Your new movie Woke - in a
few words, what is it about?
A
"woke" African-American woman wakes up in a post-apocalyptic
world in the year 3000. All black women are now extinct. A pair of
futuristic news goggles tell her how it happened - and why.
For
those of us uninitiated, could you explain the word "woke", and
its meaning to you and your movie?
"Woke" should mean
someone who is truly conscious about civil rights for black people.
"Woke" should mean
someone who knows clear rights from wrongs; they know about racist social
structures, and they attempt to knock them down and stand up to it.
They're outspoken against systemic racism. They're outspoken against
police executions of black people. And they do the work to highlight these
issues and abolish them. That is what being "woke" is. That is
what being "pro black" is. That's what "self love" is.
However, being "woke" in the black community has turned into
something else entirely; something ignorant. "Woke" today does
not mean standing up for clear rights and wrongs and for black civil
rights, judging off of what I've been observing from "conscious
woke" people like Tariq Nasheed, a pseudo "woke" black
man who stays hating on me because I'm a free black woman who is not owned
by any man of either race. Being "woke" as an American-born and
raised black person according to people like him and his followers means
that instead of focusing on actual civil rights for blacks, you instead
have to go along with every and anything the black community tells you to
do (things that have nothing to do with racism and civil rights) or else
you don't "love yourself", or you're "anti-black" or
you're a nasty derogatory name like a "bed wench". That's what
being "woke" and conscious in 2020 means, I realize. And it's
ignorant and it's wrong. This film is telling the black community: Stand up against systemic racism. Stand up against police executions of
you. Stand up and speak out and demand that your life matters; demand that
you have a right to life, a right to live, and a right to live while being
respected, and a right to be granted equal opportunities and equity.
Period. These other restrictions and rules and punishments that are placed
on us by our own fake woke community that have nothing to do with civil
rights however, are ignorant, and I am discussing that in my fiction short
using sci-fi elements and a twist ending. Shout out to hater Tariq and
shout out to Umar Johnson; this film is for many people but it's also for
y'all.
With Woke being a
post-apocalyptic science fiction movie, is that a genre at all dear to
you, and some of your genre favourites? I
love old sci-fi where the sci-fi movies and shows were about real people
and real social messages, and the sci-fi was not a main point of the film,
but it was an element used in the story and it was very effective and
memorable. Shows like The Twilight
Zone used sci-fi in this way. The
Planet of the Apes from 1968 used sci-fi in this way. The first Predator
used sci-fi in this way. In these movies, the sci-fi is a shocking and
abnormal thing. I've loved these old shows and movies since I was a little
girl when my mom used to watch them. I've always wanted to write and
direct a movie about a post-apocalyptic world, and I am extremely happy
and excited that I finally got to do that with help from my cast and crew!
The basic structure of the film, where only 2 people are alive, a man and
a woman, in a world that has already been destroyed and abandoned, this
basic story structure is inspired by The Twilight
Zone episode Two, about the last man and woman on earth who wore opposing
war uniforms. I've always wanted to do my own version of that love story.
So now, enter: Woke!
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(Other) sources
of inspiration when writing Woke? The
film is inspired by the ignorant perception of what being "woke"
and pro-black is in the American black community; also old sci-fi story
structures, and lastly the inner conflict a black woman has to endure when
going about her life under the cloud of this fake "woke"-ness.
Not the true wokeness but the fake wokeness. Like many black women, I'm an
individual. I'm a free woman who is not owned by any person or any man of
any race. I do not go along to get along. I want love. I think about
marriage and kids *sometimes*. And it's difficult living as your true self
when you have expectations of you that do not fit your true self and
desires and values. This film is telling black women that they've been
superwomen to everyone for decades, and now it's time to do them and focus
on their wants and desires and what makes them happy, and to reject the loud
and wrong twisted definitions of "self love". If we don't learn
to free ourselves of expectations that've been hammered onto us by
our fake woke community, we will become extinct. Period. Do you and forget
the noise. They don't matter. What
can you tell us about Woke's
approach to science fiction? In
my film, Danai is the last black woman on earth, and she learns that all
black women have gone extinct due to a race war. She stumbles upon a pair
of futuristic news goggles that rewind to the past in pieces and tells her
what this race war was, but it's uncooperative and takes its time. The
goggles are symbolic for her subconscious. It's an inanimate object but
it's an intelligent device that knows something she doesn't know; it
informs her and teaches her and sometimes teases and mocks her, all at the
same time. The goggles are the truth she didn't want to see before. I love
the use of intelligent inanimate objects in old sci-fi like
The Twilight
Zone. I know I've mentioned this show a lot but I love it so much and it
is a huge inspiration to some of my writing. The show has episodes
that include robots that make people's lives a living hell (From
Agnes With Love and Uncle Simon); or a robot that
teaches lessons, or an intelligent car that forces a human to be honest
and have accountability for their wrong actions (You Drive). I
love episodes about objects or robots that teach something in a non-direct way.
I wanted to do that in Woke.
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Do talk about your overall
directorial approach to your story at hand! I
wanted my directional approach to be way better and more creative and more
polished than my last sci-fi-ish film Wrath City
(2017). I felt I could've
done so much better in that film, and I really tried to up it with this
film. I already talked about how we used sci-fi but I also wanted to use a
post-apocalyptic world to show the broken state of relationships and
the topic, but yeah I tried to get a location that suits the
world I wanted to create... as much as a micro budget would allow of
course. I wanted Danai's clothing to look like she was a soldier and that
she had just been to war, and that is all abstract of course and not
literal. I wanted Sydney to have futuristic clothing. I wanted the sound
design and the music to be way more present here than the last film. Wrath City
was hella quiet and needed a lot of sound work I realized after it
was already released. I wanted Woke to stand out for its
sound. Especially the reveal ending. I wanted to hit the audience in the
head with the final point and reveal and do it through images and sound
only. Jordan Peele's movie Us inspired me to also pay more
attention to what I put in the scenes and what it says; you know, the
detail. I tried to be more creative and more detail-oriented by putting
things in the frames that mean something and say something. So pay
attention to the mise-en-scene definitely. My old film professor always
used to love shouting "The mise-en-scene! The mise-en-scene!"
Makes me laugh every time I think about that word now. What can you
tell us about your cast, and why exactly these two? Teajuana Scott
stars as Danai, the last black woman on earth, and Sam Krueger as Sidney, the
lone white man she meets while stumbling around the empty area. We
received over 200 submissions for this film on Backstage! A lot of actors
were interested just because of the synopsis alone. I picked Teajuana because
she is a great actress! You will see that in the film. She is one of the
most passionate and realistic-performing actresses I've worked with. You
believe her and her emotions. She comes across as not an actor on the
screen, but a real person. I've worked with Sam Krueger in the past on a
webisode series, that is how I met him. He's actually an amazing
cinematographer in real life, and I was already working with a cinematographer
on the film when he and I started talking about Woke. He asked
to audition for the part of Sidney and I thought he was a great choice
because I was looking for a young Clint Eastwood, a young Frank Sinatra
type, a sensitive and gentle man, but a man who will get in a woman's face
and tell her exactly what she needs to hear even if it hurts her feelings.
That is exactly who Sidney is, and I think that role, and the fact that
Sam is extremely passionate about science fiction, made him a
great fit for the character.
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You
of course also have to talk about your wonderful location, and what was it
like filming there? And how did you find it even? The cinematographer for
Woke Ric Murray got us the location. He
worked on this location on another shoot he did sound for. He knew the man
who owned the place, Lee Karvonen, and asked him if we could shoot there.
The location search to be honest was frustrating and annoying, because the
location I wrote the script for originally was actually an old army base
past Cape Cod, up near Dennis, MA, on the curved tail of MA. The army base
had an abandoned neighborhood of old broken down houses and overgrown
grass, cracked cement, and broken down barns. They didn't let me shoot
there even though they let another film shoot there before. They were
closing it down and soon enough not letting people hike there anymore too.
I was honestly extremely upset. I had to rewrite the script to fit a
different location. A really great location adds tremendous production
value to a film and does the world of the story a huge benefit. I knew I
needed a great location for this film. I scouted many locations after,
just going to different abandoned places, but they never measured up
to that army base near Dennis, MA. We even went to an abandoned neighborhood
in Connecticut, and the signs said do not trespass. We jumped the fence
and shot footage anyway, in case we'd have to green screen Teajuana and
use that location as a background. While we were shooting the footage a
truck came by and watched us for a few seconds and then left. I was
scared, I thought they were going to call the cops. We got out of there
quickly. We even had a plan for what we'd say to the cops if they showed.
I was going to play dumb. I was going to be the dumb little college
student who didnt know what she was doing. I told him I can't have a
record, so... but yeah, we eventually settled on the location we got.
I'm thankful we got the location, and I hope it was enough to sell the
world of the story. A few
words about the shoot as such, and the on-set atmosphere? I
was very anxious the first day because we had a lot to shoot and only had
2 days to shoot on the location and I had Teajuana and Sam for 2 days. I'm
a perfectionist and I'm critical of my work, and already am an anxious
person in general as it is, so the obstacles we were faced with made the
first day real anxious for me. There's a ton to shoot from Woke, and a lot
that would go into post-production like video effects, so we had to get
the shoot right for post, had that in mind too. We did get a ton done on day 1 and so on
day 2 I was more relaxed. The cast and crew worked
extremely hard and we got it all done, and the film I feel is
very well done. I also want to give a shout out to my friend Andrea
Wolanin, she helped me a TON on set. She is an awesome asset to have on
set, an awesome producer. She did everything on set, even had a grill out
and was grilling hamburgers and hotdogs. She worked her butt off and I'm
extremely grateful to have had her on set!
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The
$64-question of course, where can Woke
be seen? Woke
screened at the Lost Weekend Film Festival at the Alamo Drafthouse in
Winchester, VA a couple of weekends ago. It will also screen at the Las
Vegas Black Film Festival on Saturday August 8th @ 4pm. It was also
nominated for Best Sci-Fi at the film festival! So fingers crossed. I
can't be there because of my governor, but if you're in Vegas
definitely stop by. Or view online. Woke
is also screening at
the Hip Hop Film Festival NYC. I'm still waiting to get the screening
dates. But check out
hiphopfilmfestival.org/schedule and
look out for Woke on the schedule and buy a $15 ticket to view
the film, with a director talk back included! It should be up there on the
schedule very soon. Keep checking! Check everyday! Anything you can tell us about audience and
critical reception of Woke? I
screened this film at a focus group in NY before the pandemic hit. It
definitely had a response, lol. It didn't *not* have a response.
That's all I wanted was an emotional and mental response. Some people said
they were afraid the film would actually happen in real life, that it
isn't off-base to actually happen, based on where we are today and where
we're seemingly going. Of course you had like 3 people who were offended
and mad. I laughed. They can be mad though. If you get mad at this film,
it's surely for you. Many people said they would pay to see the film and
stream on an online platform like Netflix. Which is awesome to know
because I'm trying to write this short into a feature! So if you're a
writer, contact me. I did show the film to a few others who thought it was
divisive in a good way, and multi-layered. The soundwork got a lot of
good responses. Film distributor and president of Circle Collective
Kyle Greenberg said of the film: "The ending of Woke
really gave off
big Planet of the Apes vibes to me, this complex resolution where we
finally have closure and realize there's no going back. It makes a really
strong statement and still sticks with me!" I love the Planet of the
Apes (1968 version) movie. I had sent him the film asking for marketing
advice and wasn't expecting any comments or feedback on the film itself,
especially not that. To put Woke
in the same sentence as the
1968 version of Planet of the Apes? Extremely honored and excited. Any
future projects you'd like to share?
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I'm trying to write Woke into a feature, but a feature
that is loyal to the original short film. If you're a writer, contact me
so we can talk. I'm
also writing a short film for after Covid, about people's unacceptable
behavior they've displayed during this whole pandemic.
Your/your movie's
website, social media, whatever else?
Woke IMDb:
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt11100612/
Woke trailer:
https://vimeo.com/409916989
www.raeshellecooke.com
Anything else
you're dying to mention and I have merely forgotten to ask? No,
I think I said a mouthful, lol. Thanks
for the interview!
Thank you!
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