What Stories Teach Us About Ourselves & Life
ProductionWriting February 1, 2020
“After nourishment, shelter, and companionship, stories are the thing we need most in the world.” Philip Pullman Stories are as old as humankind itself and aren’t just something external to us that we discovered in prehistory. Stories are hardwired into the genetic code of the human-animal. Humans are beings... Read more
Approaches to Craft: You Are Only As Good As Your Research (so they say….)
CraftMusicProductionSound February 1, 2020
Finally, we should look at how a black idiom and the sensibilities it has come to imply are appropriated for the associative value they lend to modernism - hip, sophisticated, ultra-urbane. Toni Morrison - ‘Playing In The Dark’ The oracle spoke. I wanted to play with the words above,... Read more
INTERVIEW: In The Editor’s Room
CraftEditingInterviewsProductionWomen January 31, 2020
Shannon Baker Davis discusses her journey as a film editor Writing, directing and producing are the media darlings of the filmmaking industry. But only through the process of editing is the real story crafted. With the upcoming release of the film, The Photograph, starring Issa Rae and LaKeith Stanfield,... Read more
Melanin Cinematography | Lighting
CinematographyCraftProduction January 31, 2020
Introduction It propels the food chain, giving us life; it creates atmosphere, shaping our mood and affecting how we feel. We harness it to create experiences that allow us to curate time and space. We also harness it to influence how we curate character to an audience. That is... Read more
INTERVIEW: The Craft of Cinematography
CinematographyInterviews October 4, 2019
Tommy Maddox-Upshaw is a cinematographer who is on the brink of becoming a key figure in the discussion about African people in film. He had to travel across the world to Africa to shoot Kalushi (2016) for him to be anointed as a world-class cinematographer back home in the... Read more
Melanin and Cinematography
Cinematography October 4, 2019
Looking at the Challenges of Lighting Darker Skin Tones There can be no strong opposition to the fact that the use of cave walls serves as our first encounter with the art of self-expression using color to paint and communicate our environmental heritage. The first Shamans of indigenous cultures... Read more
INTERVIEW: Scriptwriter to Director
InterviewsWriting September 30, 2019
Filmmaker Ben Ramsey has had tremendous success in the entertainment industry writing the scripts for The Big Hit and Dragonball Evolution. As a director, he’s successfully framed Love and a Bullet, the martial arts short Black Salt and feature Blood and Bone. During a conversation with bfm, he discusses... Read more
How To Stay Creative as a Writer
ProductionWriting September 22, 2019
Creativity is often looked on as though it's some mystical quality that either you have, or you don’t. We all have creative hotspots we excel in. The things that we find more comfortable to do but produce results that are always impressive. I love plotting stories and is one... Read more
Find Your Unique Voice
ProductionWriting July 16, 2019
Having a unique voice is a journey of discovery that can be engineered if you know how, but I fell into it naturally. There are many factors that go into your signature writing style known as your unique voice. Our writing voice comprises of your style and your tone,... Read more
Approaches to Craft: Perspectives on Music, Sound and the Visual
CraftMusicProductionSound July 11, 2019
My excitement here is twofold: taking part in a crucial eco system of information, and the opportunity to ruminate with my passion. Let me be transparent: I am a musician, and ethnomusicologist filmmaker. This combination means that I work across the spectrum of sound and music. The methods I... Read more
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