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LOVE on the outside

AVA DUVERNAY won the Best Director prize at Sundance for her second dramatic feature, Middle of Nowhere, a heartfelt and complex tale of a woman discovering her own identity while ghting for the parole of her convict husband. A writer, director and also distributor, DUVERNAY is releasing the lm through a partnership between her own African-American Film Festival Releasing Movement and Participant Media. Producer NEKISA COOPER learns more.

T
PHOTO BY LIZ O. BAYLEN

Middle of Nowhere writer/director Ava DuVernay

he paroled convict stands at the gate, a duffel bag in his hand. He and the guard exchange words. Maybe one of them cracks a tired joke Id say See you later, but I hope that I dont. Maybe the guard tries to offer a heartfelt life lesson. Regardless, the gate swings open, and the prisoner walks through it to his freedom. His crew might be there to pick him up, or perhaps he just takes the bus. A new life awaits. Many lms have opened with these images, but not Ava DuVernays Middle of Nowhere. The writer/directors second feature, for which she won the Best Director Award at this past years Sundance Film Festival, is dramatically centered around the person

missing from the above scene: the woman the convict has left behind. A compelling Emayatzy Corinealdi plays Ruby, a med student (and cineaste) who has put her education on hold while she earns money to pay the lawyers who will help her husband, Derek (Omari Hardwick), cut short his eight-year sentence. Shes the one who takes the bus, joining other wives on the brief, strained visits that are no substitute for a real marriage. But as the parole hearing approaches, theres news that both jeopardizes Dereks release and challenges the devotion Ruby has shown to him. Add in the irtations of Brian (David Oyelowo), an affable bus driver, and theres more than
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By talking to filmmakers while handling their publicity, I was learning from them. And by making stuff, I was making mistakes. And thats what film school is, right?
enough in Rubys world and DuVernays lm to passionately replace that ex-con drama weve seen so many times before. Indeed, Middle of Nowhere is all about what DuVernay describes in the interview below as the interior life of black women, and, as she notes, thats a subject matter the American studio system blatantly ignores. DuVernay has been trying to make Middle of Nowhere since 2006, nally doing it independently after Hollywood turned its back. Leading up to the lm for her have been a series of documentary shorts and features; a debut narrative feature, I Will Follow; and, of course, AFFRM the African-American Film Festival Releasing Movement. Capitalizing on her experience working as a feature lm publicist and marketer, DuVernay launched AFFRM to connect underserved black audiences with the lms that have played so well on the black festival circuit. AFFRM has so far released lms including Alrick Browns Kinyarwanda and Andrew Dosunmus Restless City, and with Middle of Nowhere it gains a powerful distribution partner, Participant, who came on board to ensure that the lm reaches the widest possible audience. To interview DuVernay we asked Nekisa Cooper, producer of Dee Rees Pariah, who is herself grappling with the same issues of authentic content, audience building and new models for independent features in her own work. Middle of Nowhere opens in theaters October 12. It is such an honor to be interviewing you right now. You are an idol to many of us who are trying to figure out how to Are you kidding? Im just following in the footsteps of you guys from last year, doing the exact same thing. [Laughs] No, youre taking it to a whole different level. You have a model. [Laughs] We just made a
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film, but you have a model. Thats different. Well, I appreciate the good energy. Im going to start by asking you some questions about your background. I heard a rumor that you were an emcee back in the day. [Laughs] That is true. When I was a teenager I used to hang out with my friends in South Central at this place called The Good Life. It was a hip-hop mecca, post-riots, post-uprising in Los Angeles a place for kids to gather every Thursday night. Everybody would get their time on the mic. It was an Apollo-like atmosphere where you would get food and oral praise. That was really the first glimpse I got of what an artists life was like. I dont come from a family of artists, and so that experience was very communal, very collaborative. I loved the camaraderie championing people and being interested in their projects. And so, its been nice to see that evolution in me from a teenager who was rioting in the streets to [a woman] making films and still being so happy to watch somebody else do it well. You know what I mean?

I hear you. So now its 1999 and youre working in publicity. How did you get to the point in 2006 where you made your short, Saturday Night Life? After [graduating from] UCLA, I started working at Fox and some PR firms. I really loved PR firms as opposed to [working] in-house at a studio. I didnt like the idea of working on two or three projects for the whole year it wasnt enough for me. The agency life provided me with the opportunity to work on multiple projects and always in different stages of their campaigns. In 99, I started my own firm and [went] on the sets of great filmmakers like Michael Mann, Spielberg, Bill Condon and Eastwood. [I was] traveling the world with these guys [attending] their junkets and red carpets, observing them and hearing their stories. I was the ultimate film lover, and some time in there I started to make a mental transition, an emotional transition, from the idea of loving films to making films. I started tinkering on screenplays and then in 2006, over the Christmas holiday, I just decided to make something. I took six grand and said, Just let this be my film school. I didnt know what I was doing, but I made a short and, from there, tried to keep shooting as much as possible. Thats the only way I was going to learn since I didnt have the time and money to stop my career and go to film school. I had to just figure it out in another way and cobble together a film school experience for myself. So by talking to filmmakers while handling their publicity, I was learning from them. And by making stuff I was making mistakes. And thats what film school is, right? Were you thinking about making features back then as well? Yes. Around 2003 I had written this script, Middle of Nowhere. Gina Prince-Bythewood and Reggie Bythewood were good friends and clients at the time and said, We really love this. We want to produce it. So we went out and we attached Sanaa Lathan and Idris Elba and shopped it in the traditional way that you did in 2003 when you were in black Hollywood. Youd go to the studios and it was, Oh, wow, great script, but we dont make movies about the interior life of black women. [Laughs] If you want to make that, make that, and then we might be interested in an acquisition, right? Thats what we heard everywhere. Gina and Reggie were great. They got me into these rooms. The bottom line was the rooms. They werent ready then, and they still aint ready now for this type of story.

HOW THEY DID IT

Production Format Digital. Camera Sony F35. Film/Tape Stock Digital. Editing System Final Cut Pro. Color Correction DaVinci Resolve at Nice Dissolve, Brooklyn.

Actors David Oyelowo, Omari Hardwick and Emayatzy Corinealdi with Middle of Nowhere writer/director Ava DuVernay

PHOTO BY HENNY GARFUNKEL

For sure. Thats just not what they do, and the sooner we realize that, the better off well be. And so, the process was me realizing that. In 2006, just frustrated with two years of pitching to closed doors, I said, I need to make something. My life is slipping away over here. So I took a very small amount of money and said, Im going to make a documentary about my friends and this movement thats really little-known. So I made this doc [This is the Life] thats all about the experience of being a teenager and rhyming with this group of artists. And as a publicist and marketer, I publicized and marketed it. As I was doing that, I [thought], Let me book it in a couple of theaters. It just happened so organically that I was like, Wow, Im just self-distributing this film right now. It wasnt even intentional. So the bug kind of hit, and it triggered me being approached by some networks to direct other music and culture documentaries. [I thought,] Let me take some of this money Ive made from these films and try to make a narrative, and that was all that followed.

So This is the Life, to My Mic Sounds Nice to Essence Presents: Faith in 2010, now to what you just completed, the Venus and Serena piece for ESPN [Venus VS] how has your evolution as a [narrative] filmmaker changed as a function of the documentary work that youve been doing? I love the documentary space, and I love going back and forth between the two. Its a completely different kind of storytelling, but it is still storytelling at its core. One really informs the other. The tools that Ive learned and picked up while shooting the narratives [are] strengthening the work on these documentaries, I think. Youre not going to always have your budget for the narratives, you know what I mean? I feel like that ability to go back and forth is giving me the opportunity to always stay working, which is my goal right now to create and sustain a certain momentum. Docs, narratives, to me, theyre all [using] the same storytelling tools. Thats very much Spike [Lees] philosophy too. A story is a story is a story. And talking about Spike, we have to spend a moment talking about the folks that have come be-

fore. Who inspires you from back in the day? For me, particularly as a UCLA alumnus, its Haile Gerima and Charles [Burnett]. To be acquainted [with their work] as a cinephile and black student at a time when there was unrest in our city, that harkened back to the time when they were making their films, when there was also unrest. A couple of years ago, I was sitting down with our cinematographer, Bradford Young, and he showed me a film of Hailes Id never seen, Ashes and Embers. I could never get my hands on that one, and it changed a lot for me in terms of whats possible and what were saying with our films. And so, yeah, I would say Haile, Julie [Dash] and Charles big, big influences and inspirations. Lets spend a moment to talk about your collaboration with Bradford Young, and what that has meant to your world as a filmmaker. Because I am limited in my technical knowledge having not gone to film school, it was really important for me to have someone I could talk with about the images on emotional terms, in [terms of] colors and feelings. I told him when we met, I cant tell
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Omari Hardwick and Emayatzy Corinealdi in Middle of Nowhere

Lets talk about AFFRM. You have a distribution company, and with Middle of Nowhere, you took it a step further by making a deal with Participant to partner on the domestic distribution. This is incredible. Can you talk
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THE FARM: LIFE INSIDE ANGOLA PRISON Jonathan Stack, Liz Garbus and Wilbert Rideaus 1998 documentary captured the reality of life inside Louisiana State Penitentiary, the largest U.S. maximum security prison.

PHOTO COURTESY OF AFFRM

you which lens is going to give me what Im thinking of in my head. I can tell you how I want it to feel and when thats not it. But I am not going to be able to talk to you in [a technical] way because I dont have that [background]. What I have is my heart and my head and my intention and what Ive written and what I want to say and show. And he was able to work with me in that way. I learned a lot from him, but I also was very clear that I didnt want to learn these [technical] things. Ive been obsessed with filmmakers who paint their films in a lot of different ways, you know? Their relationships with their d.p.s run the gamut. Some filmmakers who do have that knowledge dont even collaborate with their d.p.s in that way because theyre just painting a picture from a more emotional place. I saw that early on, firsthand, from a couple of great, master filmmakers on their sets, and I kind of forgave myself for starting to make films without having all of that [technical knowledge]. Bradford really helped me get there in terms of saying, Its okay, this is valid.

about this model that youre building, and what it means for filmmakers, like myself, and others who are coming up? AFFRM was an idea that really came out of that first documentary experience, This is the Life the self-distribu-

GO BACK & WATCH

PARIAH Dee Rees 2011 poetic portrait of a teen coming out as a lesbian and a poet also marked the emergence of a new generation of African-American women filmmakers. MONSTERS BALL Marc Forsters 2001 drama weaves together a complex emotional knot of people whose lives connect around a state prison, with Heath Ledger, Billy Bob Thornton and Halle Berry (who won an Best Actress Oscar for her portrayal of an executed convicts wife).

tion of that, and the festivals [I worked for] as a marketing and publicity person. AFFRM is a very simple idea, which struck me as I was on the festival circuit with This is the Life, going to all these beautiful black film festivals. Having been a publicist, I had put films into Urban World and PanAfrican Film Festival as part of my marketing strategy. But Id never really gone and sat down as a filmmaker and interfaced with the filmmakers and festival leaders. And so, I traveled all around the country, to Seattle, to Atlanta, to Boston. There was just one common thread these [festivals] were led by passionate, market-driven black people who cared about our images. Theres no other reason to do it if youre not making money, [Laughs] you know what I mean? And there was a disconnect between [these festival directors and the goal of] helping these festival films be seen again. Because theres no acquisitions frenzy around Urban World, right? Our films are playing there and theyre not going on to anything. Hopefully a DVD release. And so, the idea from having distributed my film myself and meeting all these amazing people gelled into the sense of, What can we all do together? I have this certain set of tools, you guys have a certain set of tools, what if we all got together and released films? The distribution parts are very easy for me well, not easy, but in terms of

figuring out the marketing and the publicity, which is 80 percent of distribution, I already knew how to do that at a very high level. That part wasnt hard. But the other 20 percent was really hard making relationships with the [theater] chains, getting them to understand that it is not just me, Ava, doing a oneoff film but that I Will Follow will be the first of what I hope will be many films through AFFRM. I had to create relationships with exhibitors and my fellow distributors the same way I created relationships with the press in 1995. And so, the first release was I Will Follow in March of 2011 and this is now, Middle of Nowhere. By the time your piece hits, we will have announced the growth of AFFRM with new ancillary deals. Were going to take the films from the theatrical space, which was our sole focus at our launch, full through the ancillary pathways VOD, DVD, a retail label, etc. So thats exciting. Yes, indeed. The producer Karin Chien and I have been having a lot of conversations lately about international sales for black and brown films. How do you feel about the international sales piece of this? Have you brought on an international sales agent? I can say from my vantage point, Im a bit frustrated. We sold Pa-

It needs to be part of our DNA as filmmakers to know what the world is like outside of our set, to understand what the business of filmmaking is. Thats my big fist in the air.
riahs international rights to Focus, and theres not been very much movement on that front. In spite of their best efforts, theyve not found international outlets for the film beyond Canada. Their usual international partners seem to be in the same space most of our domestic industry is about black and brown film overseas no international sales potential. And, my question is, if hip hop and fashion and other things that evolved from our culture can sell, why cant this content? Thank you. You said youre frustrated; Ill say that Im infuriated. I was trying to be diplomatic. [Laughs] Its some bullshit. There is ineptitude, ignorance and arrogance at a level that is astounding. It is a groupthink and a group failure. For Middle of Nowhere, we went into Sundance with not as many jitters as a lot of our counterparts because I wasnt looking for a distribution deal. I went in saying, Were opening in October, and if theres a like-minded partner who will come with us and do it, thatd be awesome. And if not, were opening in October. It would have been really disingenuous of me to create a distribution company so early on and not put out my own film that is getting so much attention through it. And it was a beautiful experience because there was a flattering array of offers, none of which were right for us. Will every film I see page 78

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TOUCHDOWN DANCE
from page 35 That must be great as a performer, right? COOPER: It is, especially because youre almost dancing. Im someone whos always aware of where the camera is. I actually love that part of lmmaking, as opposed to being on stage. I love it. So, when you start to dance with the camera operator to the rhythm of the scene, its very exciting. It is when it becomes like a unit. COOPER: Yes. And we actually did have a dance scene at the end of the movie, which we had no time to shoot. It was fucking crazy. Theres 400 other actors as the audience, and were sitting there trying to put this thing together. You had your routine down by that point, right? COOPER: The routine we had down, but how do you lm that dynamically and personally? How many times have we watched Dancing with the Stars and all these shows? You see how people shoot dancing, but [here] you have to watch these two fall in love. Well, it seemed to me like you took a person out and put the camera in. COOPER: Yes, thats what we did. Thats exactly what we did. You danced with us and then she was dancing with us. COOPER: 100 percent correct. RUSSELL: The dancing was the whole thing to attack unto itself. We had to nd the right choreographer COOPER: Who was amazing, Mandy Moore. RUSSELL: Mandy Moore, right. Not the actress. She has done amateur Dancing with the Stars contests in Colorado, so shes no stranger to local dance contests, which is what I wanted it to feel like. I wanted it to feel like there were some ringers. Right. RUSSELL: Who were like, Oh, these are scary people, theyre from Belarus. A lot of them were from Belarus, for some reason. Theyre like professional dancers, theyre like assassins. I wanted our people to be kind of like if you and me did it, you know? The dancing in Pulp Fiction meant something to me because its about this its about their hearts and their eyes. And that, to me, was the most important thing. [Bradley and Jennifer] danced to the camera for one section of it, but the rest of it, I wanted to do in real time, which Im proud we did. Its just about being with them in a two shot. And because the choreography in the studio is also beautiful, did you choreograph the camera movements? Or, do you have so much faith in your operator as to the camera that you can
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say, Okay, do it differently, and something else will come? COOPER: Oh no, its like, [Davids] moving with the Steadicam. Youre walking around with it? COOPER: Oh yeah. Its very much the same way he is with the actors. People are ducking, booms are ying. I mean, he is steering every aspect of the ship. So, as youre editing the movie, youre constantly trying to gure out how much its going to cost to take him out of the frame. David, the lms background is particularly alive, like your actors. Often when you see lms, thats not the case. Is it just contagious because the background extras are watching you work? Or do you speak directly to them? How do they come to life? RUSSELL: Theres some union thing you have to go through because otherwise it becomes an upgrade. This was shot for the same budget as The Fighter, which is not a lot of money, so you have to [be careful about] suddenly [upgrading an extra, which happens] if you give them specic direction. But Shelley [Ziegler] is from Baltimore. She did The Sopranos a lot, she did Boardwalk Empire a lot. She did The Fighter. Shes fantastic, and she knows what we want, which is to make this feel warm and alive. She gives people specic instructions so they are doing specic things. That persons going to the chocolate fountain. These people are having an argument. These people are happy to be there and are taking pictures. These people are irting with each other. This guy wants to see that girl over there. Alright, lets talk about Jennifer Lawrence because she is just amazing. From the moment she enters, youre already in love. Shes got such an energy, a bolt of energy in her, such a bullshit meter that is on. And then, the layers in which she becomes like him out of control but not, apparently, right from the start. COOPER: Her facility for emotional depth at the drop of a hat is kind of [amazing]. Ive done two movies with her now, and the second movie [Susanne Biers upcoming Serena] we did was equally as challenging dramatically. I mean, she had to go to some sick places. I remember [during one scene] Im watching her and [as an actor] Im feeling everything that shes doing. I feel horrible and embarrassed and that Ive hurt her [character] because of what shes doing. [But] also at the same time as a lover of this movie, [it was] so exhilarating. [Laughs] It was like, Yes, motherfuckers! David was like, Thats what Im talking about. [Laughs] I remember I wanted to scream. She was so in the pocket. Shes

suchI mean, she embodies so many different aspects of what youd think a woman is as a male, as a female, as a human being. I mean, shes so sexy and then not. Shes quite a stunning human being. RUSSELL: You know, Jennifer was somebody who we all thought, Well, shes a little too young. I didnt know much about her she was great in Winters Bone but I thought, Well, why dont we read her? So she Skyped her audition from her parents home in Louisville, Kentucky. We already had two or three big contenders, big stars, because this is a very dimensional role. Then she just came in, and I was very struck by her personality, her energy. She dressed up for the character in her fathers den, with the eye makeup and the hair and everything. She really wanted it. She was willing to try to do anything that we were working on. She just brought a very special human-being quality. I said to Harvey, I think [we should cast her], and he goes, I think shes too young, man. I said, I dont know. She seems kind of ageless in some ways to me. Lets talk about the chemistry between the two of you when you were dancing. I mean, that reveals so much about what was going on when youre practicing and the rst time youre dancing your face comes this close to her. RUSSELL: You know what I love about that as she gets pulled in and then she spins out, you think thats the end of the shot. But then she goes around. COOPER: And the way she looks at him when she spins out. Also my favorite thing of hers, when theyre dancing, theres this one [shot where] youre over [Pat] and her hair is falling and shes kind of smiling. [Laughs] Youre just like, What the fuck is going on? I mean, really. Were just sitting there and were like, What? Like, holy shit. Theres like four or ve moments in that movie where shes just, you know, stopping the lm. Its just like, Holy fuck! Yeah, its got star dust in it.

LOVE ON THE OUTSIDE

from page 49 make go through AFFRM? No, because AFFRM probably cant handle the next films as Im trying to increase my budgets. AFFRM has a very specific P&A budget which has to be put against a specific size of film. But as long as Im making a film in that size that fits into the model, it will go through AFFRM. Thank God Participant comes in and kind of supersizes what AFFRM could do for Middle,

to help us reach a wider share of the market. Thats been amazing. But Ive been able to retain all rights outside of theatrical because Participant, theyre not licensing anything. Its a P&A partnership. I walked away from Sundance with all the rest of the rights, [including] international. And for the last seven months, Ive been trying to exploit them. And every single top international sales agent has passed, every single second-tier sales agent, and every single C-level sales agent who takes the blood-and-gore and one-step-above-porn films has passed. Wow. If I did not have my hands full trying to figure out the domestic distribution future, I would completely turn my attention to that. The people who crack that are the winners, right? Because there are films like yours that have unattended international rights just sitting there. Youre talking about hundreds of films, current, past, classic, that have unattended international rights. And so, if there was any kind of mechanism put together for that, the world is that persons oyster. They could have whatever they want. We would be throwing films at them. Is it going to be hard? Yeah. But is it impossible? There is no market you cant tell me that. And for me, it has nothing to do with hip-hop or sports or anything that flourishes with black people abroad. It has to be with knowing people who love film. I was the first in line to see A Separation, and they did not market to me. Im not from that world, but thats a good movie. At the very core of it, if these films are offered in places where people love movies, if they are presented as fine films, beautiful films, worldclass films, how are they not going to play? Fox Searchlight can take Beasts of the Southern Wild all over the world now, yes, they are Fox Searchlight, but the bottom line is that its playing [internationally]. However much the industry positions that film so its a quote-unquote independent film, divorcing it from its blackness, that is a black film with black faces and its playing overseas. So yeah, its a maddening situation and it needs to be fixed. I heard in an interview you did at Urban World you said something to the effect of, A filmmakers responsibility doesnt end with picture lock. Talk a little bit to filmmakers who look to you as an example of that philosophy and what it means in 2012. I dont know if its about looking to me as an example as much as having common sense. I mean, my God, youve fought for this film! And you hand it over to somebody and [say], Okay, well, let me know how it goes. As a marketer and

publicist, Ive seen this. Ive represented filmmakers and films for a dozen years, and I would be astounded at the drive and passion and all-consuming handle on the film that the director had during the filmmaking process. And then, Id see them in the marketing meeting and hide a little in the corner, not knowing what to ask and what to do. Its like, Dude, get a grip. Learn this shit. You need to know this. It is not over. You are still battling for this. Do not trust. Now, filmmakers of note, they have a different situation. Theyre probably going to be with a marketing department of a studio thats going to handle that. They dont have much to worry about. But thats not us, you know? Right. The bottom line is we need to educate ourselves to the marketing and distribution patterns of our films. Making sure a film reaches an audience is part of the filmmaking process. As a filmmaker, its part of my responsibility. Everyones different. I understand. You get to the end of it and its like, Im done, I cant do any more. But ultimately, I say youre not at the end unless your film has reached its audience. And that doesnt always mean theatrical. For some people, your audience is reached in different ways. You gotta have some idea about how that works and what your true prospects are. I was talking earlier on in Toronto with a filmmaker who has a script. I said, Yeah, brother, make that. Whats your budget? And he was like, $2.8. I said, Okay, how are you going to make your money back? What do you mean? [Laughs] Is that your $2.8? Because if it aint your $2.8, youre going to have to figure out how to make the money back, my brother. Do you understand that there is no current model for you to get to $2.8 with the film you just described to me? If you are making a film beyond your means, youre not being a responsible filmmaker. Serious. It needs to be part of our DNA as filmmakers to know what the world is like outside of our set, to understand what the business of filmmaking is. And so, yeah, thats my big fist in the air. And so, Middle of Nowhere, theatrical release? Yeah. We shot this film last year in June for 19 days. The Sundance thing was a beautiful long shot. The award, as you guys have experienced as well, adds a new level of attention to the film. Were an L.A. film, Im an L.A. filmmaker and this is an L.A. story in a lot of ways, so we played the L.A. Film Festival in June and it was a beautiful blowout, a 1,000-foot gala red carpet that kicked off our campaign for the summer. That has included street teams at every black summer event you can think

of, collaborating with all of the organizations that are [in] AFFRM, over 16 organizations in top markets around the country that have been having weekly planning meanings about grassroots tactics and marketing. There are amazing things happening in each city that are being handcrafted, customized and executed by leaders in their markets. You say grassroots and think, oh, Im passing out postcards. But how about the AFFRM leaders who are putting together an art exhibit of work based on the film? One of our leaders in Seattle petitioned the city to have city vans pick up seniors who wouldnt otherwise have a ride and bring them to the Friday matinee. Those are the kind of tactics we are employing. We dont have TV commercials, just people holding hands, rallying around the concept of a certain kind of black cinematic image. Thats whats been happening all summer. And last night at Toronto we had an international premiere, a sold-out house. Congratulations. Were 30 days out from opening right now, and all were trying to do is prove a point that these films have viability and that there is an audience for them. And to think beyond that opening weekend because I dont want to get opening weekend-itis, you know? Ive made a film that I want to live a full, robust life way beyond October 12th.

PHYSICAL THERAPY
from page 55 was after my law school buddy, Julius, and I had left, he asked me what I proposed to do. I said I wanted to make a lm and I told him that I thought this was one of those rare lms, where it was essentially two people in a room, but with intense dramatic content; that I could make something very powerful very cheaply, and that in itself was a gift. It was a doable lm. And without my soliciting it, he stepped up and said, Ill help you nancially. Ill put up 20 percent of the budget. Now, for someone to do that unsolicited was some hint to me of public acceptance. This was a guy who normally went to see mainstream lms and he saw a fascinating story in this subject and was prepared to gamble his money on it. And that was highly motivating. It was not just a matter of saying, Im going to do it on a microbudget, but of realizing that I could do it on a microbudget and still do the story justice. I stopped asking permission to make the lm. I mean, normally what you do is probably what you did after Breathing Lessons. You shop the idea around. You rub shoulders with Hollywood
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