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?

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

Time management is a big part of the director's job.

I've had a lot of experience auditioning people, and I can do it rather quickly even though sometimes I let them linger and give them time, but I kind of know after I see them do a couple of steps. I know.

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.

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.

It goes back to a style of moviemaking I remember seeing as a child, in movies like The Man With The Golden Arm, which I think was shot all on a sound stage.