If you're going to make a project, don't do five at once.
Don't spread your energy.
Just absolutely pull all your resources and energy and thoughts
and emotions and whatever into one place.
And look what it does.
My parents are godsends, you know, like, God literally handpicked my parents for me
because, you know, look, my dad is a craftsman.
He used to make stuff with his hands, you know. He made couches. He's really, really hands-on.
Right now, he's into farming. He’s had many phases in his life
but Dad’s a very hands-on person, you know, and he is... taking photos.
So that’s Dad’s side. And my mom, who was more
sort of like a bookworm and, you know, reads a lot, writes a lot.
My mom writes so much. She just scribbles and scribbles. Has pages and pages.
So it's no coincidence that I'm a writer / director now. Do you know what I mean.
Like, it kind of makes sense.
Even though there was no direct
sort of link or reason as to why that would happen.
The backstory is I go to the London Film School,
so you get people from the whole world coming into Covent Garden
to learn how to make films.
And I remember being in the first or second term out of six
and watching the grad films in term six. And people were shooting in Bolivia.
You know, Amazon Rainforest, and getting all these beautiful shots.
And I was like, well, I'm not going back to the block to go do that. That’s boring.
You can watch Top Boy for that if you want, you know.
So I just need like a different aesthetic, you know.
I need something else.
And by this point, I hadn't been to Ghana in 18 years.
So in August 2015, I actually just booked my own ticket
and went on my own, man.
And just sort of like went and reconnected with the land, you know, and said, look,
there's no option here, I’m shooting in Ghana.
And fast forward to February 2016,
I said to myself, I'm definitely shooting that film, if you know what I mean.
And you know what?
To be honest with you, it’s all faith based because there wasn't any sort of money or
my parents don't come from money, I don't have a safety net.
I can't ask somebody, hey, give me 25 grand to make a short.
Actually, I went by faith. I just said, look... And that’s the way I am, full stop even until today.
I'm still sort of like throwing the anchor as far as I can
and pulling myself towards it, hook or crook.
And I think that's what House Girl was so
like I said, I'm shooting on February 11.
I didn't budge from that, you know, and I did a Kickstarter
and raised ten grand, which is just not easy
because I was working full time as well at that time.
Net-A-Porter, doing customer service while still going to film school as well. So that wasn’t easy.
But honestly, it's just a case of faith.
But also like using, like... I've had to survive before any kind of excellence.
Do you know what I mean, like... And that comes with a certain grit, if you know what I mean.
And that's what I relied on a lot.
It's just about, hey, I want you to... I know you’re the best that I’ve got access to.
So look, just do it and invoice me. I’ll sort out the rest.
Sort of like I'm just gonna.. but for me, it’s just about making that film.
And honestly, it is a faith story I'm offering because I never had
the final budget of... that was about 23 to 24 K.
And I never had that in my account at once, if you know what I mean.
There's literally just faith and then God just brings it as and when...
That's what faith is. This sort of like living in the here and now.
If you know what I mean. And knowing that no matter what, this thing is going to work.
And I'm very fond of the film because my mom's passed away now, unfortunately, in 2018.
And that's a story that was actually inspired by my mother.
You know, she used to tell me the story
over and over and over again when she had this aunt back in Ghana,
who just never used to treat the house girls properly.
And, you know, I kind of merged my time
of going to Ghana in 2015 with my mom’s story put together.
So it has that sentiment within me. And now we’ll turn it into a six-part drama.
Actually horror thriller I think is the right genre.
I remember when I was in film school, I guessed Tim Bevan's email address
at Working Title, he’s the founder of Working Title.
And I sent the email at 3 a.m. He responded actually at like 10 a.m.
Hey, yeah, I’m fixing an appointment with my assistant, let’s have a chat. I was like wow.
So I went in and he gave me advice, and he told me to write a film that...
He said, write a story only you can write. Like something that you’ve witnessed,
or your loved ones have witnessed. And that’s what House Girl was actually.
So I met Tim Bevan before I made House Girl, and then House Girl and Haircut was
two sort of offerings of the advice he gave me, if you know what I mean.
So he's like, tell a story only you can tell,
which is whether it’s someone really close to you who went through it, or you went through yourself.
And then one day I think the end of that fasting week I was walking home
and I was kind of praying to God, like, listen, I hate this job man. You know what I mean.
Like if I'm supposed to stay here, just don't let me hate it so much.
Or, you know, just take me out, like, what is this?
And then he goes to me in my head, this is 2017, the start of 2017.
I met Ashley Walters because he watched House Girl at an event, was like wow, like what,
a black guy directed this kind of thing. And, yeah, so he threw his number at me
and he was like yeah, write a short film and I’ll act in it. Okay, cool.
So anyway, that's the first thing that God reminded me on my walk home
when I was saying this prayer, I was like, look Ashley Walters said, write a short film.
Have you done it? Fair enough, mate. Then he goes...
Yeah, you know what I mean... And then I also...
And then I was like, well, what should I write about?
Because, well, Tim Bevan said, write a story that only you can tell
and that you think about again and again and again, like you... that you can't forget.
And I remember there was one time I went to the barber, like Marcus's again with my friend.
And we walked into the middle of a whole situation where, you know, we sat down waiting to get a haircut,
and then a guy came in sweating with a tag on his ankle.
Like, where’s my bag, where’s my bag, where’s my bag, kind of thing.
And I was thinking, what’s this guy talking about?
And my barber took up the scissors like, you know, because obviously,
you know, it could have gone heated very easy.
But then obviously when my barber picked up the scissors
everyone in the shop, they stuck it on this guy
like, listen, you're not touching this guy. So he left.
And then my friend that I came to the barbershop with actually...
Sorry. Back.
So, before we came to the shop, what actually happened was
this guy came to the shop
because the police were chasing him and he was selling weed
while he was on tag, like an idiot, you know.
And, you know, he sort of stashed the backpack behind the fridge in the barber shop,
and pretended to be the tailor because my barber's got a tailor in the barbers, with the sewing machine,
So he just pretended to be the tailor.
And then the police came in and just... did nobody snitched or anything.
And they didn’t know who was who, so they just came in and left.
So obviously when they came in and left, he just ran away and left his bag.
So then my barber told someone, get rid of the bag, kind of thing.
Because, you know, I don't want this. What’s this load of weed in my shop.
Because obviously you opened it.
Yeah.
And then... So, he told someone to take it away.
But then my friend that came to the shop with, knew that guy.
So my barber was like, call him, call him, tell him to bring that bag.
Anyway. It wasn't a big-- But I couldn't stop thinking about that.
Just a funny little story. So that day actually that I said this prayer.
I went home and I wrote the first draft of Haircut that day and it changed my life, man.
I remember putting my all into that film and sort of like, again,
I didn't have money around that time because I took risks.
That’s the thing about me, like I've taken risks,
you know, I’ve taken bigger risks in life, which I'm not going to go into.
But, you know, this is, you know, as a result, I'm not going to not take this risk.
But yeah, man, it changed my life.
I love the film, you know what I mean. I put everything into it.
I was watching... because I didn't have money I couldn’t really go anywhere.
So I was watching loads, reading loads and pouring it all into my film.
And if I can give any advice off the back of that,
it's like, look, if you're going to make a project, don't do five at once.
Don't spread your energy, you know, just absolutely pour all your resources
and energy and thoughts and emotions and whatever into one place.
And look what it does.
You know, I'm saying to you it's quite a spiritual transition.
So yeah, so I'm actually, so it’s currently...
Haircut is-- I'm developing the feature film with Film4 currently.
So, you know, the aim is actually to shoot that as soon as possible, really.
But you know, I'm currently working on this TV show
until December,
so then regroup, grab God's grace, you know,
January, February, you can get to it, you know, because I've got more films
to make and more TV shows. I just don’t want to wait around.
I think actually Noughts & Crosses season one and two for me was, you know, my
post film school education, if, you know what I mean,
and how to sort of throw yourself in there and you know, how to work to an industry
standard because look, all of these things, industry standard
and all of that is the bare minimum guys, to be honest with you, you know.
Like, what you need to do is learn that so you can be bolder
and go forth and look for new possibilities.
Like when I go on set to direct, I'm not going there to shoot the script.
You know, that's the bare minimum. That “take one, script done”.
Now, let's figure out what else is happening here
and you know what other shots we can get and you know, things like that
because, you know, production and shooting
while you're on set is all about experimenting, you should never be, like, prescriptive.
Where, you know, “We have to do this”, “We have to do that”.
You know, once you get into that space of having to
you're going to go into a very artificial end product.
You know, you kind of have to, you know, let loose.
The whole point of... So, there’s three stages of this this process.
Writing the script is drumming up all the material you're going to go with
used to experiment. And production, actually shooting the thing, is the experiment.
And then post production, editing, is the conclusion of the experiment.
So you know, why did we do this stuff? You know what I mean?
And I think if you think of it like that, rather than a prescriptive way,
you're going to find that the story tells itself.
And that's when you sort of get the organic sort of storytelling that
everyone connects to as opposed to forcing what you think on everybody else,
because that's not what filmmaking... that's not what cinema is, in my opinion.
And the shadow scheme on Top Boy was brilliant because again
you're going to laugh at me, but I guessed the execs’s email addresses,
you know, while I was making Haircut, so I had a rough cut,
I hadn't got an agent or anything.
And I guessed their email addresses and I... look, I need to direct an episode for this. Like, I grew up on it.
Here's a rough cut.
And I had Malcolm Kamulete, who was in the Channel 4 version as my lead in Haircut.
So yeah, maybe that would be a bait to, you know, make them want to talk to me.
And they actually did, Ali Flind great guy, man.
Alasdair Flind, you know, he actually called me.
I was a nobody, you know what I mean?
He called my phone is like, look, I'm going to L.A.
When I come back, you know, there might be an opportunity.
You know, I really respect those producers on Top Boy
You know, they gave me the episodes, two to shoot and it was light work.
You know, I speak the same language as the cast, you know what I mean
And getting on like a house on fire, you know, like, usually I give action verbs
to actors, when I direct them, sort of like “condescend” and stuff.
But I can go to someone and say, “Yo I need you to grill him”.
You know what I mean, and then he understands what I'm saying.
You know, it’s sort of like, the colloquial version of action verbs, if you want to call it that.
That was a lot of fun.
You know, I never had to second guess what's happening,
if you know what I mean, in terms of setting the scene and whatever.
So it's good. It was good. It was a very enjoyable project.
I've seen a lot of stuff I don't like.
Which people like to start use words like standard industry practise,
which, you know, in my opinion sometimes is manipulation, you know what I mean.
and I said to myself, it's got to change, you know, and I'd rather,
you know, spend part of my brain on changing that then, you know,
going through all this trauma and on the surface, it looks like I’m winning.
You know, I'm just not interested in that at all, you know, I just don't want it
because it's fake.
So, I started DBK Studios, and DBK Studios is God’s company to be quite honest with you.
It stands for “Done by the King”, right.
And in essence, for me was the reason why that company... Because, look,
all companies should be a solution to a problem.
It should be chipping into a wider, you know, wider issue as opposed to vanity.
Right? So for me, DBK Studios is telling untold stories.
One of the main things I don’t like about, you know, some parts of the industry is that
you know, when you're about to get commissioned for somebody is based on who
you know, what you've done, which is kind of pointless do you know
I mean, this is just a gate that keeps people out, that aren’t like myself, you know.
And unless I'm blessed enough, you know, to jump over the gate.
But I'm that type of guy, you know, if I break in the house, I’m breaking the back door open.
Now, everyone’s coming in, you know what I mean. Everyone’s coming through.
But, yeah, you know.
My style of commissioning was more about mentality, you know,
it was more about mentality. It’s more about how much self-work have you done.
Do you know what I mean?
It's more about how humble are you?
You know, how teachable are you, how bold are you, what vision do you have?
Do you get what I mean?
And for me, that is way more important than who do you know...
because I feel like that's the easy route, you know what I mean, just basically,
you know, going to dump on top of other people's risks and saying, yeah, I’m going to take you on.
You know, it's like, let's go down to the ground.
In 2008, a good four of my friends got a life-sentences in jail, you know what I mean.
And actually they are still there now.
And you know, one of them, the one I'm closest to, he's
called me into... because he's in a Category D prison, which is like,
you know, you get day visits, it's a bit more lax. And
a friend of him inside is a writer, you know what I mean.
And he put on a play called “Spice” in jail, you know what I mean, and it was sick. I can’t lie.
Like, I went into the prison and I watched it, but that’s the type of people I want to commission.
You know what I mean, like while he's still in jail.
You know what I mean, we're actually sort of working on a package for him already.
You know, to start getting an option with DBK Studios because,
you know, that's the kind of thing that we're trying to do,
like we're not trying to... because a lot of the time I think that IP
is things that’re books and already things that are proven.
Again, this industry is risk averse.
Fine, fair enough.
But I think that the biggest rewards come after the the biggest risk,
Do you get what I mean.
So for me,
I'm not interested in people that already have IP, that’s poppin’.
That means that everybody else wants it.
Why don't we start to go to the ground level and create the IP, like jail,
I mean, you can't go lower than jail, you know what I'm saying to you.
you know, the industry standard, like I said, can be taught
you know what I mean. There's a lot of things that can be taught, but mentality you cannot.
You know what I'm saying to you. Sometimes-- and we want to go to that internal unchangeable factor
and put the easily accessible information on top of that.