St. Clair Bourne lecture, "Black Film Making," at the University of Iowa, June 14, 1973

Speaker 1: The following is an address from the fifth annual Institute for Afro-American Culture, recorded at the University of Iowa, June 14th, 1973. The topic for the Institute was the Afro-American on Stage and Film. Black Filmmaking is the subject of this address by St. Clair Bourne. Producer, director and filmmaker. Introducing Mr. Bourne is Robert Corrigan Professor in the Department of English at the University of Iowa. Robert Corrigan: Mr. Bourne is the President of Chambra Productions, an independent Black film company in New York City which has been responsible for such interesting productions as Let the Church Say Amen!, which is a film that we will view later on this afternoon, Nothing But Common Sense, an educational film about technology, Statues Hardly Ever Smile, which he did for the Brooklyn museum and for the younger people who went to the Brooklyn museum, Telephone, that dramatic short feature starring Godfrey Cambridge, which some of you may have viewed with your children on Sesame Street not so very long ago and Something to Build On made for the college entrance examination board and designed to motivate both Black and Brown youth towards college skills. With companies other than Chambra, Mr. Bourne has directed or written or produced such films as Pusher Man, an anti-drug film. Ourselves, a film about community design, Malcolm X University, about the birth of a college in North Carolina. The Nation of Common Sense about the Black Muslims. Soul Sounds and Money with Isaac Hayes, Afro-Dance, Paul Robeson Remembered and of course that series of one hour programs which he was responsible for on Black Journal, which among other things got him an Emmy award, a [Natural] award and a second Emmy nomination. And literally additional film credits still and motion far too numerous to mention. Robert Corrigan: Mr. Bourne is a graduate, interestingly enough, of the Georgetown University Foreign Service School as well as having a BA in Political Science from Syracuse University, where he was the founder and first President of the student Afro-American Society. And of course he has an MFA from Columbia University. He has taught or lectured at Cornell University and at the California State College at Hayward and served with the U.S Peace Corps. It is there for me a particular pleasure this afternoon to introduce for you our speaker, St. Clair C. Bourne, who will talk on the topic of the Independent Black Filmmaker. Robert Corrigan: Mr. Bourne. St. Clair C. Bo...: Thank you for the introduction. I'm going to try to talk very informally and at any time if you have any questions please don't hesitate to raise your hand and ask them. The subjects that I'm going to deal with are essentially the different types of films that exist, the different markets so to speak. Commercial, non-commercial, 16 millimeter, 35 millimeter. I'm going to try to give you an idea of what it takes to make a film from concept to screening, give you an idea of the technology involved and also the human process involved, the creative inputs. A brief discussion on film as art and in particular, the role of Black film as an art, what it's supposed to do. The problem of exhibition and distribution and sort of a couple of my comments on the current film scene I have some kind of strong opinions on that. Also finally I think alternatives, what I see Black filmmakers and Black films doing in the future and how I think they're going to do that. St. Clair C. Bo...: Let me go back to the beginning. In order to understand some of the filmmaking process, let me give you some terms, okay. A producer, most people feel that word around. A producer essentially is a creative manager. It's he that hustles up the money essentially by talking to backers or clients, depending on the type of film, but he is not so much involved with the artistic creation of the film so much as the management. The director is in fact the creative molder, okay. Now each of them will have assistance, assistance producer, assistant directors, all of whom essentially whose job it is to help that person fulfill his function. St. Clair C. Bo...: So that an assistant director, for example, while the director is rehearsing the actors, the A.D will be helping the cameraman set up the angles that the director originally wanted. okay. In addition to those, you'll have a director of photography. Now he differs from a camera man in the sense that he is the almost you could say the thinker. The director of photography is the person that figures out what lens to use, where to place the camera, the operator or camera man is the person who actually does that. Now on lower budget productions, obviously, both of those functions can be done by one person. Okay. And they also will have assistance. Assistant cameraman, he will for example load the film in the magazine, take the light reading, make sure the film is the right sock, all those kinds of housekeeping details that make film production really a job. St. Clair C. Bo...: The day to day operation of the film production is done through a production manager or unit manager. And he is essentially a junior producer. He's the nuts and bolts man. He understands how many cars are to be at what place at what time. He usually has the money of day to day and he knows where it goes. And when the producer wants to know what's happening tomorrow it's the production manager because the producer is involved on the overall level. Then you have your technicians, the cameraman, or the operators I mentioned, sound man who records the sound, lighting director who places the lights in accord to what the director wants and then you have what we affectionately called a production assistants, but gofers and gofers are people who go for coffee or go for whatever that you need. And that's a legitimate term. It comes out of a humorous vein, but if you apply for a job in film production and they say, "Well, we have a job as a gofer." keep in mind what you might be asked to do. St. Clair C. Bo...: But the production of a film is very much dependent on little details and personal interaction. Now just stick a pin on that personal interaction. We'll come back to that later. The kinds of films that you make can be broadly defined into two categories and there are two ways to define it. There's commercial and noncommercial. Now noncommercial does not mean that there's no money involved. What it means is that the primary purpose is to influence or educate rather than entertain. So that the people who will put up money to make those kinds of films will do it for a reason. For example, many States will, in their budgets, put in money for productions of commercials or public service films designed to educate citizens about water pollution or where your tax dollar goes or why you should vote. Things like that. In many instances private corporations will put up money to do a film that's unrelated to their actual kind of work but what it serves actually is kind of a public relations function. St. Clair C. Bo...: Now the majority of these films are made in a size called 16 millimeter. That's that size there. Most of your educational institutions and your industrial institutions will use 16 millimeter. Increasingly eight millimeter also, which you've seen previously as home movies type but the quality of those kinds of machines are getting better. And recently they've added a line of machinery so that you can use sound with the picture. The idea is to make the film as cheaply as possible so 16 millimeter is the medium price range. Eight millimeter is cheaper because the materials out of which you make the films are cheaper. 35 millimeter are the films that you see in the theaters. And by and large, all 35 millimeter films are usually done for commercial purposes that is to make money, to entertain so that people will pay to see. Every once in a while someone will make a 35 millimeter short that they will give to a distributor free to put in the theater so that a point will be made. Many tourist boards, for example, do that a lot of like Puerto Rico, Jamaica, Trinidad they'll put in a film extolling their Island in the virtues of tourism, so that they get seen. So they're not really interested in making money on the film they just want people to be influenced and to bring their money out of the theater and come to their island and spend it. St. Clair C. Bo...: The majority of Black filmmakers that exist today independent so to speak and we'll define that a little better later on, usually make 16 millimeter films. The reason is that the 35 millimeter market is of the Hollywood variety. The costs are much greater, almost two times as much. A film to be made in 16 millimeter. Let's say in one city, if you make a 30 minute film, it will probably cost you $1,200 to $1,500 a minute. That is it'll cost $45,000 usually. Now, if it were a feature film it's 35 millimeter, it would be more, much more, twice that. The other reason why a lot of Black people get into 16 millimeter is that there are more opportunities. For example, when OEO and the campaign against poverty and all of those social action related organizations were functioning and had the budgets before Nixon did the number on them. There were a lot of people who used films to educate, to make points, to explain their program. So that's a good way to get your point across and not spend money and also to have people see it because most of the institutional organizations have 16 millimeter projection equipment. St. Clair C. Bo...: And so those kinds of people would want their films to be shown to community groups, educational church groups, things like that. And the few Black people that are out there doing independent film productions usually make most of their films in 16 millimeter. What we've seen recently is a rash of Black orientated movies. But what I would add is that most of those films are made by whites. The myth about Black people working more is a gross distortion that the actors and actresses are just unbelievably underpaid and really exploited. And now what's happened is, and I'm kind of jumping the gun here, is that originally films and I would say almost that Melvin Van Peebles probably set the trend even though Gordon Parks made a film for him. St. Clair C. Bo...: Melvin Van Peebles set a trend of a type of film and what Hollywood did was seize upon the most recognizable elements formularized it and now most of the films are being produced by whites and directed by whites. In the beginning, Hollywood felt that, well, we can't do the Black product because we don't really know, we don't have the lifestyle. But what they've done is they've seen enough similarities so that they can formularize it so that the current shaft is now being directed by a white guy. Most of these, what I call Blacksploitation films are white directed and they really don't help Black people at all, either financially and especially spiritually. That is not to say that the majority of these films do not reflect a certain segment of the Black community lifestyle. In fact, I would say the opposite, they do very accurately. But what they do is, they say this is the Black community period and they don't give a wider... What I'm saying is that I'm not against Superfly being out there. I would like to see the learning tree too or I would like to see other kinds of films. I'm kind of going off the track here. St. Clair C. Bo...: Okay. Another big problem, why Black filmmakers find it very difficult to get into 35 millimeter films. Number one, it's resources. To get the money, to buy the rights to the book or to get the money to pay somebody to write the script. This is very, very expensive and by very expensive I'm negotiating on a book now and it's written by a Black woman in Washington D C, Sharon Mathis, a story about a Black family and the starting negotiation price for a first time person who has never written a script just to get the rights just so I can say, I can have the rights will be $15,000. So we're talking about heavy money. St. Clair C. Bo...: Now if I should get the book, then I have to have it converted into a screenplay. After another 25, 20 to $25,000. Now you don't have to do it that way. The way you can do it is the way sort of more socialistically which would be smaller amount upfront and a percentage of the film. But there's no guarantee that the film will make money. So therefore people tend to want to have their money right up front. The other thing is, and this is what bill Cosby faced, what, to a certain extent, Melvin Van Peebles faced. Ossie Davis [inaudible] faced is that once you make the film and even have copies made, you have to get it into theaters. And those theaters are circuits. And there are certain distributors that control those and they will not. Number one if they find it personally objectionable, if they think it will quote, arouse tension then they will not put it in the theater. And so what you're left is with a film in your hands that you can't distribute in the channels that most people are accustomed to going to see films. St. Clair C. Bo...: If they do take your film, you end up getting 40% or less because the distributor will say, "Well look, I will make the prints because I know you can't afford to do that." The 400 prints that he will place around the country. He will say, "I will have to pay for the advertising, the promotion. I have to rent the theater. I have to print up the tickets. I have to pay the personnel. So really I'll let you have 35% of whatever we make." And then the rule of thumb is that he usually cheat you out of that too you see. And when somebody like Bill Cosby, who has an established track record in the entertainment industry, who put his own money into making Man and Boy, and whose Black and white crew worked for wages that they deferred till after the film so that his costs were lower than it would have been when he couldn't get it distributed that shows you how strong... Because he's not known as a screaming militant. He's got respect of the Black community on one hand, but he's not a [inaudible] entertainer. St. Clair C. Bo...: But he also has an economic drawing power and it seems to me that in the show business industry that that combination of factors would make him a very good person to try to exploit. They didn't want to put it in because the film that you're going to see tonight was rejected at three major distribution companies, because they said it didn't have the usual commercial elements of the Black film today. And that is sex violence, pimps, hogs and mindless sisters. Now I find it difficult where to place the blame because it's a vicious circle, Black people, by and large, have been patronizing those kinds of films. On the other hand, those are the only films that have been exposed. But on the other hand, Black people have been going to see those films. So therefore the distributors say, well, those are the kinds of films that sell, but unless you show them alternative, there's no way to disprove the fact that they might not support something else. So you're sort of in a trick bag. St. Clair C. Bo...: Interestingly enough, I think based on your other speakers because I think you know that Black films did not start just in the late sixties and I'm hoping that some of the, I think [inaudible] In fact that there was a film that I've seen it was done in 1916 called Spying The Spy. I don't know if that was mentioned. And I heard of one that was made in 1910 so we've been out there a while. There was in fact, a film circuit in the South, patronized and owned by Black theater owners. There was in Chicago, a newsreel service that every week put out all American newsreel that talked about the achievements of Black people throughout the country. Paul Robeson's first touchdown for Rutgers or Black graduates in the West point. Very American ish, but nonetheless, not too nationalistic, but nonetheless, they gave you an idea of what Black people are doing around the country. So the dream of quote integration kind of destroyed all that but I'm sure that was covered in other lectures. I think I'm lost here. St. Clair C. Bo...: Okay. So that's the main problem, if you manage to get the money then you still face a problem with exhibition and distribution. Now what I've been quote an independent Black film producer, director for about three years before that in 68, I helped produce one of the three producers of Black Journal. I was one of them from 68 to 70. And that was probably the best situation that a Black person working in the media could have. You had a national exposure. I choose only one hour out of every month, but nonetheless Black people were really in tune and wanted to see it. So we had a lesser budget than most of the white shows on national education television but we did some nice things. We had crews around the country and we set up a series of correspondence. And we had a Black executive producer who could explain to the hierarchy of the network what they didn't understand, which most Black people working in media don't have. So those two years are very good but I noticed that if the climate changed. That is if the white guilt over Martin Luther King's death, which was the stated reason for Black Journal's existence, if that guilt went away so too would BlackJournal change and it did you see. St. Clair C. Bo...: So I felt that maybe while we're going was good and why all this enthusiasm was high. I would jump out there and try to start an organization that would, number one, make films, all types of films, not just feature films, but educational films, documentaries, everything. And number two, distribute them. So what I did was set up an organization called Chambra Productions. Chambra is a Swahili word that means images of the eye. And we set up a nonprofit distribution company, which is called Chambra Educational Film Services. And I was lucky enough to run into a sister who had done all sorts of research in Black films. And she had personal contacts with the owners of these Black films, white owners I might add who had bought out the earlier Black producers. But she's a very charming woman and she managed to charm them to letting us have access to those films when we needed it. And what we proceeded to do was to set up a distribution system throughout the country. St. Clair C. Bo...: And as we made our own films we started making films for people. For example, the first film I did was for the college entrance examination board, half hour color film shot in four places around the country, which they paid me to do. Ideally, we should have had the rights to that. In other words, we should have been allowed to distribute that, but generally white institutions are very, very hesitant to give any measure of control to Black people, no matter what. St. Clair C. Bo...: Even with my track record, they said, you just make it, we'll do the rest. We weren't able to get it. The film since then has been very successful for that organization. It's been shown, interestingly enough, on television stations in the South, which kind of confuses me because it's pretty much an all Black film in terms of the documentary about why should a Black person go to college and acquisition of skills? What do you do with that skills? We were able to get Herbie Hancock to do the musical score, and we got a professional, really good announcer. The quality was good and the film seems to be doing well. The next film was a film for HUD on city planning. Which was quite an experience because our idea of the writers that we employ to do city planning, to explain the concept of city planning to the intended audience, which was a mixed audience, was not the same idea that the government had of city planning. We had a little problem there, but there are ways to get around that and we managed to put it out. St. Clair C. Bo...: Now the film that I've just finished, the one that you're going to see tonight marks a very interesting, in many ways, end and beginning of an era. In the sense that first of all, the company owns the rights to the film. We share it with the sponsors. The sponsors happened to be a group of Black ministers who put up the money, who really conned money from the white church establishment and conned some of their own congregations. They have the rights to that film within the church structure and we have the rights outside. I see that as a kind of interesting thing. Which means now that in two weeks, when all the prints are made, if anybody wants it, we can rent it and we can get money, which means we can then use that money to develop new properties without having to hustle from start over again. Which, is kind of the ideal situation. In other words, your film should be able to pay for itself and maybe even generate new kinds of products. St. Clair C. Bo...: At this time, let me sort of give to you how a film is made, how it starts. What you do is you sort of come up with an idea that you'd like to make a film. There are a couple of ways do it. It may come from your head, you might write it yourself, or you may read a book that you say, this would make a great film. Then you have to think about, since it is a capitalistic society, you say, well, is it hip enough so that people will understand it? Is it positive so that nobody will dislike it, but I want to be, you have to hit that classic blend of commercialism and positive art, at least I feel that a Black artist has always had to do that. In film, it's a little more difficult and your results give you the definite answer. If people come and you don't lose money, you've done it. If they don't come and you lose money, you haven't done it. I mean, there's no abstract kind of reasoning, it's all in the bank book, in a sense, sort of. St. Clair C. Bo...: Then, what you have to do is get it, which means either you buy the rights to the book, or it's your own, you copyright it. Then what you have to do is to develop it. Now, what that means is you have to hire a writer to kind of write a portrait of the characters. I guess much as if you were doing a book, write a portrait of the characters. Kind of figure out where you're going to shoot it. If it's set in the South, then obviously the film would have a better look if you shoot it in the South. Although Michelle, the father of Black Filmmaking shot most of his best westerns in New Jersey. So, you can really kind of fake it, I guess. St. Clair C. Bo...: But that's all in the developing, based on how much money you have. Now, once you develop it to the point that you'd like to go out and shoot it, if you manage to get the money to do it, which is a whole other trip, then you hire your personnel and you begin shooting. Now, the ways to raise money, at one time when I started, I had three categories of potential sources. I had all Black sources, which are with a few millionaires, cooperative groups, savings and loan people who wanted to invest money. St. Clair C. Bo...: It hasn't been too fruitful because of the experience by myself, and also Raymond St. Jacques and Sam Greenlee. The book of numbers, which is a current feature film. He spent a year going to Black people, trying to get them to invest first, he couldn't do it. Sam Greenlee who wrote the book, The Spook Who Sat by the Door, which is a finished film, now. Originally he went around trying to get money from Black people. I think the fact that Black businessmen who have some capital are very conservative and are very uptight and understandably so. Films, at least up to a few years ago, it was a high risk, high gain situation. They're hesitant to gamble all that they've made, so, that's difficult. St. Clair C. Bo...: The other source would be mixed groups, Black and white or Black people who work in white institutions. Now I've found that most of the educational and documentary films that I've made have come from Black people in white institutions, who have convinced the institution that they ought to do this kind of thing, which is, kind of interesting. St. Clair C. Bo...: Then third would be just white people or white institutions who do not try to influence or coerce the artistic control of the final film. Which is very rare, but every once in a while you can find it. I haven't found it yet, but I'm assuming somebody is out there with the least amount of racism. It's not commercial, but it's not really commercial, I think it's really a way of seeing the world that differentiate that, if you really think about it. St. Clair C. Bo...: This leads me into my next step, which is the actual shooting and the editing of a film, once you shoot, you may shoot a scene five times, six times. Otto Preminger used to shoot them 25 times. What that means for a one hour film, you may shoot five hours or more reasonably. What, usually you end up doing, is for every one hour of film that you want to use you have to shoot 20 hours. CBS documentaries I think at their height, they did a couple of films called the 16 in Webster Groves. They shot 75 hours and they made out of all of that one hour. That was obviously before the Nixon price cuts. St. Clair C. Bo...: What I'm saying is that in editing, what you do is select the best of the different takes in your film and put them together in a way that makes some kind of sense, so that people will understand what you're trying to do. Now, the editor is very important. The director sort of sets the tone, tells the actors what to do and coordinates their movements and their words with the movement of the camera. But the editor can change all that around if he so chooses. If you think about it, what an editor is, he's almost a pure artist, because what he's doing is making sense out of no sense. He's making order out of chaos. Now his view of order depends on where he's coming from his view of the world. St. Clair C. Bo...: Which leads to my next point, which means that it seems to me for a Black film, if there's any place where a Black participation is crucial, that would have to be, just artistically, would have to be the director and the editor. You might even get by with a white cameraman, because with a good director can make up for the lack of, of nuances in Black lifestyle that he might not understand, but the editor can change all of that completely. St. Clair C. Bo...: The three hour film, Martin Luther King, very few people know this, but the version that you saw on TV was not the original version, it was re-edited. John Carter, a Black editor, help cut the first version. It was deemed too controversial, not conciliatory to the races, not in spirit of Martin Luther King. Where, actually what he tried to do was tell what the man really felt. The whole idea of the different white actors coming in and speaking, that was a way to kind of gloss over, it set a tone that originally wasn't meant to be set. St. Clair C. Bo...: You can see that editing really makes you a key difference. Once you edit, what editing is, is putting the visual pictures together, physically cutting them, matching, synchronizing the sound with the movement of the lips, and then adding the different sound effects that you might want to do. Once you have that, you might have one picture, cut the way you want it. You may have 10 different sound effect tracks. While one man is talking on one track, okay, here's his answer, the person who's talking to, it might be on another track. The roar of the bus that they're on was on another track. You can control it. The birds tweeting as they go by would be on another track. The shotgun around the corner or another track. St. Clair C. Bo...: War and Peace had 27 different soundtracks. What they had to do was mix them all down, so that was one. You heard each one in its correct perspective, and that itself is an art it's called sound mixing. Then once you do that you have your, sound mixed and you have your picture. The picture that you have is really like a copy it's not the original negative. What you have to do then is go back, based on what your work print is, which is the copy, cut your negative. Then, you chemically and electronically combine the soundtrack on the side of the picture. That's really what a film is. Okay. And I hope I didn't go too fast, but I mean, it's kind of important because film is, they say film is truth 24 frames a second. Well, that's not really true. Film is whatever you want it to be, you can totally change anything. St. Clair C. Bo...: Good examples, when Stokely Carmichael first came on the scene, I was on the Meredith March and I saw a guy shoot. What they did was, the way you project film is not so much what they say, but also there's a thing called film language. The angle that you should take a picture, it tells you something about that person. How many times have you seen a boxing picture where the camera will be back here behind the winner's legs. You'll see these big legs and you'll see through his legs, the knocked out victim, looking up very scared. The camera is high up so that the victim is way down looking up. What that tells you psychologically, that person on the floor has been vanquished. He is submissive. He's not good. He hasn't won. The person on the other hand is so big that he's not even in the frame, he's just out there. St. Clair C. Bo...: Also, for example, a closeup, depending on the image, brings you with more intimate contact with this person. If somebody says, I love you and you see, you know they do it in commercials, I love you, and then you see just the face and she looks right into your face. You get an idea that she loves you, but if you take a picture of her in a crowd where she's leaning back and says, I love you, you say, well, see what I mean? That's kind of a rough example, but essentially these are film techniques that you can use to heighten the kind of thing you want to do. St. Clair C. Bo...: In lighting, the way you light a scene, people in the theater know this very well, because I think it's probably done better in the theater than it is in film. The way you light something, the classic thing is that Dracula films, where he comes out of the dark and it's all sorts of shadows. I'm supposed to be scared because that's darkness, right? Western civilization, Black darkness, evil scaredness, that kind of thing. St. Clair C. Bo...: On the other hand, the pure white maiden who runs through the fields, with the flowing negligee saying bye [chiclets] you know [crosstalk], psychologically that tells you I liked that, that is good, pure white sunlight, happiness, if I chew gum, I can do that, too. No, there are subtleties of that. There are subtleties of that. For example, if you have a very dark face right up here saying Black power and the white teeth showing right and they turned down the contrast so that this Black skin, white, well, obviously you're not going to say, well, Black power sounds like a very friendly concept. St. Clair C. Bo...: In fact, that's exactly how that concept and the treatment of that concept really got prolonged. That's why a lot of white people were very, very scared about Black power. Because number one, I think that there's an inherent guilt in whites anyhow, for things that maybe they haven't done personally, but the culture has done and they've allowed. They've seen it done and they haven't stopped it. But also, even though a lot of Black people said, well, wait a minute, I can't deal with that because that's scary. It's a big Black guy close up. Because it brings you in face to face confrontation. You see? Those are the kinds of film language techniques that you can use to convey your message, to make it stronger. The better directors are those that can use those best. St. Clair C. Bo...: I forgot where I was, editing. Now, what if you have your film, if you got your film, then you have to exhibit it. Now, I've mentioned some of the other problems about mainstream exhibitions. If it's a 16 mm film production, the possibility is for gaining back your money are a lot greater. Why? Well, number one, the thing about 35 mm production on all levels is that it's heavily, heavily organized by unions. For example, the cameramen have a union and the assistant camera and have a union. The sound people have a union, the grips have a union. The directors have a guild. The producers are trying to get a guild. They do, but it's not that strong yet. The writers have a guild. St. Clair C. Bo...: Now, not only that, but the theaters owners have their own little group, and so you can't just bust in and say, here, I want you to hate this film. You've got to go. If you want one theater, you've got to take them all. If you want all of those theaters, you got to take them at a certain price. Not only that, but the people who run the projectors are in a different union other than the theater owners. The theater owners are always fighting with the projectionists about how much money they can give them. Consequently, the projectionist wants as much as he can get. Consequently, the theater owner has to pay him. Consequently, he takes that increase out of your profit and gives it to him. If you have a 35 mm print of a film that you would like to a screen in a film, they will not run it unless it was made by a union. That means all the way down. St. Clair C. Bo...: In other words, the projectionists will say I will not run this film because it is not union made, you use scabs. Now what you can do, they realize a lot of people kind of can't deal with that and as the film industry began to get out of work in the last two years, three years, what they did was you can independently go make your film and then pay the union $50,000 or whatever. Idealistically, the rule is, whatever it would have cost you to make that film under the union standard, you have to pay them after you've made your film independently. The practice is called, buying a seal. You see what I mean. One way or the other, you end up paying if you want to use your own people, you can, but you're going to have to go to that union and buy their approval, anyhow. St. Clair C. Bo...: You want a question? Speaker 3: [inaudible]. St. Clair C. Bo...: I'm getting to that, I'm just running up... Speaker 3: [inaudible]. St. Clair C. Bo...: Each country usually has their own kind of film board. For example, it varies in different countries. If you make a film in France, you have to use, I think 60% French technicians. If you go to England there's a certain kind of a plan that you have to do. Now, I am going to deal with alternatives in the future. So these are some of the problems. St. Clair C. Bo...: Now, as I mentioned, the 16 mm market is not as heavily unionized. Number one, even though the cameraman are unionized, there are a lot of freelance non-union camera people who can shoot 16 mm. Number two, 16 mm materials and equipment are not as expensive as 35 mm. The film is not as expensive. The processing costs in and about half on fact so that you can make your film for less. There are individual outlets, libraries, educational institutions, church groups, college campuses, political groups, depending on the quality and the content of your film, the better you can survive. There is a large amount of groups and people who will pay to see your film and therefore, you should be able to get back the money and maybe a little bit more to go on. St. Clair C. Bo...: 16 mm is very good now for television, initially they used to just a lot with 35, you can use the except 16 mm. In fact, a couple of series, like NYPD, was that national. That was shot in 16, which was kind of a breakthrough. [crosstalk] That was all 16. The other problem is that the unions will, will force a station or network to have a production crew and therefore, if I were a network executive, why would I want to buy something from the outside? Whereas, since I have people on staff, I would assign a writer to develop that anyhow. In other words, the idea is if you go outside you tend to spend money, additional money other than the salaries you're paying for your production crews. It's better to try to have what they call in house production. St. Clair C. Bo...: It's very difficult to crack the TV market. If in fact you have a unique kind of film, then every once in a while, you can hype that. Then it has to be, if it's commercial network and it has to be a subject matter that somebody will be willing to sponsor, and that means inoffensive. That means white usually, because I've discovered even Black cultural stuff, no singing, dancing, which I always thought white people didn't really mind even that is very difficult, depending on the kinds of singing and dancing you do. Miriam Makeba, no, George Kirby, yes, you see, that kind of thing. I'm constantly amazed at the racist interpretation that operates. St. Clair C. Bo...: The thing is these kinds of attitudes will be masked in professional jargon. Well, it's not commercial or, well, what's the audience that you're addressing yourself to, those kinds of things. Well, it's not up to our usual quality, you say. You know that those are some of the things. I was sort of lucky in a sense that from the very beginning of my career, I started right off in a pretty much Black controlled, immediately Black controlled. I mean, ultimately we're still working a white structure, but we had different buffers. If they didn't understand it, we said, well, you're not supposed to understand it because the film was made for Black people. If you don't understand it, it must be because you're not Black, right. They said, well, yeah, but. St. Clair C. Bo...: Once you get them to admit that there you go. This, very few people know, when we first started Black Journal, that was advertised as by, for and of Black people had 32 people on staff, only 10 of which were Black. All the Blacks were associate producers, assistant to somebody. The executive producer and the main producer and a number three people were all white and what it took for us, we all threatened, what we had to do was, we did a couple things. We threatened to quit. We called a press conference and naturally the other Black media people and the other media like CBS and ABC News, naturally ran to the cover the story. Because if we won, then they could threaten the same thing that they were so they can. And then we found interestingly enough, we found whites who had an ax to grind with TV, and an educational TV. Because educational TV comes on as "I'm holier than thou you jive commercial networks" that kind of thing. St. Clair C. Bo...: So, the whites who were, like the guy who writes in The Times, Jack Gould, he is amazing. He said, wait a minute. He said, he really just tore NET up. And I think that, the NET officials can really, I mean, if a white person... If a Black person writes in a column about him and they just say, well, that's because, you know... But if one of their own comes at them, they really get uptight. And then it just so happened to Jack Gould took our side and all the Black people who were on the staff, we kept a good united front and they agreed. They capitulated after about three weeks and they gradually phased out most of the white producers and we got a Black executive producer. And then the quality of the film, we can then begin the real work. In other words, after the revolution is when the real work is really figuring out what you do with the power now that you have it. And that took us like a year to really figure out a direction. St. Clair C. Bo...: Because if you really look at all the Black Journal films, all of them are, that first year, are just celebration of Blackness in every form. We're African, look we can dance just like Africans. Boom. And then we're socialists. See, we have co-ops. But they never really, they were very abstract, though all sorts of the same. We always use drums. We always had beautiful Black faces. And looking, historically, I can look, it's really like the beginning of a whole new kind of art style, because the same stuff kept coming up. St. Clair C. Bo...: Big afro'd brothers and sisters who look good. And they were always walking through parks. So we had the trees and stuff and we had rich colors. And it made us feel good. But then one day we supposed shit what's happened? I mean, why are we doing this? I mean, 10 years from now, what are people going to learn about how we were? Did we all walk around in parks and beat drums? So we said, well no, that's not good. So then we got into the thing of, well, let's really make films about struggles that Black people undertook and won, and show how they did it, so that 10 years we can show, somebody can look at a film and say, oh huh, that's not new. St. Clair C. Bo...: In Newark. They wanted a Black mayor. And they had a convention and they picked the candidates and they worked hard. And it's almost like a how to do, but with flair. And that was the next evolution. And I think what we're seeing now in the feature film is the same thing. Hopefully. I mean, hopefully in a sense that I hope that what we're going now is the beginning of something else. I would hate to think that it's just the same old, same old. The whole, the Black stud, I'm hard. I can screw women. I can drink and I can't sniff coke. Well, that's okay. But that's not all you should do. You should be able to do other things. And I think like attempts at Black Girl... Black Girl, it's kind of a step. I think maybe, technically from a director's point of view, I would like to say that he should have maybe taken it outside a little more, be a little more filmic. St. Clair C. Bo...: But nonetheless, I mean, getting into characters... And this is in fact, the kind of things I'm saying now, probably apply to all art, not just Black art. In the sense that the deeper you get, the more specific, the more universal. And I think if we can get out of the superficial elements of the Black, of a certain style of Black living, then I think we can concentrate on other things you see. St. Clair C. Bo...: Now, and go back to the alternatives. In the feature film area I'm not really sure. I mean, I haven't really... I've been involved in a couple deals in feature films. I am currently negotiating for a book and I've currently written a script with Richard Wesley who is a Black writer. One is a story about a Black family. The other one is a Black love story with a sister from the South and a brother who is from the North. And they, because there are, within the Black lifestyle, different kinds of living styles. Now, how I hope to get that money, and how I hope to get it distributed, I really, I don't know. I mean, I really don't know. I mean, I don't know whether the answer is to force Hollywood... To educate Black people so they'll demand higher quality films and then hope that Hollywood recognizes the dollar and then turns to really quality films. Which might be one way. But I really don't have much faith in that. St. Clair C. Bo...: I think somehow that maybe, maybe, the 16 millimeter format might be good. By that, I mean, perhaps since it cost less to make a 16 millimeter film, and it costs less to operate a 16 millimeter theater. And in fact, you can operate them anywhere you have a decent projector, perhaps to the establishment, as they have in England film clubs, where you can subscribe per year to a producer and he will supply you with 12 films a year, one a month, or so. Perhaps that's one way to do it. And this does not mean that you just eliminate not trying to change the Hollywood style of filmmaking either. I mean, I think in all areas of Black life, I think you have to, try to clean up the mainstream, while creating your own river on the side. That's my own personal feeling. Yeah. Speaker 5: Some filmmakers have mentioned, it is a suggestion, and I wonder if you can tell me if this is really a possibility, [inaudible] lower budget or independent production, possibility of the unions agree to lower rate to some kind of calibrated scale? St. Clair C. Bo...: Well, they have done that. They have done that. I know that [crosstalk] well, low budget for them is $650,000. Under $650,000, you can pay less for for a union seal, which means that you can get it distributed if a distributor will pick it up. And also, the main and oldest cameraman's union about, I don't know, maybe a couple of years, well, maybe five, six, seven years ago. There's been an offshoot, younger guys who didn't like that old style. I mean, there's always that possibility. In other words, a coalition of lesser money with more reasonable technicians and maybe even more reasonable distributors. There are a couple of experiments. For example, in New York City, there's something called the First Avenue Screening Room. Which takes films primarily that have a quality, but are not commercial. And they've been doing fairly well. They've taken a lot of third world films from Latin America that are very well done, acted, political, and they screen them. And you paid $2.50, $3 just, but you get to see films. Okay. St. Clair C. Bo...: There was for a time two 16 millimeter theaters in New York City, but one didn't make it. Now, I'm not sure whether that was because of just bad management or whether the market isn't there. I don't know. Presently, my own solution has been what I'm going to do is continue to do the long, interesting documentaries that I really like to do. Like the one I did on the churches that you'll see tonight is a documentary. But it's really has feature style, it's got acting in it and it's in a storyline, but it's shot in documentary style. And the one I want to do is a year in the life of a Black university. That's what I want to do next on a documentary level. St. Clair C. Bo...: So I think that people who want to get that will be able, like I say, in two weeks, you'll be able to rent it from me, at a competitive price. And probably even less. $50 less, in fact. So, that's one way to eliminate the middlemen as much as possible. The other thing I don't know., I really... I really see a problem because the big threat is that, now that Black orientated films have been formula-ized and Black people are kind of going supporting them, then the urge or the motivation to go to new levels is not as strong. You see? And so, what might happen is that the formula will be played out and then people will stop going. And Black producers, and even white producers will say, "Well, that's it, Black films are over." You see, but that's not true. White made, Black films are over. St. Clair C. Bo...: But, you know, I mean, I look at... The other thing is that if you look at records, which is the nearest thing. Blacks originally were just strictly entertainers, artists. Now there are a lot of Black record producers, people who know, and technicians. I mean, I made a film called Soul Sounds and Money, which I didn't bring with me. But I went around to Motown and Stax record company and individual... There are a lot of little, they're not, Stax is not a Black record company, by the way, it's owned by a white man. But their market and their technique is Black, so that, and their technicians are largely half and half. But there are a lot of Black people who are getting into things other than strictly singing and playing music. So, and it's very interesting that Barry Gordy, that money came from Motown to make Lady Sings the Blues. And I don't hold that up as the greatest Black film out there. But nonetheless, it's probably better than Super Pimp or whatever is out there now. St. Clair C. Bo...: And the other thing is that there's a very interesting guy, Sussex records, Sussex records, some of their artists are Bill Withers and [inaudible] and people like that. Clarence Avant, he is going to produce films. So maybe what might happen is that people who have made money in the entertainment business might just branch out and make another style of show business. Because really rightfully here, that's really where Blacks really, really, have some kind of knowledge and a little bit of strength, you know? Yeah. Speaker 6: In terms of the thing you're saying about the distribution, do you know what is currently happening with Van Peebles and his film [inaudible], in terms of his the ability or inability to get it into downtown [crosstalk] and the big cities. St. Clair C. Bo...: Well, I heard it wasn't that good, quality wise. So that, I mean, that might have, also I understand that it played two weeks or a week in Atlanta. Speaker 6: Two. St. Clair C. Bo...: Yeah. And I didn't get over on it, is that right? I mean, I don't know. Speaker 6: That's right. St. Clair C. Bo...: Yeah. That's what I heard. Speaker 6: There were no lines, like there were at [crosstalk]. St. Clair C. Bo...: Sweet Back. Yeah I mean, I think that's the thing, is you have to have a good quality, semi quality, it doesn't have to be perfect, but it has to be good to begin with. And I mean, pure hype will not get over a bad film. Speaker 6: One of the problems in Atlanta though is that they were publicizing the thing as [inaudible]. Nobody knew it wasn't like Sweetback, when they got there, a lot of people didn't [crosstalk] And nobody took their clothes off through the whole thing. And people literally started walking out when they got to the point when they realized it wasn't going to be a great [inaudible]. St. Clair C. Bo...: Yeah. I think that, of all the people that could do it with a good product, I think he could. I mean, he's got, the message, the message of Sweetback is not necessarily what's on the film. But it's what it took him to get that film made and how he got it distributed. I mean, there were attempts on the cat's life in Detroit. I mean, he fought physically, I mean, with mafia, I mean, the guy was really bad, so... But if anybody could do it, probably he could. But you got to have something, you know... Speaker 6: I was aware of what had happened in Atlanta. And I just wondered if you knew anything about maybe what had happened to it in other places. St. Clair C. Bo...: Yeah. Well, I know it hasn't... The rumor is, the word is, on the small but growing Black grapevine, in the film community, is that it looks very, very difficult for New York. Especially now that Superfly TNT is out there, Willy Dynamite is out there, Shaft in Africa is out there. [crosstalk] Willy Dynamite is a film about what else? The regular pimp, man of the street who, he gets done in I think because of his bad ways, essentially. But in the process, he just lives it up. Right? [crosstalk]. There's a film called Savage, there's a film called Coffee. And there's a film about... I mean, it's... And there's one I saw on 42nd Street called Black Bunch. I mean, it's getting ridiculous. St. Clair C. Bo...: So, I mean, all of these films are coming out and the other interesting thing is you might think about, there's a film called Save the Children, which is going to be out. Which is essentially as a musical documentary. It's like Wattstax, but the production values are much better. What it was, was, it was shot during the Black Expo in Chicago. And so they have every major Black, almost every major Black star, excellent sound stereo sound, in fact. Excellent. They had 14 different camera crews. Only, there was only one white cameraman. And they pulled every Black cameraman in the country. It was produced by Black man. Executive producer was Black. It was a Black production. And it's the best musical documentary I've seen of that type. I mean, it's slick, it's very, very good. St. Clair C. Bo...: So, and the way the money was, Ford Foundation gave money to expo. I mean, Black Expo. Black Expo said, okay, part of this we'll use to make a film and we'll repay you Ford Foundation when we sell the film. And they did. So, that's good. But you know, it seems to me that it's a good commentary on America where the thing that's most commercially viable is Black entertainment. And it took a nonprofit foundation to have the guts, to kind of, document that and they got their money back. So, I just, I'm constantly amazed at the... I mean, I think, at one time I always thought that America would, being so capitalistic would even sell you the guns that you wanted to shoot her by. St. Clair C. Bo...: But I'm not so sure about that now. I think maybe racism really just even knocks that out, maybe. Because if they can make... If they could have made money on expo and even claim to be liberal and hip and helping Black people. And a lot of people didn't want to do that. I mean, the Black Expo... And the Ford Foundation was like a last ditch effort. So you know... Speaker 6: What do you think about James Brown? He's supposed to be getting into [inaudible] a production company. St. Clair C. Bo...: Yeah, he's thinking. I mean, the thing is it's... It's one thing too, he's an entertainer, and he's a good businessman. And I think... See what I'd like to see is a marriage between the Black film craftsmen and artists, and the Black business community. Because I think that, that's where it can come about. And I guess every artist has always said that. My feeling is that, Black or white, in fact, probably. But I think that the key thing is the record company. I mean, because the same kind of show business mentality and sharpness in terms of merchandising, is present in records, you see. And one thing that Black people do, they buy a lot of records. St. Clair C. Bo...: So therefore if they could take that... And interesting it's happened in the West Indies, there's a film called [crosstalk] The Harder They Come, which was made by a white guy who claims to be West Indian because he was born there. I don't really know if that's really true or not. But he had the money, the company was a reggae company you know, made reggae records. So, they just turned that around and made a reggae film. Also there's a friend, a guy I know in England, named Horace Ové, a Trinidadian guy. He got money from Bamboo Productions, which makes records in London, reggae. St. Clair C. Bo...: So I mean, as you can see, that kind of businessman already living in the entertainment industry might be the people to kind of develop. And I would say that the quality of Black music in this country is very, very good. And so, and although it's not as much as I'd like it to be, very positive. I mean, Curtis Mayfield sings some very good lyrics. So therefore I would think that that same kind of mentality can continue on going to films. Maybe that's where the Black films will come out of. Yeah. Speaker 7: [inaudible] from the beginning [inaudible]? St. Clair C. Bo...: Well, I know that they're doing a score for a film called Motown 9,000. Which is another Black film. But I know they're not producing it. I mean, everybody wants to do it. But it's a question of having kind of the money, access to people, and an overall view of how the film industry works. It's very difficult. It's very difficult. Two other things... I would say that in terms of the quality of Black films, not in the resourcing or the funding, but in quality, the key is the Black writer very much. I think that you have enough Black film technicians around. We are short on producers slash managers. But we've got some. And given more opportunity, I think they'll come up. I mean, I'm not alone or I'm not in a crowd. But there are people I know who I can ask to produce films for me if I wanted to just direct. St. Clair C. Bo...: But the thing is, the basic product, I think. And writing for film is much different than writing for the stage. I mean, ideally a film you should have, be able to say with no words through images, what it would take a soliloquy on the stage to say, you see. And I think that one of the people that I would point to as an example is Lonnie Elder. I think that he has a good knack for putting information on the screen. That's why artistically, Sounders, I think is a good film. St. Clair C. Bo...: And I think that right now the basic material for Black films are lacking. I mean, I don't think you can take a Black play and just throw it up on the screen. I mean, I don't think that works. I think you cheap the Black film, the film as an art, if you do that, you see. Yeah? Speaker 5: Care to comment on [inaudible]? St. Clair C. Bo...: Well I saw it. And to me at the first half reminds me of an old Carey Grant film. No, it's true. When he goes to London and he's missing the mysterious stranger and he chases her and then just when you figured, well, this is really, this is going to be a step up, it jumps back into love story, right?And instead of cancer it's sickle cell anemia. So yeah, I don't know. I mean, but the thing is, is that I'd be very interested in looking at the finances on that. In other words, I'd really like to know... I mean, I saw it in New York, cynical New York. Everybody's downing on it anyhow. Even whites are down on love. St. Clair C. Bo...: And I mean, good quality films do not get over in New York because everybody wants perversion or action. It's true. Because New York life breeds a kind of hard, exploitative kind of thing. But I'd be interested in outside, how it's going to react. I mean, I really don't know. I mean, it is a wholesome... I mean the most passionate moment is that he kisses her, and that's at the end. So, and he plays a noble guy and she's just a beautiful woman. Everybody's noble and they sacrifice themselves for the principals. And everybody laughed at Love Story and it made a lot of money. And there was, even within the white community, it was a big fight about this jive, corny film. Yeah, but I'm laughing all the way over to the bank. St. Clair C. Bo...: So, I really sort of, I'm kind of waiting. Personally, I liked the first half better. I didn't like the second half that much. But number one, Poitier as a director has become, has taken a step forward. I see a much better directed film in a classic Hollywood sense. But his directing style is so smooth that you don't even notice, it's just smooth. Also, he's become a really, evidently, he's becoming very conscious of a combination of business and art. This film will probably see how that works. But certainly as a business choice, Buck and the Preacher was a good one. So we'll see if this works. And they were very positive. And if you really move the corn away, they were very positive kinds of things. Sickle cell was explained, the man's love for a woman was explained, the devotion, that he gave up Massachusetts... I don't know if you saw it, but he gave up this all white situation and went to the community and started seven clinics and stuff. I mean, everything that everybody said that you should have, he has. So now we'll see if people really want that or not. Is somebody back... Okay, well [inaudible]. Speaker 9: I was going to ask you what you thought of "Buck and the Preacher"? What do you think about the [inaudible] historical? St. Clair C. Bo...: I thought it was excellent. I liked it. I thought it was good. Action. You know? And it had good... I thought it was perfect, I really enjoyed it. You know, I thought... I just really liked it. I wrote reviews for it and I did a lot of film reviewing for a while. That was the first one I reviewed, and I gave it just a rave reviews. Cause I liked it. It was good. It was also a vehicle for those three people. Speaker 9: Yeah. St. Clair C. Bo...: Yeah. Speaker 9: Dee. St. Clair C. Bo...: Dee... Speaker 9: Belafonte. St. Clair C. Bo...: Belafonte and Poitier. But they deserve it. They've been out there 20 years and they're good. So I don't have any problem with that. Yeah. Speaker 10: Well I was just going to ask the same thing, because I didn't see "Buck and the Preacher", it seemed that it came and went so fast. That I wondered about the circumstances and [crosstalk]. St. Clair C. Bo...: It made a lot of... People liked it. I mean, it made a lot of money and Black people really approved it. You know, it was very positive, I thought. All around. It made money. It was based on history. Again, it was the kind of film that you could bring anybody to. Yeah. Speaker 11: I was wondering about "Putney Swope". St. Clair C. Bo...: Well, that wasn't a Black film. That was just... Speaker 11: That's what I was wondering, I didn't- [crosstalk]. St. Clair C. Bo...: That was Bob Downey's white Madison Avenue mine, using Blacks as a symbol. Because you have to remember, he made it about, what? '68, '69? And- Speaker 11: Yeah. St. Clair C. Bo...: Right. And in New York, at least, which is really the environment that he comes out of. Madison Avenue, artsy, kind of crazy kind of art directors. The symbol for the symbol for quote, "hip whites." Hip meaning not honest, just more calculating, was the Black figure, the Panthers, Davis, all that. St. Clair C. Bo...: So he said, what if... He wanted to show really that if people take... My own feeling is that if he... He said that it wasn't a film about Blacks so much as it was he wanted to use them as the most visible sign of a takeover. Change. But the structure wasn't changed. Because if you know, truth and soul, really it didn't really change until it got walked out. But in other words, he was kind making this kind of [inaudible]. So that wasn't, you know? Yeah. Speaker 12: You mentioned [Man in Board]. St. Clair C. Bo...: Yeah. Speaker 12: Do you what it ultimately did money-wise? St. Clair C. Bo...: No, I don't. I never saw the film, in fact. It was in New York. I saw it advertised for like two days and it was gone. So I haven't seen it. I don't think it made that much money, you know, to be honest. Speaker 12: Think it broke even? St. Clair C. Bo...: I don't know. I don't know. I have no idea. Yeah. Speaker 11: [inaudible]? St. Clair C. Bo...: No, I heard that was kind of a nice film though. Harry was there, I didn't see it. "Skin Game" was about a... it was a hustle, essentially, set in the West. It was about a Black slave and his ex-master. And what they do is they go in from town to town and the white guy pretends to get disgusted with the Black slave and sells him. And then the Black slave escapes and they go on to the next town. Until, until, the Black slave meets a girl that he really loves. And she says, well, you know, this is cool, but I really could dig a ranch and all that sort of stuff. And we really got to get it together as a couple. And you can't do that cause it's really kind of demeaning you. And then somehow it works out. So he gets free and he fights the master, but the master gets beaten. St. Clair C. Bo...: But you know, I didn't see it. So I don't know exactly how it ended, but the few people... It's kind of snuck through, but everybody I talked to both Black and white said it was really kind of a nice film, so. But before we get into it, let me just finish this here. St. Clair C. Bo...: Oh yeah. Exhibition. Okay. So in other words, I see the 16 millimeter individual rentals as kind of a sustaining kind of thing, okay? I see hopefully the establishment of 16 millimeter theaters or subscription clubs like they do in London, in England. They don't have really commercial kinds. They do, but I don't think they have the really big commercial theater system like they do here. They have subscription clubs. Cinema clubs, they call them. Then I see the extension of that in Africa and the West Indies. I've already had some very interesting contacts with a guy in Jamaica. There's an architect who's built a little theater and he wants to do that. And the problem is is that there are not enough Black made films that are positive. So what he is trying to figure out is, he wants to just go to Black filmmakers, but there aren't that many. Okay? St. Clair C. Bo...: And the films that we've had to make just to get started have been what I call industrial films. Films which are not really commercially viable, they just sell an idea or an organization. So that he's got the theater and the people, and he doesn't want to use 35 millimeter because then you have to go through an established distributor, you have to pay an import tax. You know, you have to go through all of that. What he wants to do is to hook up with independent Black filmmakers and rent their films. Or one distributor who can get... You know. So what I'm trying to figure out, and I know a lot of the films, that there haven't been that many Black films made. Independently, so to speak. So it's hard to fill 52 weeks a year with films. But he's also got to have enough business to overhead. But somehow I think that can be worked out, if... Speaker 11: So the Independent Filmmakers Co-op, did you ever have any associations with them? Did they use any Black films and distribute them? St. Clair C. Bo...: I guess they do, but I'm not really interested in doing that. Because they are the struggling artists in their community, and I can dig that. I hope they make it. But I'm not in their community. And I would much rather build up my... I would've stayed NAT if I was interested in doing that. Which is the best of, really the... You know, cause you get a chance to do your slightly progressive kind of programming. And you've got your built in audience, which is slightly progressive, so you never can do wrong. They're having trouble too, but... They're having a great deal of trouble because they... But I think part of it is personalities too. And also it's just selling, it's just money. St. Clair C. Bo...: White or Black, it's hard to buy 25 prints and go to a distributor and say, okay, or even just buy 25 prints of your film and say, okay, whoever wants this film, I can rent it to you. That's very difficult. Because then you have to mail it to them. You got to mail them. You got to make up the brochures. You have to tell them that your film is available. You have to mail it to them. Somebody is going to rip it off, or even just rip it up. Then you've got to come bring back and then put it together again. You have to get insurance, bonding. Phone calling, people keep it a week instead of three days like they're supposed to. You know, so... St. Clair C. Bo...: The ways to get out of that, however, that have been established out of the whole film thing is processing houses. What they do is they will take your films, the different copies. And you tell the people who want to rent your film to send the order to them. They are insured and bonded. And for a slight fee parental, they will do all the hard work for you. Which is a very good way, you know? Speaker 9: [inaudible] cable TV [crosstalk]. St. Clair C. Bo...: There it is. Well, I thought so. I don't now, because- Speaker 9: [crosstalk] That local channel five, which in most towns, or many towns, is essentially unused. St. Clair C. Bo...: Well, okay. I thought so at one time. I think number one, cable TV will be successful if they have a lot of subscribers, but they don't have a lot of subscribers because a lot of stuff that they'd like to see is not on cable TV. But cable TV can't get the stuff they to see unless they have a lot of subscribers to buy. See, so it's a circle again. The other thing, which really kills, the FCC is moving to regulate the cable. I mean, it's really getting rough now. And number two, or number three rather, is that Black entrepreneurs, again, you can get a franchise, but you have to have about a million dollars to set up your wiring and your transmission facilities. You see. And in order to do that, you got to go in with somebody. And that somebody is always eager to impose certain kinds of standards, censures on what you can show and what you can't show. Speaker 9: There's no way of getting the channel five without going through a cable company, in other words. St. Clair C. Bo...: Well you can, it's public access. But they think they're doing you a favor. Well, look, we'll do you a favorite here. The film that you just sweated it over a year on, we'll just put it on for free. So you have the joy of knowing that somebody late at night might look at your film, but you can't make another one because you're not getting any kind of resources to go back. St. Clair C. Bo...: There is something that came out, just recently in last year. Disco vision. It's like a record. You can go and buy three copies of "Ben-Hur" or something like that. If that process is developed so that just like records, anybody can go in, then you might be able to do like records. You can put your film on a disc. You might be able to sell... Just like now, The Isley Brothers have their own record company, right? And you can buy their records or you can buy Columbia records. And one is a conglomerate and one is an individual, but you can have that option cause you have a standard record player that plays. Well, what they're trying to do with the disco vision is, it's developed by CBS, is that you buy essentially what's a turntable that hooks into your regular TV. And all of the different film companies will make their films on this disc. St. Clair C. Bo...: So that if an independent Black filmmaker could somehow go to that plant and say, okay, make me a hundred copies of "Let The Church Say Amen" then possibly you might do that. The way I see it is... In a nutshell what I'm saying is given the existing technology, I don't think things can be done. I mean, I don't think that Blacks really will be able to really change up Hollywood. And I don't think that they'll be able to get enough money to develop their own theaters. But with the new technology who knows? You see, anything is possible? Yeah. Speaker 9: Isn't there another company besides CBS developing the same sort of thing, but they're not standardizing it? St. Clair C. Bo...: Well, yeah. Speaker 9: Both companies are competing to get- St. Clair C. Bo...: Oh, there's more, there's about... I went to Paris two years ago... Not Paris, well kind of, France. And they had an international video cassette conference. And there were about nine different systems. And all of them had copies of TV programs, documentaries. Germans had just an unbelievable amount of stuff. But if you buy one system, you can't buy the tape or you can't buy the disc or you can't buy the this, you see. Speaker 9: Are there any of these systems that don't use TV too? I mean, that would be more like a very small projection sort of situation where [inaudible]- St. Clair C. Bo...: No most of them use the TV format. And what they do have is they have a videotape projector, but that's... In other words, just like you have a film projector, right? Speaker 9: Mm-hmm (affirmative). St. Clair C. Bo...: Well, what they do, they have a special screen that somehow catches electronic particles and composes a picture. And instead of running film, you run videotape. But I think that's very specialized. Very specialized. Yeah. I had one other thing. Okay. This one, yeah, here it is. The last thing is... St. Clair C. Bo...: Well actually I said that. The whole thing about the film is art. I think in summary, number one, I think obviously film is art. And Black film is a Black art. It's new. It's a combination of mental process with technology. So therefore, it's going to be a new way of expressing Black thought. Now for myself, I've set up a threefold kind of standard to judge Black art. And in Black art, I call film. I think that Black art should number one, show the reality of Black life. Okay? In other words, don't lie. Don't show a pimp and say, this is Black life. Don't show a middle-class family and say, this is Black life. Say what you're going to do, but make it kind of honest, say that this is part of it. St. Clair C. Bo...: So show reality. Number two, show the reasons for that reality. If in fact you want to show a Black community that's being exploited, don't just show... and this is what the majority of white people do. They see a Black community that's exploited from the outside and they say, boy, those niggas sure are poor and they're dirty. Well, the reason that the streets are dirty and poor, it's not because Black people inherently dirty. It's that there are no services. There's just a lot of reasons why that... The tax base is low or whatever, but there are reasons. So I think a film should, if you're showing a bad situation, you show why that is. If you're showing even a good situation, you should show how they got that way. And number three, which is the one that few people ever do is show an alternative to a bad situation. Or even a solution to how one can improve one's life. And do all those three things creatively. St. Clair C. Bo...: I mean, you can do all those three things, but you might end up with a U.S. Government preaching film. The idea is to show all those elements, but be creative in the way you do it. And that's where, again, where I come to the writer, because he's got that insight. And the craft to do that. And what the director can then do is take that basic concept and implement it in another media. Okay. But you need the writer and the thinker to kind of figure out those three things in a creative way, in a story form so that people don't get bored. So they understand, but they're entertained. They're educated, but they're entertained. You know? Yeah. Speaker 9: Can the use of video tape cut down the budget [inaudible]? St. Clair C. Bo...: Oh, it does. Except that number one, it's a different kind of texture. So the thing about tape it's good... I don't think you can make a film... When you see a story done in videotape, what usually happens is that it has an immediacy that throws you off. Film has a texture, you see. And this is kind of theoretical at this point, but somehow I think videotape is going to be used in a way different from film. I think that you can't replace film with videotape. But you can add to it. Do different kinds of things. Okay? Also, yes, it's true that it might be easier to make a videotape, but the distribution is more difficult because with film, you can throw this on a wall and just show it. Videotape you got to have a receiver, a monitor. That's kind of difficult, you see. And also it's harder to make copies. You see what I mean? St. Clair C. Bo...: So that's a problem. I see that as an additional tool, but film is going to be film for a while. And right now that's what's affecting people's ideas about themselves and how they live. And I think that's what should be dealt with. Somebody else had their hand raised. Yeah. Speaker 10: Yeah. Two similar questions on the film technique, I had. Just definition of terms and so forth, you want to do that now? St. Clair C. Bo...: Yeah, it's okay, go ahead. Speaker 10: I didn't understand what the grip is. A grip man- St. Clair C. Bo...: A grip is- Speaker 10: Just carrying stuff. St. Clair C. Bo...: Carrying stuff, yeah. Speaker 10: I'm shocked at the power of the editor in cutting the film. I mean, as the producer and director, I'm taking all this effort to put take these scenes, I don't quite understand why they relegate this life or death power to a cutter. St. Clair C. Bo...: They don't relegate it. What they do is, he is another technician who is supposed to, under their supervision, bring out and almost... not synthesize, but almost kind of just... maybe that's the right word. Really just... Speaker 11: You said bring order out of the chaos. St. Clair C. Bo...: Right. The other thing is, is that the producer and the director, especially the director, he may on the set try to say one thing in different ways. Then when you go into the editing room, you can figure out the best way to say your original statement. And that's what the editor can do. Now, the editor is not equal in terms of power and decision making power to the director. Inevitably the director works with the editor, tells him what he wants. And even sometimes says, well put this here, put this here, put this here. My style is I choose the editor for his creative ability. I get him to understand my concept. And then he brings his own creative powers. And then we together work to another level. You see, that the idea. You're right, but there have been instances where white editors have just chopped up because they didn't understand stuff. Yeah. Speaker 11: Yeah. I think that film schools in England seem to be advanced over the American film schools.Do you know of any Blacks that have attended the film schools in [crosstalk]. St. Clair C. Bo...: Yeah, there's an African filmmaker named Ousmane Sembène. he did a film called "Black Girl", "The Money Order", "Borom Sarret". He went to school in Russia and France. There are a lot of... Not a lot. I mean, you got to realize number one, in America, the film thing is fairly new. Well not really new, but as a phenomenon. In terms of the youth appeal and a new appeal. Number two, I think that it's not as if Blacks have all these choices. Well, I think I'll go to film school. You just don't do that. You have to fight just to get a job. So when you're saying, well, are there? St. Clair C. Bo...: Melvin Van Peebles, the way he got into film was to go to Europe for 10 years and hustle and skiing and go to school. I went to a film school for a year. It helps. Speaker 11: In the United States? St. Clair C. Bo...: Yeah. And it helps. Speaker 11: California? St. Clair C. Bo...: No, no, no, God. Columbia University had a film school. Wasn't too good. They're more theory than practice. But if there's equipment there you can make theory practice, so you just go and do it. St. Clair C. Bo...: Yeah. Film was more of a recognized art Europe, so therefore it's... And also it's subsidized by the government in many instances. England, France, Sweden, Scandinavian countries. But again, those little opportunities are not that open. What time is it? I mean, where- Speaker 12: It's about 10:03 now. St. Clair C. Bo...: So let's just do a break? Speaker 12: Yeah. St. Clair C. Bo...: Okay. And then I can show that and then show the other one too. Cause they're kind of together. Speaker 12: Well, which one have you got on the reel now? St. Clair C. Bo...: That's "The Nation of Islam". This was done about three years ago.