Black filmmakers fast-forward to success on video

By JANICE RHOSHALLE LITTLEJOHN

Associated Press

LOS ANGELES -- Everyone in movies wants to see their work on the big screen. Yet many black independent filmmakers have found a more profitable and impactful venue that had long been considered the kiss of death: straight-to-video. 

Associated Press

Filmmaker Reynaldo Rey adjusts his camera during rehearsals for My Big Phat Hip Hop Family, Nov. 1, in Ft. Lauderdale, Fla. 

Even before the surging popularity of DVDs led major Hollywood studios to focus on the home video market, black filmmakers saw the advantage there. Not only could they target their films directly to an underserved audience, but with lower budgets and overhead, they stood a better chance of making money.

"It's the best way to go," says Carl Seaton, a Los Angeles writer-director. His 2000 melodrama, One Week, got a limited theatrical release and decent reviews (the New York Times called it "scrappy and earnest"). Still, he's opted to go direct to DVD next year with his feature Sacred, starring the rapper Nas.

"It costs so much money to release a film theatrically," says Seaton, who made Sacred for ,000, which he financed himself. "If you've shot your film on a small enough budget, you can make money very quickly on rental and retail sales, and Hollywood Video and Blockbuster are buying large amounts of product."

Most of these "urban films" aren't likely to come to a theater near you. The genre typically includes movies made for and by blacks, be it youth-oriented hip-hop fare, highbrow documentaries or adult-themed dramas with recognizable TV personalities.

Filmmakers of all ethnicities have gone straight-to-video for years. But black films were among the first to prove this market was more than a dumping ground, and they have subsequently paved the way for other genres traditionally shut out of theaters.

"We've seen a huge growth in product coming out of the Latin market and South Asia, specifically India -- the whole Bollywood phenomenon," said Nick Shepherd, chief of marketing and merchandising for Blockbuster, from his Dallas headquarters. "There is now a big requirement to stock our shelves in certain demographics with certain localized tastes."

Ethnic genres are part of the booming billion direct-to-DVD market. But on their own, they're considered too risky for major Hollywood investment.

"If it doesn't appeal worldwide, it isn't important to the big studios," says film distributor Doug Schwab, president of Maverick Entertainment and controlling partner of the production company Breakaway Films.

Schwab, a former buyer for Blockbuster, says he jumped into the urban video market six years ago when "there were only one or two video labels releasing African-American product, and African-Americans were the number one demographic group."

Schwab's companies annually produce up to 15 films (budgeted under $1 million) and distribute 48 black and Latino titles a year. Among them: Senorita Justice with Edith Gonzalez and Tito Puente, Jr. and My Big Phat Hip Hop Family starring comedian Reynaldo Rey, sitcom veteran Anna Maria Horsford and rapper Choppa for Breakaway Films.

Schwab is currently bidding against three other companies to distribute Game Over, a martial arts film featuring Daz Crawford (Blade 2) and stuntman Andre "Chyna" McCoy (The Matrix) by freshman producer Kasim Saul.

"Everything in the studio system is designed to slow you down," says Saul, a New York actor who found little work in L.A. outside of commercials and TV guest spots. "If the door is shut to you, you can sit and stare at the door or you can gather the troops."

It wasn't so long ago that "straight-to-video" were three dirty words no filmmaker wanted to hear. But these days it could be the difference between life and death for films like Tim Reid's 1998 self-financed drama Asunder, starring Blair Underwood, or Pandora's Box, starring model Tyson Beckford, Monica Calhoun (Love & Basketball) and Kristoff St. John (Young & The Restless) shot for a reported ,000. It had a limited theatrical run in 2002.

"I'd see great films at festivals that never had a life after the festival, before these straight-to-video deals," says writer-director Carol Mayes from her home in Los Angeles. Her romance Commitments, with Victoria Dillard and Allen Payne, aired last year on the BET cable network before it went to video. "Now at least these films will have a life, a forever life. The bottom line is to get your film seen by any means necessary."

"The world has changed," says Andy Reimer, vice president of acquisitions for DEJ Productions. DEJ distributed Eric LaSalle's 2002 directorial effort Crazy As Hell, a thriller starring Michael Beach (Third Watch). It also produced the recent hip-hop Western Gang of Roses starring Stacey Dash (Clueless), rapper Lil Kim, singer Bobby Brown and LisaRaye McCoy (The It Factor).

"The video business has grown to the extent that more money is generated, not just for companies that rely on lots of straight-to-video releases, but the major studios throw out a lot more money now for video than they do for theatrical distribution," Reimer says.

Of course, not all independent films are created equal. Budgets range from ,000 to million, with tight shooting schedules that call for lickety-split decisions.

St. John of Pandora's Box says his director "couldn't take a lot of time to set up his shots because we were working under such a strenuous five to six week shooting schedule. He had to take pretty much what he got after the first couple of takes."

"It's guerrilla filmmaking," says McCoy, who has become one of today's most recognizable up-and-coming black actresses and currently co-stars on UPN TV comedy All of Us, produced by Will and Jada Pinkett Smith.

With a starring role in the 1998 Ice Cube-directed hit The Players Club, an appearance in the 1999 sleeper The Wood and now in Neema Barnette's ,000 babes-behind-bars DVD release Civil Brand, McCoy's career has straddled quality productions and third-rate pictures where "we didn't have any trailers."

On one set, McCoy said, "we had a little place that had a seat in it. A seat. And you'd be there all day and you didn't have the quality food you need to be on a film set for 12 to 14 hours. It was terrible."

No matter how dubious (one reviewer labeled Civil Brand a "muckraking mess"), such films have given McCoy visibility.

"It was about getting the experience," McCoy says in a phone interview from the All of Us set in Studio City. "Directors and casting people know what to look for even if the quality of the film is not there."

But well-produced movies are becoming increasingly important as the market has been quickly "oversaturated with too much low-priced, low-budget, low-production-value urban product," says Scott Hettrick, editor-in-chief of DVD Exclusive magazine. "There was a sudden craze for hip-hop (movies) and now we're back to where consumers are a little more selective about what they enjoy."

"The good news," Hettrick added, "is that this is a whole new category in programming that now exists."

"The goal is just to keep making films," says Seaton, "to keep working and to be able to survive in this craft."

It's a rap

With its low-budget, straight-to-video urban movies, Breakaway Films is aiming for Oscar gold but U.S. green.

by Art Levine

photo: Josh Prezant

Rap star Trina is strolling down a Miami street dressed in a hot-pink tank top and low-slung jeans in her first starring film role. Dropping Da Baddest Bitch persona she uses in recording, Trina plays a do-gooder named Alica Strada, who hopes to stop gang violence in her Liberty City neighborhood by urging her friends to withhold sex from their gangsta boyfriends. Sound familiar? It should: It's the plot line of the ancient Greek play Lysistrata, updated in A Miami Tail for the low-budget, straight-to-video urban (i.e., black) market by one of the country's most prolific independent movie companies, Breakaway Films of Deerfield Beach.

Aristophanes surely didn't foresee that his play would become quite as raunchy as this: Trina's character complains about the violence-plagued streets and local gang leaders to two friends, but the talk soon turns to sex. As long as Black Zeus and Keenan and their crew are running the streets, Alica says, ain't nobody going to open up stores here.

One friend, Nike, played by Neferteri Shepherd as a neck-rolling, hand-waving black caricature, says, “Hmmmm, but you do have to admit Black Zeus is one fine brother

He's a gang banger, Alica replies.

I bet that ain't the only thing you wish he was banging, says Nike, briefly grinding her hips forward and back, the black strings of her panties exposed well above her navel-baring hip-huggers. I see the way you been looking at him.

Stop lying! Alica exclaims. Unlike yourself, I do have standards.

Yeah, whatever. Big black dick is the only standard I'm concerned with at the moment, Nike responds with a leer.

It's not exactly witty repartee worthy of a classic Greek comedy. But it's good enough for Doug Schwab, the 39-year-old marketing mastermind who launched Breakaway with two partners in October 2002 and has since overseen production of 14 low-budget urban movies, with an average cost of ,000 to ,000. In doing so, the company has also given up-and-coming black and Latino directors and actors, including some local performers, opportunities to do feature films that they generally wouldn't have had otherwise. A Miami Tail, the company's first released film, came out in September. The second, The Hustle, debuted in late November. The company's first six films are being distributed by the prestigious Lions Gate Home Entertainment company, which has handled such A-list movies as Monster's Ball.

Even though A Miami Tail didn't do as well as expected (Schwab won't disclose sales figures), he's still proud of the movie and its story line. No peace on the streets, no piece in the sheets, the fast-talking former Blockbuster buyer says, quoting the film's tagline. It's the best and oldest story that's ever been urbanized.

Indeed, Breakaway's producers and filmmakers have developed a specialty of scavenging stories from classic works and mainstream movies; it's all part of their vision of producing (relatively) higher-quality fare for the straight-to-video market. The movies are not just the usual drug deals gone bad, says Breakaway partner and executive producer Ronald Castell, 65, the key creator of story ideas for several of the company's in-the-hood films. (In his other life, he is a senior vice president at Huizenga Holdings, a sophisticated film aficionado and co-chairman of the Fort Lauderdale International Film Festival.)

Breakaway's latest film is a comedy titled My Big Phat Hip-hop Family. Based on a story by Castell, it wrapped a 15-day shoot in early November. As producer Delvin Molden says with some envy about My Big Fat Greek Wedding, which served, in part, as this Breakaway film's inspiration: “It was made for million and grossed million worldwide. That's phenomenal.

Breakaway's executives don't expect to duplicate that movie's success (or good reviews), but they've found unnamed investors willing to bankroll the company's films. They expect to make profitable films that at least double their backers' investments while filling a key marketing niche for young, urban viewers. “The big studios are not making enough fare to meet the demand of the Latino and African-American market. The independents have to step up and do this, Schwab says. Our urban films are hitting on the cylinders of action, comedy and horror instead of the plain, everyday drama.

Schwab began meeting this need by launching Maverick Entertainment in 1997, distributing since then more than 350 straight-to-video urban films produced by others. He used the expertise  and movie-industry contacts  he had gained as a Blockbuster buyer with a million budget for genre films to start his own distribution company later. I know what they're looking for, he says of the video chains and retail stores Maverick now serves, earning about million annually for that company. (He won't disclose Breakaway's revenues.) In the reception area for his small suite of Maverick offices, eye-catching posters for some of those films are displayed. They include When Thugs Cry, featuring rappers Jah Rista and Soundmaster T, shown against a tableau of gang violence.

Breakaway, located in other offices down the hall, has loftier ambitions. About a year ago, I decided we needed a higher level of films for the urban market, with more comedy, more horror, more action, says Schwab, who formed a partnership with Castell and Pam White, the vice president of Maverick.

Molden puts it more bluntly: The Maverick films probably would not get as much mainstream distribution because they can't pass quality-control standards. They're made by young filmmakers on a limited budget.

But with backing from Breakaway, new filmmakers, along with young standup comics, actors and rappers looking for movie exposure, can have their shot at making feature films for a bigger audience. Of course, even Breakaway's films, if exposed to the scrutiny of reviewers in standard theatrical releases, would only be regarded as what Castell concedes are C-level movies. (He's probably being generous; despite decent production values, the first released films have a poky, hackneyed quality that would likely be savaged by critics.) Still, Schwab is proud to note that Roger Ebert dubbed him the Roger Corman of urban films, comparing him to the 1960s B-movie king who launched the Hollywood careers of Peter Fonda, Jack Nicholson and Peter Bogdanovich, among others.

And like Corman and other B-movie moguls, Schwab has a straightforward philosophy about making low-cost films. We're just bottom-line-oriented people: We raise the money, we get the films made, we sell the movies, and we get them out. It's not like a labor of love on every project; we are a factory, he says. At that clip, every film we make isn't Schindler's List or Forrest Gump. But our films will be packaged great, they will be delivered, they will be entertaining, and they will be sold. We are a very rare group.

He's scornful, too, of the pretensions of the artsy indie-film world. Schwab has nothing in common with filmmakers who spend years honing scripts, raising funds and seeking glory through film festivals and theatrical releases. “I know people who have been working on the same script since 1996, he remarks. “While other people talk about it, we do it. So many people go broke trying to get theatrical releases. They may have a bigger buzz, but our DVD will be the same size as theirs, the art will be similar, and you can rent it for .50.

To Schwab, Breakaway role in cultivating minority talent in the film industry is also a source of pride. The three owner-producers are white, but most of the acting, writing and directing jobs are filled by blacks and Hispanics. re a launching pad to the next level, Schwab says. We can get very good talent who are first-, second- or third-time filmmakers while they're waiting to be the next Spike Lee or John Singleton.

One of those grateful directors is Greg Carter, a Houston-based filmmaker who is now editing My Big Phat Hip-hop Family, his fourth film and a departure from his earlier urban action flicks. A Rice University film school grad, he met Schwab when Maverick released his second movie, Thug Life, starring rappers Napoleon and Willie D from the Geto Boys; it has gone beyond the video stores to air on Showtime and has even been sold overseas. Honestly, Doug and Pam and Ron are putting their money where their mouth is: A lot of people talk about working with young African-Americans in movies, but they're doing it Carter says.

Schwab also sees Breakaway as providing another benefit: contributing to the local film industry in a way the handful of big-budget Hollywood movies that come to Florida can't equal. It drives me crazy the way everyone talks forever about 2 Fast 2 Furious or From Justin to Kelly filming here, but they're gone, he points out. “They come here, pillage the city, shut it down and then they leave. But with Breakaway, he argues, “we are here all the time, even if it's not a big, Hollywood box-office movie. We consistently keep people working while they're waiting for their next big films. Besides, he adds with a producers shrewdness,They aren't doing anything else.

Local actors welcome the opportunities Breakaway offers, although the pay can be as low as a day even for some featured roles. (But the films stars, usually rappers and showbiz performers, make far more.) Yet with decent parts so rare, lesser-known actors seize whatever chances come their way. For instance, Dushawn Moses is a 34-year-old Delray Beach model and actor who spent three months in 2002 playing a detective in Denzel Washingtons recent film Out of Time and another three working as the stand-in for Tyrese in 2 Fast 2 Furious, while also making high-paying commercials.…s the next Denzel Washington,Molden raves. Even if that's hype, Moses was ready to make the big move to Hollywood this past June; he had sold his furniture and packed up his belongings. But the day before he was set to drive cross-country, he got a call from Breakaway Films: He had landed a lead role in the Caribbean-themed comedy Bahama Hustle.

I didn't want to do it, because I had an opportunity to go to Hollywood, Moses recalls.  trying to do more, and I didn't want to go from a million set to a ,000 set.But his agent prevailed on him to take the role as a shady rap mogul She said it's a good part, and it would make a good reel for me, he recalls, referring to the video samples of an actors work.You can tell people, “Go see this movie.It's like another calling card.

Moses also enjoyed working on the film in the Bahamas and was impressed by the skill of the director and crew. He says he didn’t resent the pay, though it was abysmal compared to what he makes for his modeling and big-budget Hollywood work. “The best thing you can do is do your best, and you’ll stand out,” he observes. Besides pay, he also noticed other differences between a major Hollywood picture and a Breakaway project. “You’ve got more people on the set [of a Hollywood film], 250 compared to 50. On a smaller set, you can get more things done each day,” he explains.

In addition, by remaining anchored in South Florida and working in the Bahamas, he made contacts that garnered him other acting opportunities — while furthering his ambitions as a screenwriter and aspiring producer. He’s also the author of a privately printed collection of illustrated, uplifting prose-poems titled L.I.F.E. (Living It From Experience). Impressed by the book and his ideas, some Bahamas-based producers he met commissioned him to write an action drama featuring a Bahamian musical group.

Moses’ work on Bahama Hustle led him to be cast as the main romantic lead in My Big Phat Hip-hop Family, playing a bourgeois college student who falls in love with a young woman trying to keep secret her ties to a legendary R&B family. All these new film projects, Moses believes, are leading to a “pot of gold for the future.” He notes, “I’m going to learn every time I’m in front of a camera. If I didn’t make the film, I would lose creatively. It adds to my chops.” All told, the job he reluctantly took on a low-budget, straight-to-video comedy last summer opened new doors for him. “I learned a lot from Breakaway,” he says.

For Louis “Tre Luv” Smith, a 27-year-old Coral City comedian and actor who has appeared on BET, the Breakaway films have given him a chance to go beyond standup. Bursting with confidence, the husky comic has dubbed himself “The Playboy of Comedy” and has used the films as a proving ground for his talents and immense ambition. “I want to be like Will Smith: I want to be able to make you laugh and make you cry,” he says. “Hip-hop Family had a lot of the range of emotions that I can act.” He had some acting background, having gone to the New World School of the Arts in Miami, but his career didn’t start to take off until he took standup comedy classes while trying to get acting work in New York.

Yet in one scene in Hip-hop Family, he had the sort of breakthrough that can transform an actor’s confidence — and if the right people see it, his career. His character, played for laughs as a big-shot record mogul in the rest of the movie, shows his vulnerable side and gets drunk, pining for a lost childhood love. “I had no idea what I’d do, but when they called action, everyone was still, and I did tears. I had never done real tears before [as an actor],” he says. “The cameraman said it was the best footage he ever shot.”

Tre Luv, as Smith likes to be called professionally, actually has big-budget movie experience, playing a minor role as a DJ in the recent bomb From Justin to Kelly, which filmed in Miami in January. “One three-minute shot took three days to do,” he recalls. “It was take after take.” In contrast, he notes, “In a low-budget movie, they’ll shoot four or five scenes in a day.” He saw the difference directly, because he began filming a role as the homosexual thug Bam-Bam in The Hustle while finishing up his part in From Justin to Kelly. In one very long day, he shot scenes in both movies, beginning with a 7 a.m. shoot on South Beach, then driving up to Broward County to play the conflicted tough guy at a nightclub shoot for Breakaway. He’s a headlining comic in New York and on various college campuses, doing as well as virtually any local comedian. But he’s willing to put in the extra effort for his movie career. “I want to be respected as an actor,” he says.

At the same time that he was honing his craft, Smith was making contacts that could prove invaluable. He struck up a rapport with veteran comedian Reynaldo Rey, who played the father in Hip-hop Family. Now, Smith is planning to fly out to Los Angeles to meet him and his management. The younger actor credits his Breakaway work for some of the breaks that are coming his way. “The exposure I’m getting from this is the greatest,” he says — and Hip-hop Family isn’t even scheduled to be released until later next year.

All the talented people who try to sell films to Maverick or make original movies for Breakaway hope to make it big someday in Hollywood. That’s also the case with Molden, who met Schwab when the Maverick owner saw — and bought — his first independent movie, Love Relations. He then went on to direct a few Breakaway films — including an ambitious period piece about a 19th-century serial killer titled The Evil One — before being given a contract as a producer. “No filmmaker is complete unless they’ve worked out in Hollywood,” Molden says. “But if you go out to Hollywood for five years and blow it, that’s it.” Now that he has gained experience in low-budget films, he adds, “My next step is to go up to the next level.”

For now, he’s using his savvy as a producer to ensure that Breakaway films fit into their budgets and are shot on time. This isn’t a Stanley Kubrick-style process of agonized gestation: For instance, Castell conceived the idea for Hip-hop Family in the spring, a script was ready by early September, and shooting began in late October and was completed Nov. 9.

The money-saving begins when Molden reviews a script that has been accepted. “If it’s got car explosions and planes and a bunch of other things, you’ve gotta cut that stuff out,” he says. “I look for locations; if there’s too many, you have to cut them.” He’s also wary of big casts. “If we can, we cut the cast in half,” he notes. But Hip-hop Family had about 30 speaking parts and needed extras for concert scenes. In general, he says, “We can’t afford to blow things up and shoot [big] crowd scenes.”

What ultimately sells these movies is what’s called the box art — the striking images and tag lines that will lure video customers. Their films have to compete with box-office smashes that had extensive promotion, but when customers have seen those already, the unknown Breakaway and Maverick films have their chance. “If they rent Friday [a popular Ice Cube comedy], then take it back, now what?” Molden asks, showing a visitor blown-up posters of a few new Breakaway films.

“Hey, this looks pretty interesting. Let’s get this,” he says, acting like a consumer pointing to the box art for The Hustle. The poster features former Yo! MTV Raps hosts Doctor Dre and Ed Lover, now popular radio DJs, drenched in bling-bling, their arms around each other and their mouths wide open. In case anyone doesn’t know it’s a comedy, smaller pictures of a bug-eyed mammy type in curlers, a Cadillac, a sexy girl in semi-unzipped black leather pants and two rappers surround Dre and Lover. With the simple slogan, “Playas Gettin’ Play’d,” the basic message of the film is effectively conveyed.

“Everything comes down to the box art,” Molden observes. “We specialize in dressing up the box to make it look as professional as a Hollywood film.”

Unfortunately, the movies themselves often don’t have the same quality as major Hollywood films, in large part because of the strict budgetary constraints. When salaries for some key acting roles dip as low as a day, it’s hard to attract much top acting talent. And for some films, Breakaway has shot important club scenes next to a noisy airport, improvised new scenes because an actor missed his plane and quickly rewritten scripts because the putative stars of the film, such as Dre and Lover in Bahama Hustle, could only commit to less than three days of shooting.

Still, the quality of the movies is gradually starting to improve, Breakaway executives believe, and to make his case, Molden shows the fancy opening credits of a movie they filmed in June, Carlita’s Secret. It’s an English-language film targeted to Hispanics, and with the smoky imagery and sensual music of the credit sequence, it could be the setup to an intriguing Hollywood thriller, even if the movie apparently has its share of cheesy dialogue. But it features some prominent Latina actresses, including Eva Longoria, the glamorous star of ABC’s L.A. Dragnet and one of People en Español’s 25 most beautiful people, along with the veteran soap actress Maria Bravo.

The story idea for the film came, once again, from Castell. “I said I’d like to see a hip-hop or Latin version of Les Miserables,” he recalls from his office overlooking Las Olas Boulevard. In the story, he explains, “a girl’s boyfriend commits a robbery, a policeman’s killed, and she’s accused of the murder [then runs away]. A decade later, she returns as a hot star in the club scene.” But an Inspector Javert-type detective suspects her of the earlier crime, and the drama unfolds. “I think we give credit to Victor Hugo by naming one of the characters after him,” Castell says with a laugh.

For all those who are getting their shot at wider fame through Maverick and Breakaway, there are hundreds of other wannabes who will never make it through the company’s tough review process. Yet Maverick still openly solicits completed films through its Web site, www.maverickentertainment.cc, and scripts flood into Breakaway. As a result, Schwab’s desk and floor are piled high with videos and scripts he’s considering. After all, Maverick releases 48 urban and Latino films every month. Other videos he has bought, rejected or is negotiating with the producers over price sit on a shelf behind him.

He picks at random one of the films he plans to view, Like Butta Baby, to demonstrate how he evaluates movies he might release. It already has its own slick box art of a tough-looking gangsta and his woman. Usually, Schwab gives a film with any promise about 40 minutes of his time to check it for story, acting and production quality. But then, his alert eye notices on the box the notation “1998 — official jury selection.” He shakes his head and says, “That’s not a good sign. This film is six years old, and it doesn’t have a home.” Now, he wonders if the box art means that the producer has already released it in the marketplace: It's like a [rigged] odometer in a car, he points out. He finally puts the film in his video player, the first step to a possible release and promising future for the filmmaker.

But the movie was shot in low-budget video and opens with a near-naked couple humping away in bed. his looks like the start of an erotic film, and it's not good, Schwab says.  very amateurish. He looks at it with a bored eye and says, …I could check with the bigger chains and see if they might have released it as another title. But it soon becomes clear that he won't bother, as the scene shifts to two stereotypical  arguing, apparently about a fine brother in a clothing store. I don't know what it's about, he complains, growing impatient. There's a reason this movie has been around since 1998, he notes.

The final straw comes when he sees the camera pan sideways in a stiff, jerky fashion to one of the women. I've taped on a tripod with a home video. This is not like a professional film. His final judgment is swift and harsh: I don't even have to watch that. If they start off this bad, it can't get any better. He laughs as he presses the eject button and routes the tape to the rejection pile. I have sold some bad movies, but at least you can get your teeth into them, he says.

Schwab watches these films for the rest of us, wading through such junk in order that he might find dozens of better-quality trashy fare to sell to a hungry public. But his mission remains pure for both the films he buys and those he produces: We are giving the people what they want to see.