A Zola Roundtable with Janicza Bravo and Joi McMillon
Talk Easy with Sam Fragoso
Higher Ground
4.8 • 1.5K Ratings
🗓️ 25 July 2021
⏱️ 64 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
This week, director Janicza Bravo and editor Joi McMillon join us for a special roundtable episode around their film, Zola (4:42). We begin with listener questions (7:30) before diving into when the film clicked in the editing room (12:46), the experience of watching the first assembly cut (24:00), the joys and difficulties of the notes process (30:46), and the genius of the movie's sound design (39:25). Then, before we go, Janicza and Joi reflect on Zola’s timeline (48:50), finding self-worth in filmmaking (54:30), and the space they hope to create for themselves in the years ahead (56:48).
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Pushkin. This is talk easy. I'm the same for go so welcome to the show. Oh, uh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, Today I'm joined by Janixa Bravo and Joy McMillan. |
| 0:46.0 | Janixa is the director of the new film Zola and Joy is the editor of that film. |
| 0:52.0 | Based on the viral Twitter thread by Asia King, |
| 0:55.0 | it tells the real life story of a Detroit waitress slash part-time stripper |
| 1:00.0 | who travels to Tampa to dance. Or at least that's why she believes she's going to Florida. |
| 1:07.0 | Upon arrival, the plan to dance and make money goes awry. Here's a clip from the trailer. |
| 1:14.3 | Hey, last month I went dancing at this cute spot in Florida |
| 1:21.2 | where my roommate's girl made like 5 g's a night. |
| 1:25.0 | We just met yesterday and you're already trying to take whole trips together. |
| 1:31.0 | Be ready by two. |
| 1:33.8 | Hi, this. |
| 1:34.9 | You want to hear a story about how me and this bitch fell out? |
| 1:37.8 | It's kind of long, but it's full of suspense. Is this what you came here for, Zola? Do it look like I came for this? |
| 1:48.0 | I thought it's money made. I'm so proud of you. I don't fuck with you. |
| 1:55.0 | No more. |
| 1:57.0 | I didn't do nothing wrong. |
| 1:59.0 | Starring Taylor Page, Riley Keio, Coleman Domingo, and others, Zola has been in theaters for |
| 2:09.5 | nearly a month now. It's also just been made available on VOD wherever you rent your movies from home. |
| 2:16.7 | I am admittedly biased on the subject as you'll hear in this episode, but I've seen a lot of people online say something like, |
| 2:25.0 | this feels like the return of movies, and not only the return of movies, but movie theaters. |
| 2:32.0 | Sitting in that dark room next to strangers, |
| 2:35.0 | you couldn't ask for a better return than Sola. |
... |
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