A Quote by Roger Ross Williams
While the documentary community is way ahead of Hollywood, it is still nowhere near where it needs to be. Filmmakers of color rarely get hired by the powerful production companies, and they are not getting supported enough by broadcasters and funders to tell their own stories.
Related Quotes
I look for us - people of color in Hollywood, to create more stories as writers, directors and filmmakers, creating more opportunities for ethnic actors. At the end of the day, we have to be the ones giving jobs and telling the stories, not just waiting to be hired.
While it is increasingly possible for filmmakers to find an audience on their own (something that is particularly popular amongst documentary filmmakers) I'm still a believer in the "specialist". By this I mean, I back myself as a filmmaker, but I leave the marketing and distribution of my films to the experts.
All too often, white documentary filmmakers are the ones telling the stories of people of color.
In a one-hour documentary, you can tell maybe ten stories. That's how the documentary is structured. I wrote to forty of the greatest historians of both African and African-American history, and hired them as consultants. I had them submit what they thought were the indispensable stories, the ones they felt this series absolutely had to include.
My goal when I started out was to get to the point where I could tour a lot and make a living, which means getting paid enough to hire my own band, travel and end up with a bit of money, but I'm still nowhere near that point. Because I didn't have a band and fan base when I started, I did everything backward.
My first three novels were all the subjects of intensely exciting flurries of calls from producers and even stars' production companies, and once someone actually hired a screenwriter to adapt one of my books - but it all came to nothing, so I tried not to get too excited when a Hollywood suitor came calling for 'Admission,' my fourth novel.
To pretend like Hollywood is anything other than that is disingenuous. #OscarsSoWhite is trendy, but for women filmmakers and filmmakers of color, it's not a trend. This is our reality, and it's important that we do something to change it.
There are definitely a lot of roles I didn't get based off of the way I look, but I'm not going to let that stop me. I'm going to write stories for myself or work with filmmakers who want to tell stories about real people.
Films really can change a conversation and change someone's thinking and perception, especially with people of color at the center. It rarely happens. I think it's important for both the community but also the world to see people of color in all genres, especially love stories.
The black community has for a long time been a part of the Hollywood community, and of course we would love to have a more proportionate ratio of films that tell our stories.
Trust-me companies are companies whose financial results gallop ahead of their businesses, companies with seemingly perfect control over their quarterly sales and profits. Companies whose financial statements are loaded with footnotes: companies that short-sellers often attack but rarely dent.
It is all we have left to us. And while it is more than I ever dared dream, it is nowhere near enough.
That’s why it was so impossible to tell him goodbye — because I was in love with him. Too. I loved him, much more than I should, and yet, still nowhere near enough. I was in love with him, but it was not enough to change anything; it was only enough to hurt us both more. To hurt him worse than I ever had.
I was lucky enough to occasionally break out of that racist situation that prevails in the Hollywood film production community. But it was racist then and it will always be that way. It will never be otherwise.
Broadcasters and production companies often don't appreciate the complexities of viewing habits, but Gogglebox has highlighted how in-depth people go when watching TV.
Well, I tried being in front of the camera as a student and that was terrifying. But the press stuff about me growing up on his [film] sets has been exaggerated. I was an extra as a kid and I was also a PA [production assistant] on one of his movies, so I was lucky to get production experience. But I was nowhere near him.
Related Authors
Bhushan Kumar Quotes
Indian
Producer
Declan Donnelly Quotes
English
Producer
Ekta Kapoor Quotes
Indian
Producer
Gauri Khan Quotes
Indian
Producer
J. Michael Straczynski Quotes
American
Producer
James Wan Quotes
Australian
Producer
Jason Blum Quotes
American
Producer
Jimmy Iovine Quotes
American
Producer
Julie Plec Quotes
American
Producer
Noah Hawley Quotes
American
Producer
Noel Edmonds Quotes
English
Producer
Paul Heyman Quotes
American
Producer
Samuel Goldwyn Quotes
American
Producer
Shonda Rhimes Quotes
American
Producer
Travis Knight Quotes
American
Producer
Troy Carter Quotes
American
Producer