Film Courage: To go into your story a little bit more, what businesses did you start before you
got into filmmaking? Mark Harris, Filmmaker: Well I used to have a cleaners and I just have a page of
business and because of the clearness in a page of business it's always a
constant hustle and I always had to market to paint my page of businesses
and my cleaners so there's always that hustle always that houses so to page a
business and on the cleaner and the cleaners she told me what that like
every day what that was like what like you're getting up in the morning and
what with the pager business what are you doing so when I started to do pages
initially my brother got him into the page of business he had a page of
business that was very successful in Chicago it was like it was like very
well-known very popular so I wanted to get into the page of business because I
still have successful he was doing financially and so what I would do is I
will go to his page shop and I was bad pagers and from banner pages I would go
and put it and put them in a briefcase in the cell phones put him in a
briefcase and I would go throughout the city of Chicago and I was selling I
would go to different places and just sell the pages and sound of the the
telephones and I will save the money and once I saved the mining for to get a
place my own store then I opened my first store and they I was saying that
money not open my second store and I said this is you know because the money
kept because during the 90s the pager pages were very hot right and then from
the pagers is when I decided okay uh a young guy was he was selling his
cleaners I was like okay and that was like the cleanest is like right down the
street from my home I was like you know let me just try to clean it the clean up
business so I went in I purchased the cleaners business from him and I hate
the cleaners with it and so that's what got me yeah and did you know anything
about the cleaner business before not at all absolutely not I didn't know
anything about the page of business I know we need thinking about the cleaning
business at all so you kind of just like on your feet learn as you go it's kind
of like put me out there in the trenches I'll figure it out yes kind of person
the same thing with filmmaking I didn't go if I didn't go to film school
when I shot my first film I had absolutely no idea how to make a movie
and interesting story is yeah when I shot my first film I shot everything in
a wide shot and so when I gave the the footage over to the to my editor he was
like yo where your medium shot senior close-ups so I learned I'm still
learning this is still a process and I learned as I went along and so I applied
that same energy that I had in the page of business in the cleaning business to
the film business do you have sort of a curiosity about everything about how it
works and you enjoy figuring it out I enjoy freaking it out yeah because I'm
not the type of person and this is myself they make filmmakers all the time
it's just go out there even if you feel like you don't know it go out there and
just do it and you were you would learn you learned you would freak it out you
know it's just on-the-job training because I heard Spike Lee say one time
that he didn't feel like he was a actual filming until he did do the right thing
and when he did schooldays he was like the a more two ways to play with you
know and so with me is that as I go along as I was going along and in a page
of business and the cleaning business in a film business I heard I was kept
learning I'm still learning still under process yeah well in your IMDB bio it
says that just do it the Nike slogan is your favorite saying
so it's gonna ask you why what what what about that you know just do it because I
had a lot of like when I do workshops in Chicago or wherever I do workshops at I
don't like people they want to make films but there's this block right and
my thing is get over that hurdle and just go out and go and do it
just make it happen and again like if people see that you're working and
people see that you're doing things people want to help they just want to
help if they're seeing that you're making an
effort to do things you know and if people if you do out here and you're
constantly constantly making films for us and you have someone who just doesn't
want to help then you don't bother about that person let them go don't even think
about the only real hard problem that on that person because a lot of
sometimes we concentrate on the negative instead of concentrating on those people
who actually want to help us so I say just do it just make it happen do you
need very little sleep I could see you just being passionate about something
and it's like 3:00 in the morning and you're like oh you know what I better go
to bed oh yes you know I'm very passionate so even without did the page
of business and the clean of business I always knew there was something missing
and I didn't know what it was I always knew I wanted to write and I didn't know
what I want I met I don't know whether you want to be plays or books and then I
stumbled into you know the screenplays and when I started to do screenplays I
had no idea at all that I wanted to direct movies you know so when I
actually had no other choice but to direct my own film is when I found my
true passion and so I mean that's that's that's that's how it's been so you're in
LA to promote a film yes I'm in LA to promote my new film to stop liking
privileged value line yeah and so it's screened today actually
before we have this interview yeah it's great today we swear that the Cinemark
and Baldwin heels at the ball was in the air did you have a Q&A yes we do have a
Q&A it's interesting because a lot of older people just one lady was like 88
years old who came out to the screening and it was like it was filled with a lot
of older people in their 60s and 70s and again like in 180 was 88 years old and I
was very surprised because of Isis a surprise but it it made me think because
this is this was our third screening here we screen twice my screen yesterday
and miss me today and it was a much younger crowd and today it was a much
older crowd and the feedback from the older crowd was pretty different than
the feedback from the younger crowd which I found to be very interesting but
but it's always gonna be like that as filmmakers we're gonna get you know
people go on to view your work differently you know which is good
therefore that you know they can sit back and they can debate about it argue
about it and but we have to be open to the
criticism that we're going to get as filmmakers of course because we put our
work out there that's another thing too is that as filmmakers a lot of us we
make films and we feel that it's not perfect so we don't want to show it to
anyone so if you feel that it's not perfect that's the perfect time to show
it because what happens is that you should show it to the audience and you
listen to what the criticism is and from those criticism you go back into the
laboratory you make those adjustments and you evolve that's how we evolve we
grow like my first film again this is a film that I shot everything in wide shot
everything was shot wide shots right and so when I when I was getting hit getting
the constructive criticism I went back and I knew I had to continue to study
and so I spend that's what we have to do we have to always see ourselves on the
path and there's students and always studying I'm curious what did the
younger people ask forces the older people okay so the older people one lady
said that this is this is a definitely a project that we all should see in
particular in the black community because we all know like what's going on
in the black community are as the violence and things like that so she
figured you know and that she was like you should have showed us in every black
community so the younger the young yesterday I spoke with a much younger
woman and she was like this was a difficult film to watch and I was like
what made it difficult I said so what made it difficult she said because it's
hard to examine itself you know it's hard to look at self and to examine
itself and so this is what the film does is that it takes the black community it
takes us out of our block it's like out-of-body experience right and for us
to examine the conditions that's going on in our community and that's the thing
that was the difference between a younger generation and then the older
generation because again the older generation want to experience where you
know growing up where they may they may leave their Mississippi or Alabama where
no you have like people who all stores and things like that well the younger
people you know they didn't grew up in that that time period where you know
black people control the economics in the community so when you say okay this
is why this was violence and a black community tastes like it's difficult to
watch it's difficult to look at but opposed to it in 88 year old ladies say
okay we mean this in every black community so that was the difference
did you ask some of the younger people why they felt that yes because again the
reason why they felt that is because again you know you know it's like some
people right we like like we like to it's difficult to do a self-examination
they point the finger saying this is why certain things happen so it's easier to
blame place the blame on others opposed to no matter what it is you know no
matter what it is to place the blame on others instead of just looking at doing
the sex stuff examination and saying okay this is how I'm going to correct
myself so a lot of people a lot of us really don't want to correct self we
want to just you know you know place blame on others instead of just correct
yourself
you