Posted by By Nature Sargent – Dallas South News Contributor
Evita Castine, artisan, creator, idea maker and Aggie (insert exclamation point); will be in Dallas to participate in the Texas Black Film Festival. Her film, Free Meal, will be shown on Saturday, February 6, during the Rapid Shorts – Short Films Series.
It is a very rapid short! Three minutes long, her movie will run in the ninth spot during the four to six p.m. block. I caught up with the writer, director, and producer to ask her questions about life in La La Land.
How does someone make the transition from College Station to California?
What does it take to be an artist in these times?
What on earth is Free Meal about?
You will have to keep reading to find the answers to all these questions and more!
Nature Sargent: Ms. Castine, share with me a little bit of your journey. How does an Aggie morph into an actress and director?
Evita Castine: I always knew from a young age that I wanted to pursue a career in the arts – acting, writing, directing. I went to Texas A&M because my father had graduated from there in 1970 (We are actually the first African-American Legacy Duo, according to Felicia Scott, Ph.D.)
I received a scholarship to go there after going to High School in New York, so I wasn’t sure what to expect. When I was at Texas A&M I interned every summer at a television station and tried to broaden my life experiences to have more to write about. My last summer, I produced a project that went on to win an Emmy. I attended the award ceremony a week after graduation.
N.S. Was your family supportive of your decision to relocate to California?
E.C. They were supportive, they realized I wanted to do it and I had to at least try. They weren’t exactly throwing me a barbecue to go, but they didn’t jump in front of the car as it was backing out.
N.S. Did you have family there or a network of support?
E.C. I didn’t know anybody when I came. Six months before moving to Los Angeles, I visited to scout the area. Because I had completed an internship at NBC in Washington D.C., I was referred to someone that worked at NBC in Burbank. I sent the executive’s secretary a thank you card for helping to set up the meeting. After she received it, she recommended me for the NBC Page Program.
The NBC Page program is a prolific program that has a strenuous selection process, some of its graduates include Michael Eisner, Ted Kopell, and Regis Philbin. For months, I wore a uniform and gave tours of the studio, seated people on The Jay Leno Show and answered phones for executives for minimum wage. It was tough, in the summer, I donned a gray skirt, stockings, a white collard shirt, with a tie and a blazer and lined up die hard Jay Leno fans in 90 degree weather. I was working a lot and we pages grew really close spending all that time together.
N.C. Who was most helpful when you got your start in film?
E.C. The most helpful, supportive person I have met Bill Duke (This was years after I moved to Los Angeles). He has been in movies such as Predator, American Gigolo, Car Wash, and Menace to Society. He’s directed the movies Hoodlum, Cover, and Not Easily Broken.
I took his class this summer; it was a 3 month, weekly, 6 hour session that focused on the business of acting. I had written, produced, and starred in a couple of shorts and was feeling very disillusioned. People don’t realize how hard it is to get one minute of film. He gave me a list of books to read including “The Dip” by Seth Godin. The class had interesting guest speakers including John Singleton, Taraji P. Henson, Will.I.am Power and other well known actors and behind the scenes people. A few that I met in class have been instrumental in guiding and offering feedback on my artistic endeavors.
N.S. What about since the end of the class?
E.C. After the Bill Duke Actor’s Bootcamp, everyone from camp stayed in touch. We created what we call a tribe. We meet often. When we need something, we send an email and someone calls or emails in less than a minute, it’s great! There were many times I wanted to go home and missed my family. I wanted to pursue this career, so I just kept going. There was a period after being a page that was hard in terms of support because I was trying to make a living.
It was HARD. Bill had encouraged us to write and tell our own stories. So I wrote more and my first play was selected by the NAACP Theatre Festival, where I produced it. I also performed. It was a chance for decision makers to see my work as an actor and writer. My favorite actor, Kevin Jackson, from Broadway, directed it because in live theatre it’s harder to direct yourself than on film. On film, you can set up the shot; have a stand in to make it look how you want it to and playback. In theatre, it’s real time.
While doing the play, I was blown away to hear the actors discussing the meaning behind the words and having a discussion on what I was trying to say in the piece! I was humbled and so grateful. When the piece was put up, a lot of people came to me and said “Thanks, I went through that too,” or “That was funny!” It was surreal to be on stage and hear a couple of hundred people laughing. I would think “That’s not supposed to be funny.” But, you realize people laugh because they recognize something in their own life.
N.S. Did you seek formal training in the craft at any time?
E.C. Yes. It’s really about storytelling, once you get the story, you can choose the technology, or medium you want to tell the story. I received a M.A. in Journalism from the University of Iowa where I focused on New Media. When I came to California, I took film classes at U.C.L.A. in their extension program. I was admitted in The Robey Theatre’s Playwright Program (Danny Glover).
I studied acting with numerous teachers including Bill Duke am currently studying Shakespeare with Harry Lennix. I interned at a film studio and worked for a film foundation that developed screenwriters outside of the United States. They sent me to festivals all over the world. I saw a lot of films and met many filmmakers. I have been a P.A. on music video sets on the weekends; I drove people around, moved equipment and observed what was happening on the set.
N.S. What are some of your earlier works?
E.C. Some of my earlier works are comedies including: “Declasse” a film about a Hollywood Music Manager who doesn’t realize she is obnoxious, and the other is “Girl” about the way African-American women use the word “Girl” and we know exactly what she is communicating.
N.S. Describe the process of submitting your work to Texas Black Film Festival.
E.C. They made submitting a very easy process. I am registered with “Without a Box”. I encourage all filmmakers to have an account here. It has a database with all of the film festivals across the world and you can check to see if your film qualifies based on what the festival was about. I sent in my film to TBFF and got an email when it was selected.
EVITA M. CASTINE’S ACTING REEL
N.S. What would you say was the most challenging part of shooting, Free Meal?
E.C. The most challenging part for me was figuring out how I wanted to shoot it on a limited budget ($200). I heard someone made a film at Cannes for $75 with cell phones. So I knew it was possible. I thought it would be cool to shoot it on my flip camera. My flip doesn’t have a sound input, and I didn’t want to spend a bunch of time synching the sound in post, so I nixed that idea. There is so much technology now; you can make a film easier than 10 years ago.
I met the Director of Photography, David Freeman on Facebook. He had shot a lot of documentaries and reality TV and he wanted to do narratives. We made a deal that he would do the photography for my film; bring the camera, and the lighting equipment to be credited as a Producer and Director of Photography. It was the best thing that ever happened!
I met a sound engineer at USC when I was working on a film there as an actress, so I rented a boom for $50, and the other money was spent on props, food, tape stock and other necessary items. Food makes a big difference when getting people to work for free!
N.S. Did you have an outside producer or did you produce the film as well as direct?
E.C. I wrote, directed, executive produced and acted in it. I brought in a producer – David Freeman to help with the technical aspects. The other actor, Dominique Williams was a former student of mine. We met when I taught a film class at a high school in Compton, CA. He has been here pursuing acting, so whenever I have or hear about something, I send him. I wanted to pass on some of the knowledge Mr. Duke taught me, so I made him an associate producer with responsibilities. He has now started a company and begun writing his own film.
N.S. What was the process of filming Free Meal?
E.C. I wrote the piece in a few hours. It started with this idea I had about sons challenging their fathers. I think every son gets this idea that they can challenge their father as a man and it always ends badly.
There were a couple of actors I had in mind for the father. I always knew Dominique would play the son. A week before filming, there were scheduling conflicts and I didn’t have my male actor who was playing the part of the father anymore!
(I remembered) Mr. Duke telling me if I was going to be shooting I needed to get film of myself. Instead of getting upset, I rewrote the father for a female and decided I would play her. I am not much older than Dominique, so I made the character his sister. It got really interesting because now it’s about gender politics – gender and power. There are a lot of women out there raising boys into men and I was thinking what do women do to discipline boys who are passing into the “I am stronger than you, now what?” realm when there is no father?
N.S. How did you handle it?
E.C. I spent time fleshing out the story and how I wanted to tell it. Once I chose the technology I would use, I spent time storyboarding, creating a shot list, visiting the location at different times of the day, and going over the shots with the D.P. (Director of Photography). I met with Dominique to talk about what the story and what the piece was trying to say. We are good friends now, but originally I was his teacher, so it wasn’t hard during filming to fall back into the “I am the authoritative figure, listen to what I have to say!” role.
N.S. Are there any films you are excited about seeing at the festival other than your own?
E.C. YES! Channing Godfrey People’s Documentary – “Carry Me Home” She is a USC Grad student in Film. We met when she auditioned me to act in her short film, an adaptation of Their Eyes Were Watching God she is from Ft. Worth Texas and went to school with a lot of people I knew from Texas A&M so we clicked right off the bat. She is an incredible filmmaker, dedicated, and extremely talented!
N.S. Do you have any words of wisdom for someone considering a life in film?
E.C. KEEP GOING! Create your company and structure. Learn the business. Learn how to budget, about cameras, storytelling, and editing. Create a network of people that support each other. Whatever is getting in your way – move it! Whatever you do, just DON’T STOP.
Nature M. Sargent is an educator with the Dallas Independent School District, poet and storyteller. She has a BS in Family Studies from Texas Tech University and is currently pursuing a M. Ed. Administration from Lamar University.
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