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Interview with Executive Producer Nelson George
HBO
Tell us about how this project started, and ultimately came to the HBO.
NELSON GEORGE
Well I had a meeting with (HBO Executive Vice President) Richard Plepler. And he was talking about how he'd like to see HBO do a film about race that wasn't a documentary. Doing race relations in America in a very contemporary way. That later led to a meeting between myself, Richard Pepler and Colin Callendar, who runs HBO Films. And we tossed around a bunch of ideas about how to do this. And I sorta struggled with trying to find a frame.
And at the premiere of the "Dorothy Dandridge" film with Halle Berry in New York, I sort of positioned myself, and charged Colin across the crowded room [LAUGHTER] - and got about five minutes with him. And I sort of pitched this idea that evolved into the film.
The idea that came out of all these conversations was to get real stories from real people. To not do a film about the Civil Rights Movement, or slavery. But do a film about 21st century America, sort of more complicated, less confrontational, but everyday interactions - sometimes conflicts, sometimes communication, but across the racial divide, across "the great divide," as we called it at the time.
So we put ads in the Daily News in New York, black newspapers, college newspapers. There were radio spots. But the bulk of the 2,000-plus responses we got were by e-mail to a Web site, which was attached to the HBO.com home page.
It took literally months to wade through all of these e-mails, trying to figure out, "OK, what is the story we want to tell? What makes one story more valuable than the other?" It was quite interesting, because we ended up having these very philosophical debates about race. And what of these stories was worth trying to dramatize?
So it went on for quite a while. It was a really interesting process, very unusual for a film. It wasn't the usual script debate. It was more about what is an important racial story in the 21st century? And how do we tell it?
Ultimately, we pared it down to - I believe about 600 stories. And 60, what we called testimonials. It was a big number. So what do we do now? Sam Martin of HBO went to the Sundance Film Festival, and ran into Jim McKay. Jim had done business with HBO. He had produced "Stranger Inside," for HBO Films - as well as directing two excellent films, "Girls Town," and "Our Song." "Girls Town," was developed in a kind of improvisational way, in that he had a workshop with three key actresses, I believe. And then wrote the script out of that.
The idea was - maybe we should do a workshop. Let's take this to another level. Let's not just take these stories and dramatize them. Let's use the stories as the backdrop for a larger tale. So, under Jim's guidance, we held open calls in New York City. One weekend I think we saw 400 people. We didn't interview them in the usual way. We didn't have a script. We asked them about race. Tell us one story. Much like in the e-mails. One story, or two stories, about how race has affected your life - good or bad.
And out of that process, we tried to pick people whose stories - or whose life stories - were very similar, or reflected some of the things in the e-mails. So we found this connection between the reality of these actors, and the reality we have been told through these e-mails.
Then what happened, we went to Brooklyn. And we traveled around a couple of neighborhoods. I live in Fort Greene in Brooklyn, which is a very interesting neighborhood. It's a very transitional neighborhood, and one of the more integrated areas in New York City. In the kind of context of that neighborhood, we found the perfect place, as a neighborhood in transition.
And out of that idea came Raskin's, which is the place that we used in the film. So Raskin's is both based on real places, and then it's sort of expanded. It was a "mini New York," if you will. It's got the old-school ways and management. It has the new way of the city, the new immigrants. And, in one day, we see how all these different people, come together, both in love and in pain. And I think that's kind of how the film evolved from that workshop process.
The workshop was held at a loft on Broadway and Houston. And Jim, myself, a little camera crew, and about 50, 55 actors, worked through different scenes. It was a very intense experience. I have never been in any creative environment quite like that - where literally Jim and the actors are in the moment, coming up with new ways and new takes on scenes.
Jim is very interested in the question of race. And when I say "race," he is interested in how people in America on a daily basis, interact with each other. So much American film today, is about special effects, melodrama, soap opera.
His body of work speaks to the complexity of how race works today. None of the characters in our film is a hero. But none of 'em are villains, either. They are very complicated people. And through the course of this day, at Raskin's, you see them in a number of different guises.
And I know Jim really worked very hard at - with the black and white characters - to take that perception of who they are, based on your first seeing them, and spinning them, and making them deeper and richer.
One of the missions that we were given by Colin Callendar, was "to speak the unspoken." That's literally like a phrase that comes out of his mouth. And it came out of his mouth in developing the piece. And race is an obvious thing - Black/White. But within the black and white dynamic, there are class differences that are explored.
The individual qualities of these people are often defined by how they were raised - how much money they have is just as important as race.
And I think, in terms of the overall film, the film is a big city film. It's not just simply a New York film. It's a film about how big cities are places where people get a chance to mix and mingle in ways that you can't in other places.
But there is something about a Jewish diner that's very New York. And I think one of the great things about this film is that it's really a New York film. When you watch the scenes that we have shot here in the streets of New York. The scenes we shot outside, the way the city looks, the way the city sounds, the way people look when they go by.
There is a vibrancy, there is a vitality, that you don't get when you shoot in Toronto, or Vancouver, or wherever else you are shooting that's supposed to be in New York.
There is only one New York. And this film captures that New York, both in its all diversity and all its vitality. And that's one of the things that's really gonna kick people when they see it. They are gonna go, "Wow. This feels like New York City."
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