Film Courage: If Spike Lee didn’t make SHE’S GOTTA HAVE IT, would you be a filmmaker today?
Adisa, Writer/Director: Wow?
For you to ask that question it’s so poignant because it’s likely that I wouldn’t.
And it’s very likely that I wouldn’t.
I knew that I wanted to help people.
I knew I wanted a career that was going to service my community possibly around black
men and what that looked like (rites of passage programs or whatever).
But the film thing didn’t become a reality for me until I saw Spike Lee’s early work.
I think it has a lot to do with modeling.
We don’t have a lot of…whether it’s women or men (black men that is), there is
something to be said about representation and modeling.
And at the time Spike Lee came around there wasn’t a lot of black filmmakers.
I mean…that you knew about.
There was Gordon Parks, he had done some work (SHAFT).
And there was Michael Schultz, he had done COOLEY HIGH.
I loved the films but I didn’t know particularly that they were a black man.
There was something about Spike Lee and his signature work when he was doing SHE’S GOTTA
HAVE IT, DO THE RIGHT THING and it was just so pronounced and so much of a signature around
black culture and I was like “This is what I want to do.”
To answer your question which is a really good question, I don’t know if I would have
been a filmmaker?
Maybe I think I owe my career to Spike Lee.
I don’t know if I would have been led down that path, I don’t.
Yes…that’s really powerful.
He has had a profound effect on me in terms of that.
Film Courage: So you saw the film and then you decided to attend college at NYU Tisch?
Adisa: Yes.
Well I was going back east, for I was going to University of Massachusetts and then I
had heard about him making a movie.
And then I saw the movie in New York on my way to UMass Amherst I was driving across
country with a friend.
I was just amazed.
And so going into UMass Amherst which was my junior year I said I’m setting an intention,
I’m going to be a filmmaker.
So I was going to do whatever I had to do to be a filmmaker.
So I started taking film classes, I started studying film, I starting make films on film
like 16 millimeter Bolex (crank cameras) and then I decided I was going to apply to NYU.
I made a student film that got a lot of awards at UMass where I was and I applied to NYU
because Spike Lee went to NYU.
So that was sort of my pulse and my geiger, he was sort of my North Star if you will.
And I was reading all of the books that he was reading at that time and I applied to
NYU and got in.
Film Courage: Did you ever get to meet him?
Adisa: I did, I met him first year.
I met him the first year because he came to…there was a woman named Lisa Jones who had written
his books right.
She was his collaborator on a lot of his film books and she was at NYU.
She was a few years ahead of me.
And I heard when I got there “Spike likes to meet with the black students,’ right?
He likes to meet with them first year.
So he invited us all to 40 Acres and a Mule Filmworks (his production company).
And I was like…just you know…starstuck because he was my idol.
He is my idol, he’s my hero.
And I just shook his hand and yes…
Film Courage: What did he say?
Adisa: He didn’t say much.
Spike was a presence more than anything else because he was really soft spoken back then
and he let his work speak that was his thing.
So for a lot of time I was like “Wow, how is this guy doing this?”
Because in business you have to be aggressive, you’ve got to be strong.
But Spike is very disciplined, he’s very focused.
You know you read his books, he would get up at 6:00 a.m. in the morning, he’d have
a certain quota he’d have to write on a screenplay.
For the first 6 or 7 years he would do a movie every year it would come out and that was
his process.
He would wake up at 6:00 a.m. in the morning, write and then he’d go about doing his thing.
But he was a very disciplined individual.
But yes I was floored, I was floored.
He was my hero.