we needed and just to talk straight. And I found that really helped me as a director.”
2023-09-18 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · ARRAY: Filmmaker Ava DuVernay (2021) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“No, I'm not patient at all. I didn't do that kind of publicity. So in your, I would be considered the broker. I was the publicist for the film, not the individual people. So I didn't have to deal with how you got your hair done and why you didn't like your sandwich and this person was mean to you and you don't like that question. So my clients were studios and networks, not individual people. And that was by design because I am not patient. I'm not going to tell you everything's okay if it's not. I'm not going to sit there and listen to your sad story. When your sad story is you don't like your sandwich, you know what I'm saying? I would be the one that would be able to just have the straight talk with the client. You know how would I liken it to guy? I was your grandmother. I'm not your mom.”
2023-09-18 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · ARRAY: Filmmaker Ava DuVernay (2021) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I've always felt like a publicist has to have the same level of patience as like a realtor or even a talent agent in that they are servicing clients who can sometimes be really difficult, right? Like if you're a realtor, Your client might blame you if the house doesn't sell for what they want or if you're a publicist, the client might blame you if they don't get as much publicity as they think they should get. How would you handle that kind of I don't know. Are you just super patient?”
2023-09-18 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · ARRAY: Filmmaker Ava DuVernay (2021) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And people were yelling your name, and you're doing the whole thing, but you got to think back to two weeks before when that red carpet was constructed. A media alert was written, it was sent out, everyone that's on that carpet yelling your name was booked, confirmed, directions had to be sent to them. They arrived. They had to be put in their places. Oftentimes they will fight over their place. I want to stand here. No, I'm here. The public is there trying to wrangle that. You know, the red carpet company that has to come and put down the red carpet, put up the stanchions, put up the lights. There's a whole industry around this, the hair and makeup. The hotels that participate, and I mean, it's a machine and it's a. It's a machine that's around the business of making and selling movies, and that's what I did.”
2023-09-18 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · ARRAY: Filmmaker Ava DuVernay (2021) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It is very hard work. A red carpet, most people who are notable who are asked to go on a red carpet, they walk out there thinking I'm a star. Like this is... This is my moment, or I have to do this red carpet, you know. My gosh, I don't want to do it or whatever.”
2023-09-18 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · ARRAY: Filmmaker Ava DuVernay (2021) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yep, that's my job. I do red carpets. That's why whenever I walk on a red carpet now, I have so much respect for the people who...”
2023-09-18 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · ARRAY: Filmmaker Ava DuVernay (2021) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And were you, I mean, were you like also managing press junkets for stars when they would come? So you would be the person. With them, at times, while they would do the five minute TV interview after interview after interview”
2023-09-18 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · ARRAY: Filmmaker Ava DuVernay (2021) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“You know, some of that idea of this is a young black woman, and I worked on black stuff and lady stuff, anything to do with women. Anything to do with youth animation. And so that's basically how I started and that business was coming in really nicely. And so, and yeah, we would pitch stuff, send out proposals, rarely cold. Know, I had those contacts, but yeah, it was a constantly, you know, that business is constantly trying to make sure you have enough business And that you're servicing those clients so they'll come back again.”
2023-09-18 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · ARRAY: Filmmaker Ava DuVernay (2021) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“She would do the east, and I would do the west. She was very generous in that way. And so, yeah, I eventually started to do film and television and home entertainment, corporate crisis event, unit publicity strategy, got into marketing promotions, and eventually by the time I closed my agency had run campaigns for every major studio in Hollywood”
2023-09-18 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · ARRAY: Filmmaker Ava DuVernay (2021) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Not even 60,000 dollars. How about that? So, yeah, it was an eye-opener, and there was a woman. Still working today by the name of Jackie Bazan, black woman, who had one of the few black owned entertainment PR firms at the time, Jackie Bazan handled films out of the East Coast was another woman named Marcy DeVaux, who had out small practice with two people she did television in Los Angeles, and so there were these two women who, I think it's important to say their names. I saw doing it. And after my father had put that in my head, I looked for those examples and got to know them. And it was really Jackie Bazan who was very kind. I remember she gave me copies of her letters of agreements early on with clients. She told me, you know, how to set rates and how to do some of that stuff really early on. And even early in my own agency days, we would share.”
2023-09-18 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · ARRAY: Filmmaker Ava DuVernay (2021) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, I was bringing some in, or I was being, I was a centerpiece of the pitch of the agency. Like, this will be your day-to-day and look at her and she can do this and I get in the meeting and I do my thing and we'd get the business. You know, so yeah, it was a conversation with my father who just got me thinking about the numbers because I was like, oh, I'm getting a nice salary. And he said, yeah. And he never said it. I mean, he was just such an elegant, soft-spoken, lovely man. Like, I would have said cut to Avis version. I would have said, Okay, dummy, what are you doing? Look at the money you're bringing in. But he just kind of walked me through it as, so how much are the retainers? Like, how much do they pay? I said, oh my gosh, it's like $10,000 a month. He was like, wow. So you've brought in six clients that are at $10,000 a month. And I said, yeah. He was like, so that's $60,000.”
2023-09-18 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · ARRAY: Filmmaker Ava DuVernay (2021) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, yeah, that was one of the steps in it. I talked with him about some of the projects that were coming into the agency that I was where I was at the time that were coming to the agency because there was a young black publicist working there and that there were black films or films that were youth oriented that were coming into the agency or I was being used.”
2023-09-18 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · ARRAY: Filmmaker Ava DuVernay (2021) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yes, I love publicity to this day. If I was not a filmmaker, I would be a publicist. I'd think about it as in terms of offering stories and presenting stories and understanding the power of publicity and that, you know, Helped me understand Everyone has a store, you just have to present it correctly. And that's giving me a lot of confidence in my own storytelling as a filmmaker. Whereas I'll talk to filmmakers who will sometimes be driven by, it was the syllable. Can I market this? I never think that way because I know you can sell and market anything if you know how to do it, which I do. So yeah, I loved it and I still do. And I'm so happy that I had that tool set. That was my time as a publicist was really my film school in so many ways.”
2023-09-18 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · ARRAY: Filmmaker Ava DuVernay (2021) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And so I went and I worked at a small studio for a while, about a year. I was an assistant on a publicist desk. Went to an agency and worked in agency life where I was juggling multiple projects. And this was all in the film and television space.”
2023-09-18 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · ARRAY: Filmmaker Ava DuVernay (2021) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I was really interested in media still from the news days and had heard that publicists Shape the news. They are involved with media outlets. So it's really interested in the media at that time.”
2023-09-18 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · ARRAY: Filmmaker Ava DuVernay (2021) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, so I was basically outside of this, I think it was a lady, I can't remember. And I basically just sat outside her house, you know, and saw what was coming and going and like. Made notes And I remember hating it and feeling like this is stupid and wrong, and I don't want to be doing this. And it really soured my appetite News. So that was my last job in news.”
2023-09-18 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · ARRAY: Filmmaker Ava DuVernay (2021) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Big deal. Big, big deal. 1995. Huge deal. So that's the kind of thing you needed to move on in space and did it and was assigned a juror on the first day. I remember going to...”
2023-09-18 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · ARRAY: Filmmaker Ava DuVernay (2021) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“LA Bureau. Mm hmm. And this is right at the time of the OJ Simpson trial. And it was an intern with a very prestigious paid internship that I was very excited about.”
2023-09-18 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · ARRAY: Filmmaker Ava DuVernay (2021) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah. No, you definitely knew it at the time that you were in something that was very special, especially if you were able to be inside of it, to know the artist, and then eventually to become an artist there the first time that I did anything as it related to actually being a maker of art a consumer, a fan of art. Is a big part of the art practice as people to consume it. So I value that. And that's what my aunt Denise was. You know, art that sits in a room by itself can only go so far. You need the appreciator. And so my aunt was that. I was that for a long time until I was encouraged to pick up the mic and really enjoyed it. And so did that for a little while.”
2023-09-18 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · ARRAY: Filmmaker Ava DuVernay (2021) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I was going to this open mic night, just enjoying it. This was the place to be. It was a place called the Good Life. It was a health food store. That on Thursday nights would put open a mic and people would perform. And it was all hip-hop, all rhyming. You'd come with your tape, you'd press play on your tape, and you would have like two minutes to rhyme and impress the crowd. So on Thursday nights, you would listen to a colorful cast of local MCs who were known in the neighborhood and eagerly anticipated what they were going to do and had fans and didn't have record deals, but were like stars to us.”
2023-09-18 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · ARRAY: Filmmaker Ava DuVernay (2021) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I think from tribe call quest to public enemy to far side, freestyle fellowship, all kinds, everything that was at that time.”
2023-09-18 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · ARRAY: Filmmaker Ava DuVernay (2021) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT