Hannah you have I'll say very accomplished are a very accomplished practitioner of what we'll call
the fiscally challenged character driven drama so how do you really lovely we know what that means
you drive your own truck so how did you adapt to this complicated and creatively multi-layered
world of the mega tent pole motion picture and really is what was your method of communicating to
your visual your visual aspirations to literally the thousands of creative colleagues working in
the back rooms to create such a huge vision part one you know I get asked that question about the
budgets a lot because I do come from a very indie micron I mean my background is indeed you know I
did one big film and that doesn't make me someone who doesn't often so but at the end of the day
you never have enough money I learned that real quick I learned I think day three when I was like
oh yeah Golden City it's like what 50 million and you know what I mean and they're like no I'm like
wait this is marvelous oh thank you know the hopes and dreams of it all just went dashing
into the and I was like oh there's like a budget okay so we have to adhere to a number like I don't
understand that this is not what my dreams told me so so that was like and you adapt very quickly
because it's the same thing it's the same sort of conversations about schedule about locations
about time which all dictate what your budgets gonna be at the end of the day and you know you
fight the good fight sand you pick your battles and your horse trade you do all the things that
you need to do and you learn over time and learn that very well because of small films and you know
you got to be a little savvy on how you use your money and and so you know you're just being savvy
on a bigger level and you know that really helped me around sort of some of the politics of it and
how to make a set how to keep the integrity of a set but pull out numbers and stuff like that so
it's really not that different in the fiscal department of course I mean I have a lot of
resources with Marvel I had a lot more money I had a lot bigger team and think so yes that is
very different but you know how I chose to use it and my process on how to deal with all of that I
laid right on the supervising art director and I walked away just kidding I was like it's all
you but you know what I mean we dealt with that and then you know we I think the one thing Marvel
really knew is that we wanted to build you know Ryan and I again coming from a very indie world
where everything is very tactile you you get used to telling a story that way and you want
your actors to come in and be able to touch things and feel things so we were both a little hesitant
at the idea of leg you just want us to build like a patch and then you'll do what you know and there
was some convincing as to like no that's great and then there was a lot of me great so we found
a really great place for that where we ended up doing a lot of building and I really thought hard
to be able to do that for everybody and I think that's one thing in a film of this size that you
see less of you know is the is the actual is the physical practical builds part two I forget I'm
just loving part one I don't know well no it was how did you you know again and I think act just
upon what you're saying I think actors really appreciate being an environment that's tactile
you know we think we wouldn't create a world in a green space but it doesn't make for a better
performance it just makes for more visual but the second part was really the the question about how
do you think communicate to so many other people maintain a signature of your in Ryan's vision for
this world when it has to then be passed on to so many people I'm a monster I mean I'm just yelling
at all times know what many times but you know you just for something like that the nice thing
about everyone that I was working for working for working with working with me is that we all
kind of knew that we wanted to step outside of the box and Marvel was very willing to allow that to
happen you know when we were doing our fist up meetings and we'd walk in with all these crazy
ideas they were very like yeah that's really cool and you're like okay so you know you don't really
expect that in that manner and and you know the nice thing about it is the ideas you know they
would morph and change as they had to but pretty much stayed you know as well whatever the script
changed it pretty much stay the design ideas kind of stayed throughout you know and it's a lot of
what he was saying what Jay was saying is this really intense deep dive because we're riot and
I started was okay well where is Wakanda on the continent because that's going to then determine
who then and where before there were borders migrated to this place why did they migrate to
this place and then how did they build that land why did they stay what were the confrontations
tethered at us so you go through this whole thing of like okay what's located here on the border
of the Congo you know basically where we'll want Rwanda is but a little to the west so you know you
got Mali you got Burkina Faso you've got you know Nigeria so we and then you have Ethiopia have all
the river tribes so that's sort of where we took our influences for because naturally that's where
they would have gone that's where they would have ended up and then how did they discover everything
that's there so it you just you know when Ryan was like so I need to know what everything is
and I was like so I'm building like you know like what everything and it was in and the more here's
the thing I found about oh is the more I dug the more deep that I got the more that I found the
more questions I had the more answers I found it just was this cyclical like he just it's like you
tube you just fall into a rabbit hole and right everybody's done it well you're like looking at a
cat in Japan like this is really it's like 5:00 in the morning I like to have problems and you
fall into this hole and you know I call it the you to grab a ball and that's really what we didn't we
allowed ourselves to do that free fall and within that free fall you start finding all these things
out about yourself because you know is art a reflection or is it a window and that's always
a question that I asked myself when I'm working on a product a product and it turns out it's both
so it was a reflection of me and as a window into a world that I knew little about that became more
familiar with that's you know when we I started writing I talking about like we need to break
these rules we need to change this narrative and you kind of go in as an african-american
I went into that knowing this is a country about fictional country about Africa and I know all the
stereotypes because I felt it I've been in movie theaters where I'm watching it and you're like you
know you're like and growing up with it what those stereotypes are we're still even fighting it today
and I knew you know that is not gonna happen on this movie I'll be damned you know I'll be damned
and I think so was Ryan the same way like they're you know what if you know Africans had their own
agency and control over their own resources and and not had never been colonized so it was really
important for us to change this idea of the dark continent to a place that's modern and futuristic
because it actually is when you go there you know it actually has cities and actually has a country
it's just like every other place where they have countryside they have rural areas they have you
know you know cities the urban areas highways I mean it's it's not I think the story that
we've been told or that we hang on to a little bit you know and there was a lot that took me
to get over so that's I know I did not answer anything but maybe somebody out there is like
I think I got something for the role so anyways there it is I mean it is a lot about what we do
is a lot about writing rules and then you decide whether or not you want to break them or not and
we make up our rules and then we change them I just wanted to touch about one thing is one of
the things that I've noticed in the last year's is that we decorators have to come up with ways
of lighting in this age so I just wanted to see was a lighter jaelyn well and we're some of you
are going to be quizzed about this as well but if you get together that's definitely true on Black
Panther as Hannah said we built a lot of scenery and we knew that and it was a really really fast
pace that we were working on and I knew that if we didn't light the scenery that they weren't
going to see very well what we did I mean it's as simple as that and also you know we wanted a
mood in those sets we wanted it to look a certain way and if we didn't light them we wouldn't win
we wouldn't get where we wanted to go so yeah we pretty much spent a lot of our budget and
a lot of time and thought figuring out how to light the sets I mean the casino the casino we
were you know that there's feelings there we're like okay we wanted to hang over 70 there were
70 glows that we wanted to have hanging in the middle of the space and we fought for eight weeks
with everyone telling us no you can't do that we can't do the effect we can't do the stunts you
know the rigs won't work and it literally took Hannah and I standing in the middle of the set
with our kind of thing and we weren't I mean we weren't super confrontational but we just were
kind of like no that can go there your rig can go there six inches you know so we protected what we
were doing inches yeah and so there was a lot of that conversation of who does lighting lighting
or set deck who is there a fixtures person who pays for fixtures a guy so that's like
that's changing so much you know and everyone's in denial yeah every movie the last five movies
I've done every pre budget meeting we had to claim the money for fixtures and I never had
to do that before and but if I didn't do it it wouldn't happen so it's an evolving profession
Hannah I have to ask you this question because it's it's such a privilege to have you but I
have the privilege of being the co-chair of our mentorship program at the guild and I don't have
to tell you you know so well that minorities are underrepresented in Hollywood guilds you've been
quoted as saying that you hopefully will be the last to be the first to be honored and for your
work and we have a very large audience especially on the stream and I just wanted in your own words
how you can encourage those that may have not had the luxury of a fine liberal arts education or
or an arts education but have the passion and the love to want to follow in your footsteps what sort
of thoughts would you share with them in terms of how to to pursue those those dreams and goals you
know the I think the the one thing that you know because that giving advice for that type of things
I remember when I was there and I was looking for someone to tell me exactly like what do I have to
do who to just open up your book and give me a number you don't I mean like that's what I was
with Oliver Sabel way exactly you you just have to have a drive that is second to only the heat of
the Sun in endurance because it's a marathon and you got a you know there was a point in time where
I realized like I'm not putting years here right and it's it's you know but the the thing that
kept me going is learning constantly like being intrigued by things that were going around you
know I started out as a set dresser and I'd walk over to the welders and be like what are you doing
what is that teach me how to do that you know and I was very lucky I worked with Jesus or Deena and
grant Sampson and they you know we're very they taught me everything they were very kind about
cuz we were in a very long movie and they're very kind about me walking around to the carpenters in
to the painters and wanting to do this and do that and really mentored me into that and
then of course when Thomas you know would call me and keep my bed every once in a while and and and
really give me this advice is like you know no is powerful you know don't you know you know when I
learned that things started to change I remember when saying to me work on the things that you
connect with you know and that was another thing I think things started changing cuz three weeks
after that conversation with when I got Fruitvale station so you know so and that's when I met rice
so everything changed then so I think it's a lot of like determination like just you know rejection
is but a mere fuel you know fire log on your fire you know somebody's house you know and that's a
challenge you know it's never a rejection or a personal thing it's just always been a challenge
to me it's like oh no okay and since I was little so my parents were like oh I'm so done with that
one you don't I mean like they'd say something I'd be like no I'm gonna do this my way you know and
at little Frank Sinatra running around my way the highway that was such a warrant to phrase
so you know what I mean it's all of those things and I think those are the best bits because you're
not ever gonna really get somebody to open up their black book and give you a phone number
or recommend you someplace and they don't really know you or have worked with you at all so your
best bet is to just keep going and I had to remind myself with that and you know what I got depressed
I did all the things I would go up and down and quit I think I quit this industry a hundred I'd
wake up and be like that's it never again I'm not you know exactly so you will go through
these things you will go through up and downs you'll have moments where I'm like I'm so broke
i what am i eating tomorrow like how am i feeding my child what am i doing like this is ridiculous
but you just keep going because the passion for what you're doing is stronger than you know the
need for food it's sometimes and and maybe not liquids but food shirts certainly and and then
you know when you start being true to yourself and understanding who you are and finding yourself
and you go on a journey and not a job you things start to open up and you find that people wins you
know that that are there for you J that support you and you you right on that strength when you
have none so those are the best words I can give it's a lot of words but it's the best words I can
work