Ty Rawls:         Yeah, I knew there was a Nigerian film market just like any other market, but I hadn’t really focused on it, so my awareness of what they were doing was kind of slight.  I knew that they had a filmmaking class (as in culture) growing there, but I didn’t really invest too much time in it until I met Mildred.  And then after seeing Nollywood films and realizing that Nigerians are so wrapped up in the stories, they really love these characters, I find myself watching this Nollywood films and I finish ‘em.  And a big reason why is because they’re character based movies.  There’s not a lot of money to kind of spend time trying –

Ty Rawls:         Yeah, you can’t blow stuff up and have car chases or these other things, so we’re focused on what’s happening with the character, which almost in a way gives you a Quentin Tarantino feel because its this realism that’s coming out.  Its real.  You’re sitting down with two characters talking for ten minutes in a row, that’s real.  See, you get kind of wrapped up in it and I think that it’s a great… you know, I learned a lot from that as well, because you probably couldn’t have told me that that was possible.  I’d be like, no, no one’s gonna watch that.

Ty Rawls:         There you go.  Segun.  Amazing actor.  Love the guy.  Incredible, yeah.  Great face, great voice, great everything.

Ty Rawls:         Yeah, incredible.  So, that was the first footage I saw.  It was him and Kene – that’s the two names of the characters in the film; Shobowale and Kene – going at it on screen, across the desk in the police station and the walls are blue and you get this great dark feeling and I just… I looked at it for a couple of seconds and I told Mildred what she had.  I was like this is a good stuff.  You gotta take this seriously.

Ty Rawls:         Well, my background is … I’m black, white and native American.  So, as an American, I had that – and I think that most black Americans feel this way – they have this sort of curiosity, respect and sense of honour for Africa in general.  In general, we know that we are from there and we embrace that.  We might not speak about, (but) its something that’s in all of us.  We all feel that way.  If you challenge us, it will come out.  But its not something that we spend a lot of time voicing.  We kind of bury it because its an emotional thing.  Still, I think it kind of had a very special feel for me to be involved with something that’s going to be coming out of Africa.  You know the whole idea that I’d wanted these people on screen and I would feel it.  I can understand the pidgin English somehow, I don’t know how.  You know what I mean?  The language, the names… Iyabo Amoke, those things come natural to me for some reason.  So, for me, it was almost like something that I’d missed my entire life and was blessed with, I was able to visit Africa for six months.  And be there on screen, watch the neighbourhood, to watch how the people, hear the language, the mannerisms and movements, the whole culture… That, for me, was very special.  So, there was absolutely no hurdles to get over there.  It was all a pleasure.  I’m not sure if that would be with everybody, but it was that way with me.

Ty Rawls:         No.  I want to say… honestly I’ve never had a post-production experience that is sort of this smooth.  As a filmmaker, the woman is incredibly smart, okay?  So she’s got a creative brilliance.  But she also has a business mind and intelligence which I think you need in post-production, because to write, which she did, takes another kind of intelligence.  And then I think those two steps – while they’re very important – the film really gets made in the editing room.  And a lot of times, the right approach is to just forget about the script and see what you have.  Let the footage tell you what to do with the story.  Analyse your performances, analyse the shots you have, figure out… you know, build your scenes and see where they’re going, but don’t try and push it.  Let the force just take you there.  A lot of directors have a hard time with that because they really want to force it to fit their script.  She was much more able to filter out all of that and see what the film really wants to be, which is, I think, one of the best sort of trait you can have as a director in a post-production room.  So, no real issues. (LAUGHTER)

Ty Rawls:         For this, we went with a DVC Cam deck and we used a G5 Pro with Final Cut HD.  So, its industry standard at this point.  For the replication, so its at the highest quality, we will get it replicated at Optical Disc West out in Valencia.  That’s what we plan at this point, which could change (it did).

Ty Rawls:         I hope so.  Look out.  You know, I started this process back in the ‘90s and I’d love to do something with Mildred in the future.  We’ll see.  We’ve both got a lot of ideas and we’ll take it one step at a time.

Ty Rawls:         Alright.