That's the only way I can control my movie. If you shoot everything, then everything is liable to end up in the movie. If you have a vision, you don't have to cover every scene.

Michael Ralph brilliantly plays the street prophet, a West Indian who foreshadows the Harlem riot.

It's kind of dangerous to cut in the camera, but that's the only way I know how to direct.

You have to continue to believe in yourself, know your value and continue to work on honing your skills. I was rejected by everyone but here I sit. So you have to stay in the game, you can't just fall apart. Hopefully those challenges will make you stronger, it did for me.

I didn't need the insurance. I do it again if my DP tells me it didn't look good in the camera or if the actors didn't hit their marks. But if everything was working why do it again?

My mother Vivian Ayers always instilled within her children that our opinions, our thoughts and our ideas about what was possible was important. My mother made me feel that I was important as a thinker at four-years-old. And I instill that within my students everyday.

Be true. Be beautiful. Be free. In the midst of segregation and racism Mamma raised us to be independent and free. We saw ourselves as citizens of the world, not of a block.