The shirtless young record producer sips an orange juice and vodka concoction on a balcony overlooking an elegant estate with a swimming pool. The hot singer he is working with slinks out in a negligee and hugs him.
“You know you can have it all,” she tells him. “So I was thinking: You should get your things and move in.”
He agrees, they kiss, he departs.
“Cut!” the director yells, and a scene from the movie “Rhapsody” is wrapped.
“Rhapsody” is noteworthy not so much for what’s going on in front of the camera, but behind it: The director, script writer, camera operators, editors, makeup artists, lighting people, hair stylists, executive producer and financial backer all are black.
A product of Black Entertainment Television’s newly launched Arabesque Films, “Rhapsody” is among 10 made-for-TV movies that the cable channel is airing this season. The movies (shown the first Friday of the month at 9 p.m. and then repeated in half-hour installments Monday to Thursday at 7 p.m.) span a variety of genres–romance, suspense, film noir, romantic comedy and family drama–and are intended to depict African-Americans in a fuller spectrum.
Upcoming programs include “Rendezvous,” at 9 p.m. Nov. 13; and “After All,” at 9 p.m. Dec. 3.
The venture indirectly addresses some of the concerns raised by the NAACP and others about a lack of minority images in the new fall lineup on the networks. But one of its main aims is to provide a foundation for a feature-filmmaking operation that could give African-Americans in Hollywood a long-sought vehicle to produce, finance and market their own product for a world-wide audience.
Supporters of the operation, seen as a sort of black United Artists studio, say the pieces to make it happen are starting to fall into place. The vision is there. The black creative talent is there. The consumers are there. And with Magic Johnson owning a string of successful movie theaters in African-American neighborhoods, part of the venue is there.
What has been missing is someone with the financial resources and business acumen to pull it all together.
“This idea of a black film studio is ground breaking. The idea of starting a black film studio has been talked about in Hollywood at least since the ’70s, when Jim Brown and Richard Pryor were supposed to get money from a (white) film studio to do it,” said Robert Johnson, chairman and chief executive officer of BET.
“We’re showing that African-Americans can undertake this (filmmaking) process and that African-American capital is there to make it happen,” he said, adding that BET plans to make three or four feature films in 2000.
Not since the days of Oscar Micheaux, an African-American director who made about 30 pictures during the 1920s and 1930s, has a single black moviemaker produced such a steady stream of films. By the end of 2000-01 season, if everything goes according to plan, BET will have produced 24 films, 20 TV movies along with the four feature pictures.
Whether the venture will be an artistic and commercial success still is an open question, according to some in Hollywood, given criticism of the cable channel’s line up largely consisting of music videos and psychic-hot-line commercials.
BET, thus far, intends to make low-budget films only. BET is spending only $850,000 for each made-for-TV film, less than one-third the average cost of network movies. And the company plans to keep costs for the feature films within the $3 million range.
Still, some experts say, the venture has much potential.
Making TV films is a good idea, said Todd Boyd, a professor at University of Southern California’s school of cinema and television and an expert on black entertainment. “Television is a medium that reaches the largest number of people,” he said. “BET is a resource that has not been fully utilized.”
But translating the TV effort into a feature-film venture is a big leap, he said. Still, he added, “there are a number of (black) people who can say no to a film project, but very few who have the power to say yes. When you say yes, you have real power.”
The BET film operation is based at an old textile mill near downtown Los Angeles. Heading the studio is Roy Campanella II, son of the famed Brooklyn Dodgers catcher. Campanella, a longtime TV-movie producer for the networks, serves as executive producer for all the TV and feature films. His production company, Directors Circle Filmworks will receive a credit in each movie.
About 85 percent of the crew on any given picture for Campanella’s production company is black, a proportion that is substantially higher than the number working on films made by networks and major studios. Campanella said he has sought to establish a supportive environment for his 70 staff members, an environment where the older experienced artists and technicians can pass on skills to the younger ones.
“It’s important to develop this kind of enterprise that allows talented individuals the opportunity to prove themselves,” Campanella said. “I think it’s important to have a nurturing, creative environment that allows talent to explore their craft, the craft of filmmaking, in the same way many of our musical geniuses explored their art.”
Indeed, some believe the venture has the potential to open doors for young and unproven black filmmakers as Motown Records did for black singers and songwriters.
Mark Maynard, 30, said he left Oprah Winfrey’s Harpo Productions for an opportunity to gain more experience with Campanella in a higher position as a production executive.
“The biggest thing is my voice is heard a lot more,” said Maynard, a Chicago native. “Roy solicits my opinion on scripts, directors and casting. It is very, very rewarding.”
Johnson said the key to making the venture work is to keep the costs of the films down. He said he would continue to make low-budget features, even if they yield a tenfold return. “The film industry is volatile. It’s easy to lose the shirt off your back.”
Campanella, who has degrees from Harvard and Columbia Universities and has worked on numerous network shows, including “I’ll Fly Away” and “Frank’s Place,” says that low budget doesn’t mean low quality.
“We want to maximize value, but minimize costs. It means sharpening what you want to say and how you want to say it,” Campanella said. “We’re delivering production values far beyond our budget constraints. We’re spending $850,000 (per movie), but I think they look like a $2 million cable movie.”
To contain costs, producers shoot the movies in less than 20 days, hire only Los Angeles-based talent and limit the location shots.
The stories are adapted from BET’s romance novels Arabesque Books, which saves the company the expense of having to buy rights to new material.
The movies “are a dynamite way for viewers who aren’t familiar with the books to be introduced to this line of African-American books,” said Felicia Mason, who wrote the “Rhapsody” book on which the movie is based. Mason also is a columnist at the Tribune’s Daily Press in Newport News, Va.
Though a few notables such as Holly Robinson Peete (“For Your Love”), Phil Morris (“Seinfeld”) and Michael Warren (“Hill Street Blues”) have starred in some of the productions, BET is mainly using up-and-coming actors.
“These projects show African-Americans as singers, entertainers, entrepreneurs, professionals,” said Lisa Raye, 31, who plays the singer in “Rhapsody.”
Raye, a Chicago native who played the bride in “The Wood,” added, “To have projects that show African-Americans in a positive light is very important. This also gives (young actors) an opportunity to polish our craft.”
