Red Carpet interview at NAACP Image Awards Nominee Luncheon #WithThisRing

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a74hMPdQ2ck

Major Crimes

Lesson 1: Watch your back. Don't miss an all-new episode of #MajorCrimes Monday at 9/8c on TNT Drama.

Posted by Major Crimes on Wednesday, November 25, 2015

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/nsenga-burton/nzingha-stewart-talks-lat_b_6538872.html

If you're an uber Kubrick Fan...

...Here's his original treatment for The Shining.

A Cinematographers Plea to the Budding Film Auteur

This article on Shadow & Act (a blog you should be reading all the time if you're a filmmaker or interested in black film) was so so so good, that I'm just going to send you to the link- http://blogs.indiewire.com/shadowandact/a-cinematographers-plea-to-the-budding-film-auteur-move-your-camera

How to Succeed in the art of Succeeding

I recently came off the road with comedian Kevin Hart (I shot the European leg of his latest tour), and learned something that I guess I knew all along, but now it has definitively come to the forefront of my consciousness. We all know that the secret to success is hard work. But the secret under the secret is Never Complain. Our schedule on the road was insane. We'd shoot all day, Kevin would perform that night, go to the after party, get on the bus/ airport and travel to another country, get a few hours of sleep in and start all over again. And in two weeks, I didn't hear Kevin complain a single time. And I was listening for it. Not once. And here's why I think that's the REAL secret to success (I mean, aside from being immensely talented in his case), it's because complaining tells the universe - "Don't send me anymore, obviously I can't handle it." Most of the time we complain about things like work - except that the work is giving us a paycheck, or stupid things that pop up in our day like a flat tire - which means we have a car to drive, or God knows what else, and what the universe hears is "If she's complaining about this job she's never going to be ready for the amount of work the job she really loves is going to take" (and trust me it DOES always take more when you love it), or "he's not grateful for the opportunities he's being given now, so why send more?" I used to complain about things like not feeling well on set so people would know how hard I was working (this was many years ago when I was totally retarded), then I realized, people didn't think that I was working harder, they thought I couldn't handle the work I had. I also realized, no one gives a shit. And what the energy of complaining did to me was slow down the work that I wanted so badly from coming through the pipeline. Now I notice how my friends or people that I work with who are extremely successful all have that quality in common - they don't complain. I remember once doing a Ying Yang Twins video ("Salt Shaker" and yes, I'm proud), and someone complaining about something totally stupid (maybe being called to set before we were ready) and Lil Jon turning to them and in the trademark drawl saying, "Y'all want dat money right?" And that's all I'm saying. The real secret isn't doing the hard work. It's doing the hard work and acting like it's easy.

writing

Starting on a new project today. This is a work for hire, which is always a little different than when you're writing your own idea, but still, you want to do a great job. Actually just booked two jobs, so, juggling.

I picked up Lajos Egri's "Art of Dramatic Writing" because sometimes when I don't know where to begin, it helps to start by just reading about writing.

He quotes Ibsen (who funny enough I just read as further inspiration for one of these new scripts) who says -

"When I am writing I must be alone; if I have eight characters of a drama to do with I have society enough; they keep me busy; I must learn to know them. And this process of making their acquaintance is slow and painful.

I make, as a rule, three casts of my dramas, which differ considerably from each other. I mean in characteristics, not in the course of the treatment. When I first settle down to work out my material, I feel as if I have to get to know my characters on a railway journey; the first acquaintance is stuck up, and we have chatted about this and that.

When I write it down again, I already see everything much more clearly, and I know the people as if I had stayed with them for a month at a watering place. I have grasped the leading points of their characters and their little peculiarities..."

Well, Lajos, didn't write what the third pass was, but these two were a good start. I too hate to see people and do a bunch of socializing when I'm immersing myself in a new writing project, so I felt a kinship with Ibsen from the start of the quote. But I think what he's really saying, a great script is not something you enter into casually. It takes everything you have, and it should.

Like Red Smith says, "There's nothing to writing, you just sit at a typewriter and open a vein."

Anyway, that's more or less me putting my friends on notice that you probably won't see me for a while... going Ibsen.