Special Report: Bomani J. Story on The Angry Black Girl and Her Monster (2023)

Old Year's Foot. It's show time. People pay good money to see this movie. When they go out to a theater. They want cold sodas, you love hot popcorn and no monsters.

In the Projection Booth, everyone for ten podcasting isn't boring off. Death is a disease. It infected my brother, Chris. My hypothesis. There's a cure.

Your daughter has a very disturbing obsession. What obsession? Death? Just think about your brother. You're not a chance of barrios.

I just wish I could catch me took his body. Death is the disease that broke my family. I'm sick of seeing it. I'm not chess. Would Jay to be running around here calling you some type of math scientists?

And I hang out with my friend? What from Chris? Where did you see him? He talks to me jes quiet jo. They called him a monster and he believed it.

Death is a disease. There's a cure. Hey, folks, Well can do a special episode of the Projection Booth. I'm your host, Mike White. On this episode, I'm talking with Beaumani Story.

He is the writer and director of The Angry Black Girl and Her Monster. It is a new take on the Frankenstein story from the writer of rock Steady Rowe, a movie we discussed back in twenty eighteen. Be sure to check out The Angry Black Girl and Her Monster, opening in theaters on June ninth, twenty twenty three, and until then, enjoy this interview. Tell me a little bit more Hike got into the business, because it looks like you've done a little bit of everything over the years. I went to school for it for Sambordino Valley College and then went on to USC for their film program.

I did the film program at Samardo Valley College too, but after graduate, I just wanted to give my hands in film period in all different capacities, to stay aflow while I'm while I'm writing and directing my own stuff until something happens. Yeah. So I was just always put them upself in a position to learn and in whatever discipline I can, because I just felt like it would help me later on. And you have done so many different things. I mean, what were some of your early gigs.

You're the early things that you worked on. I was in camera department for some things. My brand about it really became like editing, assistant editing and stuff like that I was just like. And then for some of my friends short films, I did some producing, and obviously I directed and wrote my own and yeah, I was just jumping around. I even though my own short films, I did a little bit of sound design and coloring and stuff like that.

Where did the idea for this project come from? It really came from the literature, so like I read the literature and was just floored by it. I loved it so much, so I knew I needed to do something with it and mixed that with my sisters. And my big two older sisters were my muse for this. I took that and I ran with it.

How were they your muses for this one? Just growing up? They were my first contact with intelligence. I say this all the time, but you don't want to listen to your parents and shoes, so like oldescisters are old enough for you to the young enough for you to listen to them, and old enough for you to respect them. They just took me under their wing and taught me a lot of things.

So it was really my first contact with intelligence. And Genie see tried to paint that as much as I can now. I know you don't wake up on a Monday and write it, and then Tuesday you directed how long has the Great Black Pearl and Her Monster been jest stating I would say that the strongest period of gestation was probably between two thousand and sixteen and two eighteen. That's probably like the highest concentration. But I read it when I was freshed out of high school, so I was in the back of my mind for a while.

When you say you read it, you're talking about Frankenstegn or something else. Oh no, through Franken Steign, Yeah, winner, Okay, I just want to make sure. Yeah, yeah, I'm like, I don't think this is based on a book other than Frankensteign. Okay, all right, yeah, yeah. I love the nods.

I love Vicaria being so close to Victor, and just her notebook The Modern Prometheus. That so smart. Oh thank you, God dropped some stuff for the lip heads in the room. People forget how sympathetic the monster actually is. The monster is in a monster at all really, And Shelley's book, and just I love that you play upon our sympathies with Chris as well with a lot of people they very much get caught up in like the lore of the monster, which is an important part of Frankenstein.

It is a mechanic. But for this story, I really wanted to bring it back to the mad scientists himself, for herself in this case, because the story is the story the rise of ball of Victor Frankenstein and his dilemma for this on one to humanize and as much as possible Victor or in this case, Vicaria and really get her motivations down. And where did you find Vicaria? She is amazing? Laya Leone Hayes is fantastic.

Yeah, shout out to lay it backdoorward winning actress right there, Towerhouse. I can't wait to s you know how far she goes superstar. I'm making it. Yeah, she came in. She just auditioned.

Man, I got lucky because she auditioned and she just smacked it out of the park. You said a lot of this was taking place in twenty sixteen, twenty eighteen, really coming to the four that's two years before the pandemic. Like, how does this actually go from your head to being this final product? It's just preserverance. Really.

The manager was taking it around town and pushing it and getting the word out there, and until finally it clicked. Pandemic was a little weird bumping the road, but we still got it. So it's really just a matter of like preserverance and staying true to the craft and beating the craft as much as possible, and you know, stay positive and keeping your head up. Where did you actually shoot this? North Carolina?

Charlotte? The great crew out there, They were awesome, incredible people and Lea of course is one amazing person, but she's one among many. There were so many great actress and actresses and this I was very fortunate for this movie to land such an incredible cast between Leo, Riley, Chad Denzel, Amani Dale, Ellis Keith, like all of them were just phenomenal. Even beft to teach, everyone really just smacked it out. The part that couldn't have been happier, And it was one of those things when the cast finally started coming together, I was just like, Oh, that's like a superpower of this movie.

The cast itself is they're just all just firing on all cylinders and really appre shade of them being so passionate about the story and didn't have been luckier as a filmmaker. It must have been interesting for you to You've edited features, you've written features, and now here you are directing your first feature, but you've done so many shorts. Was there any sort of like transition period for you to go from directing short films to directing a full feature? There it is a transitional thing. I don't know what it is.

I think that's just what you're supposed to do this, just like you go from a story, it's now like you just make longer shorts until you get to a feature. You just have to dive right in. Yeah, fifty five minutes, sixty minutes, seventy minutes, Yeah, I'll get there eventually. Ninety minutes or best. Yeah.

Yeah. Tell me about the making of the film. What were some of your favorite memories of doing that. A lot of it was just like just the people involved with it were so amazing. My crew was incredible and sharp, They were so fun and so heart working, and so they just execute you because we didn't have a lot of time, not a lot of money, so they were just on the ball sports with that.

And then working with the actors who were just having fun with the material and landing everything and just smacking out the park. That was that was wonderful. And my keys from Mark Bankins with production design, and Daphne with the lighting, and Kaylee with the costuming, and Christina Accordon with the creature design. Even our creature designer trust Like who started with the drawing the concept are for it. Everyone was just phenomenal.

It was just such a phenomenal process. So obviously you're going to have your bumps in the road, but that's what makes the people around you, like the professionals around you really holding you up during the dark times. That's what made it fantastic. Even down with my color is alreay On, I like she already even did a phenomenal job and sound like it was just like Neema composing. Like everyone was just really you know, giving it.

They're all super passionate about it. And the look of the film is absolutely amazing. Your cinematographer did such a great job, man, shout out to Daphne Hire that woman Procto. You know, she's a phenomenal cinematographer. I couldn't have asked for a better a better DP for this man.

It's like with Arianna when she was coloring this, like she really brought the film a new look in life to really give it a certain kind of texture and in a ceiling and a grit and yeah, again, like I just couldn't have been more fortunate than to have such incredible people around me. How is it having somebody else edit your own stuff? It's good because, like I don't actually enjoy the work of editing itself. I just think it's okay, it's not something I like, So having someone else come in and see it differently presented is always good. Yeah.

We talked a little bit before we started recording about rock Steady Row and that movie. I just absolutely love that, and I love how you are able to be so funny in that one and then pretty deadly serious and angry black Girl. I think humans have the capacity for these things. I'm glad that you found my humor funny and rock Steady r up if I have a very strange sense of humor. So yeah, man, that's appreciate that.

Oh yeah, no, that that movie is wonderful. And I was just so happy when I made the connection that you had worked on both of these, that you'd written both of these and just to take something like Jimbo or Red Harvest or whatever and just give it that total different spin and then the same thing with this. Of course the Frankenstein tiesn't there, but it feels so fresh and original that it even took me a while to be like, oh, this is Frankenstein story. You just just do such a wonderful job like recontextualizing stuff, especially when it comes to the motivations behind your main character and her whole reason for wanting to cure death. That's really heartfelt stuff.

I'm glad to reson any I would say, it's like you just never know how something's going to click. It's like you have hopes and dreams while you're writing, but you can never really know how someone's going to react to it and if they're going to feel and if they're going to connect. You just have your hope on the confidence that it will. So to hear that it's like that you're having some kind of like it's connecting with you and making you feel something. That's the whole goal and the point the our form for me, the personal is political, right, and just having the politics inside of thing replec or all even the title of it.

I love the way that you were able to integrate all of that, And you mentioned the teacher earlier, and it goes obviously beyond the teacher, but she's such a good entree into this is the world and this is what the experience is like for black people and especially for Vicaria. For movies or for stories like frankl Stein is always taking very strong thematic swings at things, and to be inspired by that or to adapt it or whatever. To take that story and not take swings at certain things is to be a little bit disingenuous with the material, with the story itself, because the story itself is very grand, when very bold. That's one of the things that attracted me to it so much, because of how bold it was with its thematics and its storytelling and the chances she was taking and like the structure she was doing with it, like it truly was fantastic, not bad for a book from eighteen sixteen, two hundred years old, and we're still talking about this.

Yeah, yeah, man. See, I wonder if she, I guess she was alive, for I don't know if she was alive when like movie iterations were happening and stuff like that, But I wonder if she knew how huge this was going to become, and that like in the grand scheme of things, when did the movie have its premiere? Kind of what's been the life of it since then? So it had its what premiere south by Southwest? Then what started doing its festival run?

When we played at a couple of festivals, which was awesome. A lot of great festivals played us, so I was very happy with that. We had a pretty good, pretty great audience reactions from it at these festivals, which was cool, and I got to see it in theaters. But now we're gearing up for the theater release June ninth in theaters, so coming to a theater near you, So I'm excited about that. What was it like seeing it with an audience for the first time?

Crazy. I don't even really know if I was able to like process it, honestly, because it's so there was a lot of people in the theater. Yeah, no one had seen it yet except for me and like maybe the producers possibly, but even then they hadn't really seen us seen it because they were just like through the process. But me, like, I've had seen us so many different times, so it was nerve wracking. I don't know if I was even able to be in the moment I was able to feel the energy, but to see how people reacting, it's all a lot on you, so it's hard to navigate.

Can't even imagine, Yeah, it's going to be pretty overwhelming, and especially imagine you're getting some very positive responses from this, right I hope, so, I hope, so hopefully we are able to capture an audience and to touch an audience with this. That's what I'm hoping. What's next for you? What are you working on now? Or I know like we're pencils down with writing, but I'm sure you've got projects and things that you're working on still.

I got my next script that's ready. It's like I'm just but that's why I could describe it as juice me sload of the rings, So it's matching two blurts. Find Gandolf's staff and a book of spells and hilarity ensues. But I'm very excited about this project and I'm manifesting it that it's next, mister story. Thank you so much for your time.

This is so great talking with you, and good luck with the movie, and I can't wait to see the next one. Oh know, man, thank you, I'm so glad that I was like, I have a fan from rock Steady following me open to this. That's awesome. Now the next movie will be a blend of serious and funny. It can't wait, can't wait.

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