My thrice-intern and creative collaborator, Theo Hollingsworth told me about a web-series he was writing and asked if I’d be interested in being the director of photography on the project. I was like, “hell yes!” and so after some rescheduling, 10-days in January it was. This was before the pandemic was understood here in the US so we filmed like it was 1999… or something like that.
It was truly one of the best experiences I have ever had with a talented crew, cast and city that seemed to help us with whatever we needed. Theo is an incredible producer that seems to be able to make magic. His personality is the perfect pitch of maven and creative so when he decides he wants to do a shoestring-budget project, it will happen.
This project was a great imagining of a seventies/eighties character time warped to 2020 (pre-pandemic). The writing was superb and he cast such a colorful team of actors that made every day working on set a lot of fun.
The director, Nakia Fox worked with Theo at a 9-to-5 in media training, so they had built a rapport that made getting through the scenes a breeze. He understood the language of a small set and had done a lot of the work of understanding the concept, scenes and how we’d accomplish the translation.
I read the scripts and made some storyboards to get a grasp of how best to shoot these ten episodes in five working days. I had a small break between projects so it came right on time.
Below are a set of production stills from the project.
You can see all ten episodes in their hilarious glory on KweliTV, a streaming platform that focuses on stories from the diaspora. Get a subscription today and enjoy this and many other exciting and creative titles.
Also, we got a win at the 17th Another Hole In The Head Film Festival for Best Science Fiction Short. More to come and hopefully a season two!
