Latest / NAACP+ Inside The Industry / Stories of the Harlem Renaissance That Sat in Storage for 50 Years | Once Upon a Time in Harlem

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Stories of the Harlem Renaissance That Sat in Storage for 50 Years | Once Upon a Time in Harlem · NAACP+ Inside The Industry

• 0:00
  David Greaves: What my father did was capture these people, and this time, because otherwise they would be forgotten. And now that they're memorialized on 16 millimeter film, 660,000ft, that cannot be taken away. It cannot be, and we won't allow it to be.
• 0:18
  LaJuan Morris: Some of the best stories are the ones passed down from generation to generation. Born in 1926, William Graves became passionate about documentary filmmaking after noticing racial disparities in casting as an actor. In 2014, nearly a century later, amidst compiling what he considered was his most important footage, William Greaves passed away. In this episode, we sit down with his son and granddaughter, David and Leoni Greaves, who picked up the baton and carried on the tradition of black filmmaking with the upcoming film Once Upon a Time in Harlem. What makes this story so important? The film captures a summer evening in 1972 filled with genuine conversation, laughter, insight from brilliant minds of the Harlem Renaissance right in Duke Ellington's home. And without the Greaves, we may have never seen it. Their story emphasizes the importance of sharing black stories, no matter what it takes. I'm your host, Lawan Morris. Welcome to NAACP Inside the Industry. It's an honor for me to have the opportunity to talk to you guys, pick your brain. You guys occupy some of the most coveted jobs in the entertainment industry, being a director and producer. But before we get into the films, I want to talk about just your upbringing and what it was like growing up.
• 1:33
  David Greaves: Well, for me, my real film work with my father began when I was after college, and that was when I was thinking of going off to UCLA for graduate school.
• 1:47
  LaJuan Morris: Okay,
• 1:47
  David Greaves: but for majoring in psychology. And I worked with my father in his editing room when he was finishing up First World Nation. And I said, gee, this looks like more fun than to spend another two years in the library. So I started working with him there in the editing room and was with him in the editing room for, like, 15 years. Oh, wow. And sort of brought into my head all of the kinds of things that he was interested in historically.
• 2:24
  LaJuan Morris: I'm sure the editing room looked a lot different back then.
• 2:27
  David Greaves: So. Funny you should say that. The first time I sat down to look at this. This film on. On footage, I was looked at. I said, oh, gee, I want to go back and look. Look at something. My hand shot out muscle mem memory to where the editing control panel would have been. You know, it was just. Just like. Like that. So. And the. And watching the editing process with the. And the editor where I would say, cheap. Could we see, you know, the beginning of this. This sex section? And whereas if my father said that, I'd have to take the rewind, the wheel the reels, take them off, do a rewind, go to the trim, trim bin and get all of that. None of it. All she did was just do a flick with the mouse and there it was, you know,
• 3:10
  LaJuan Morris: like magic.
• 3:11
  David Greaves: That's right, it was. It did feel like magic. You're absolutely right.
• 3:15
  LaJuan Morris: What was it like for you growing up?
• 3:17
  Liani Greaves: I would say, I mean, you know, I started getting interested watching my grandfather, watching my grandfather with Black Journal around the CBS building in New York. And then at 15 or so, that's when I started interning at the office. I don't think we called it interning at that time. I think it was more like just working at the office. I don't know. But I would work at the office in my grandparents office and all of that. So it was kind of. The experience was really. I always knew my grandfather was working in film and I would see posters. I always wanted to have my name on a movie poster. That was the thing that I was looking forward to. So, yeah, I would say that was my initial kind of growing up experience. Watching him, hearing him talk about Sundance. Grandpa was at Sundance, or, you know, hearing the names of the festivals and that kind of thing. Yeah,
• 4:19
  LaJuan Morris: you talked about BlackJournal. So he was a host and a producer, William Greaves. And it's such a necessary reality, just having something like that was the first nationally syndicated public affairs show for black people. Did that inspire anything you guys have now? Like, that's almost unheard of, just having something for us at that time.
• 4:46
  Liani Greaves: Absolutely. I mean, it was. Yeah, it was. They actually just. They won an Emmy for it and it was 60 minutes. That was also.
• 4:56
  David Greaves: Same category,
• 4:57
  Liani Greaves: 60 minutes. And what year was it, the Emmy?
• 5:00
  David Greaves: I don't remember that,
• 5:01
  Liani Greaves: but yeah,
• 5:02
  LaJuan Morris: 69 or 70.
• 5:03
  Liani Greaves: 69 or 70. So yeah, unheard of. Not been done before. And it's great to look back at those when we, you know, even referencing them and seeing them, when you see these stories, these black stories being told in a way that are so dignified and, I don't know, useful to the culture. Yeah,
• 5:28
  David Greaves: yeah. And the filmmakers who he were using there, people like St. Clair Bourne or Kent Garrett, they were able to develop their craft there. What had happened was that when the shows first came on, it had a white producer and the crew, if you will, started to revolt. He's a nice guy. Al Perlmutter, a nice guy. However, this was telling black stories. So they brought in dad as the producer and one of the on air hosts. And he really took it into place cases where looking at the history and the people on the ground level. And so it really gave certainly the people in the office there in Black Journal staff an opportunity to do something that they had not been able to do before. To take a black crew out to black location and then speak with the people in the language that they understood and bring that back and putting it together. So that was a, it was a milestone. It was a milestone in the industry.
• 6:56
  LaJuan Morris: Yeah. So I know you are the proprietor of our Time Press.
• 7:00
  David Greaves: Yes, yes.
• 7:01
  LaJuan Morris: So is there any correlation between the Black Journal and like maybe inspiration that you got from that?
• 7:07
  David Greaves: Well, I'll tell you something. Working on our Time Press, the new newspaper that my wife and I, my wife Umbre Green and I found co founded is like I realized it's an extension of, of the film. I realized how close it was getting stories that were relevant to the black community was the making documentaries. And like in the film you'll see John, John Henry Clark. Well, I interviewed him like 20 years later, like 4,000 word interview with, with him. And so that there's, that, there's that connection, you know, and you're talking about the like now the erasure of black, black history. And I think that the print journalism, like whether it's the crisis or our Time Press, they may be able to, I don't know, who knows with AI erase what's on the net, if you will. We don't know. But they certainly do it doing it physically. But they cannot take away the, if you will, the physical medium, whether it's print or film that's going to remain. And what my father did was capture these people and this time because otherwise they would be forgotten. And now that they're memorialized on 16 millimeter film, 660 thousand feet. And so that, that cannot be taken away. It cannot be and we won't allow it to be taken away.
• 8:46
  LaJuan Morris: So you're a director but you're also a journalist and a publisher.
• 8:50
  David Greaves: Yes.
• 8:51
  LaJuan Morris: So I mean, and our Time Press is a physical newspaper in today's day and age. Like how, how do you maintain like with everything being so instant and online and having it be successful for so long, what would that been like?
• 9:09
  David Greaves: Oh well, it's been, it's been an exercise up and down. You know, you're right, print journalism is really under attack and we, we survive with that advertising and that kind of thing and, and that has its ups and downs, but we are online as well. So it's not all is not lost. That's right. We were a weekly. Now. Now we're monthly. We. But the important thing is the history that we're able to give. Like last month we did a reprint of the Case for Reparations. Stolen Land, Stolen labor, the Case for Reparations. You know, that was a re. Reprint of an article I did back in 97 or so, 98. And it, you know, it's still relevant today. And you realize that the, the receipts. When people say, well, you know, lg we're talking about building America, what are you talking about? Well, the receipts are in the Census Bureau. Yeah.
• 10:08
  LaJuan Morris: The status.
• 10:09
  David Greaves: Yeah. The amount of cotton that went up to Massachusetts or that went over. Went over to Europe that let them do their. Their Industrial revolution with their. And then provided jobs over there, allowing people to come here and work. So it had a worldwide effect of slavery. Had a worldwide effect. And we're able to tell that on. In. In. In. In. In print. And it's. If you will, memorialize.
• 10:39
  LaJuan Morris: Right.
• 10:40
  David Greaves: In print. So that kind of. So, yeah, there's a really a close relationship in between filmmaking, or at least for documentary filmmaking, print. And anytime I think you're examining some. Something examining the experience, it just. They bind together, you know, they are. I find them to be so close in terms of the work that you do.
• 11:10
  LaJuan Morris: And you guys obviously grew up in a family that is heavily involved in the entertainment industry. I feel like that can either help you gravitate toward it or push you away. Like, how did. What effect did that have on you?
• 11:24
  Liani Greaves: I mean, for me. Well, by the time my dad was finished working as an editor with my grandfather and working with my grandfather, I think that's when I kind of came in the picture. Right. It was sort of like after that for the most part. And so then I would really kind of look to my grandfather and I was looking at. At that time, he was doing. He had executive produce Bustin Loose.
• 11:50
  David Greaves: Oh, yeah, that's right.
• 11:51
  Liani Greaves: With Richard Pryor and Cicely Tyson. And, you know, and so those, Those kinds of. I was seeing those kinds of images, you know, whether it's him working on that or. Or other films or whatever. And it was just something that. That did fuel a desire initially in me to, to work in that. To work in the industry. Yeah,
• 12:15
  LaJuan Morris: yeah,
• 12:15
  Liani Greaves: yeah.
• 12:16
  LaJuan Morris: And you got your start on which. I like it like that.
• 12:20
  Liani Greaves: I was working. Yeah, I like it like that. Yeah.
• 12:22
  LaJuan Morris: What was that? Like? That was
• 12:23
  Liani Greaves: the first film. Well, I, I had been doing music video. That was the first feature film. But before Then I was working on lots and lots and lots and lots of music videos in New York and here in la, but working on I Like it like that with Darnell Martin. We were just talking about that the other day. It was really great. And I still have the same friends that I met on that crew I have today. So that was fun. It was a good time.
• 12:54
  LaJuan Morris: So when, when did you guys first realize your love for storytelling?
• 12:59
  David Greaves: Oh, gee whiz. I. I think for me, I guess it was after working with my father for so long, you know, and the kinds of films that he, he made really sort of sensitized you to what is possible. And so that when I started with, starting with, with the paper, sort of brought over that same interest, you know, that, that, that, that same drive to say, gee, let me tell this story, let me tell that story, you know, and that I think a large part grew out of working with him on, on the, from, from. From these roots or the various films that he did, even the ones I did not work work on, like Still a Brother, which is a very important film in terms of the black and intellectual development during the 60s. So, yeah, that I think spilled over and encouraged me to, to go into publishing in a way that matter of fact, when I started it, there were other, other pub publications, but they both had population culture on, on the covers. And I said, no, that's not, you know, people need more than that. So that's how we, we started our Time Press after the matter of fact, after the Million Man March.
• 14:22
  LaJuan Morris: Oh, wow.
• 14:24
  David Greaves: That's where I got the inspiration, if you will. I said, you got to go back and do and do, do, do something.
• 14:30
  LaJuan Morris: Have something tangible.
• 14:31
  David Greaves: Have something tangible. Yes. So my wife and I started the. Something called the coupon news for just a flyer, really. And then I said, let's let, let, let's do a news, a newspaper. And a lot of people say, how do you decide to office and do a new newspaper? I said, well, you know, Bernice had a graduate from Sarah Lawrence, you know, she head of senior, senior pub publicist at cbs. And I used to held up myself. I said, you know, I've been to college. I did. And I said, how hard could it be? I learned how hard it could be. I learned how hard it could be. But yeah, it was part of that whole inspiration is of a piece, it's of a trajectory, if you will, that was maintained from working with him in the editing room to doing research on, on, on reparations. So yeah, so that's, I think,
• 15:42
  LaJuan Morris: yeah. And that's still a fight that we're going through to this day. You know, working alongside him. What. What were you guys able to learn that you can still, like, internalize and keep today?
• 15:55
  Liani Greaves: Working alongside my grandfather, for example. Well, I. Let's see. So much of my work in film turned into more. And in terms of my interest in narrative work turned into more a personal narrative. So I started thinking about. I been working as a coach, as a professional coach, people coach for about 10 to 15 years now. And that work is more about the personal stories that we tell ourselves. Right. The personal narratives. That's something that I really learned from my grandfather or an interest that I really developed from my grandfather after he passed away. Actually, he passed away in 2014, and I kind of got his narrative. He would send me books, very important books that he felt were very important to his creative process and his development as an artist and a creative. And so that really sparked an interest for me in thinking about doing that work both for myself and helping creatives kind of think about do that important thinking work for themselves. So I'm very much inspired by my grandfather's work in that way.
• 17:16
  LaJuan Morris: Yeah. And you're third generation in this industry.
• 17:19
  Liani Greaves: Yes, that's right. Yep. Yeah. This is by default, though. This kind of. This re entering. Entering the film business is really about, you know, my grandfather passing away in 2014, and my grandmother, Louise Greaves was the person that had been running William Greaves Production. So all of the, you know, our films are still. You know, the films are still at Criterion and still distributed around at various schools and that kind of thing. And so someone had to take that part over. Right. So all of that. At which point, that sort of is what sparked all this other. This other stuff in our kind of reemerging, re entry, reentry
• 18:14
  David Greaves: into
• 18:14
  Liani Greaves: the
• 18:14
  David Greaves: industry. That's
• 18:15
  Liani Greaves: right,
• 18:15
  David Greaves: that's
• 18:15
  Liani Greaves: right. Sort of. They left us with this
• 18:18
  David Greaves: footage. Yeah, right, right.
• 18:20
  LaJuan Morris: This treasure trove.
• 18:22
  Liani Greaves: Yes, that's right. That's right.
• 18:23
  LaJuan Morris: I got a chance to look at it, and it was so interesting that it's like a people into an entire different dimension. It's like live and another just hearing the people communicate, interact. And it's not edited or, like, scripted. This is like really how they were. And getting opinions that are differing, that are agreeing. Just seeing, like, the different discourse that's happening in real time, you know, and not having it, like, catered or fed to you to push a certain narrative, just getting the overall feeling of how, you know, people felt. That was really interesting.
• 19:00
  Liani Greaves: Yeah, yeah,
• 19:02
  LaJuan Morris: I know. You. Did you want to say something?
• 19:04
  David Greaves: No. Well, I was just. Just going to say the. The way that it was shot was since cinema verite. You know, my father wanted to. He brought all these people together, and he knew that since they were so creative, you know, that they would interact in a way. And he just got the four. Four cameras to record that. So. And that's why you get that feeling of saying, gee, we're catching the real thing. You know, these are the. Really. The real people, and they're interacting very personally. So that comes through, and it's through the tech. Tech technique.
• 19:38
  LaJuan Morris: Yeah. At the beginning, he had a quote that said, it's some of the most important footage he's ever taken. Why do you think it was so important to him? And he had, you know, things in the National Film Registry. Like he's achieved some things. Oh,
• 19:58
  David Greaves: yes, yes. But
• 19:59
  LaJuan Morris: he felt like this was of utmost, most important. Why you think that?
• 20:04
  Liani Greaves: Yeah, I mean, because he wanted to. He knew that these people were important. They were important to the history. They were important as a. You know, it was important as a historical document. But he wanted for us to know about that these people existed in the world. And by us, I mean, you know, Americans, black Americans specifically, but, you know, America at large, there was this huge cultural movement that is that we are still benefiting from the influence of. And so I think that that was part of the reason why he felt that it was the most important.
• 20:45
  David Greaves: Oh, ye. Just that he thought that these folks had such an influence on him and his upbringing, and he fed off of that, and he realized that, gee, was other people have to know about this. Other people have to know about these folks and this and this and this time. And that's, I think, what drove her and said this was the most important footage because he felt that it was important for that time that he. That he conceived it. It's important for the time that we're in now. And it will be important 100 years from now that people will look. Be able to look and see that this time existed, these people existed, and see the impact, the creative impact that they had in the black community and throughout the country.
• 21:40
  LaJuan Morris: And just to contextualize, can you just tell the people what Once Upon a Time in Harlem is like overall?
• 21:47
  Liani Greaves: Yeah. Shall I do that? You do it.
• 21:50
  David Greaves: Okay.
• 21:50
  LaJuan Morris: Log line. Log line.
• 21:53
  David Greaves: What's it about?
• 21:54
  LaJuan Morris: Yes.
• 21:55
  David Greaves: Yeah. Right. Well, it was shot in 1972 at the home of Duke Ellington, where all of the living luminaries, as we say, of the Harlem Renaissance, we're able to bring them all. Bring them all, all together. And so that's the thing that is. So the film allows them to interact in a way, in a way that. In a way that was natural. Natural to them, you know, and he had. One of the best things, was that as we start off the film where he talks about the. These people are metaphors for. For the. For the divine. He had a deep understanding, which is what I learned doing the research for this film, that looking at his writings, that he had a really deep feeling that there was divinity in everyone, you know, and that these. These people were, as he says, metaphors for the Godhead. So you bring all these creative people together, you know, and so we'd be able to see that electricity, that personal electricity that they have. And we always say that the librarians were key. That's one of the things that. I think the film brings out, the importance of an institution. And the people in the institution. In this case, it was the librarians who were the. The glue, the center that these other folks began to circle around, you know, interact, collaborate, go up to her apartment and collaborate. And so the film shows all of that, which is the. Although not all of it. We say that the film is really a trailer for the archives. And so that. So
• 23:52
  LaJuan Morris: there's more film sitting somewhere.
• 23:54
  Liani Greaves: There's
• 23:55
  David Greaves: 60,000ft.
• 23:56
  Liani Greaves: 60,000ft of film. And part of my grandmother's role in this is that she was really an archivist in her heart. And for her, it was important for, you know, she really, up to her last breath, was working on making sure that we were able to restore the footage. So she had it in a cold storage in our storage up in Iron Mountain. Some of my grandfather's other film work and files had gone to the Schomburg center in Harlem. But this is something that she held back because she knew that how important it was. She just wanted to make sure that we were able to restore it. And so part of our sort of mandate from my grandmother is to have that footage made available to the public at large at no cost, so that people can do research, if their doing research on the Crisis magazine or Eubie Blake or Aaron Douglas or any of those people that are mentioned throughout the film, that this entire footage would stand as a reference point for them. So, yes, there is a lot more. A lot more than what's in
• 25:19
  David Greaves: the
• 25:19
  Liani Greaves: hundred minutes of our film. Yes.
• 25:23
  LaJuan Morris: So what goes through your head as you, like, finish something that someone else started as you continue it? I know artists tend to be sensitive about their stuff, and you Start off as a camera operator and you take on this bigger role of bringing this to fruition. What was that like for you, maintaining his original vision or maybe putting some of your storytelling or narrative in it? How was that
• 25:54
  Liani Greaves: with regard to being sensitive about it? Right. It's not just, you know, you have my. It's my grandfather. It's the most important thing that he'd ever put on film that he considered to be the most important thing. Then you have my grandmother who literally, who, you know, this. It was so important for her that this be given to the community so that people understand this influence. And then you have the ancestors that are in the film that. So when I get sensitive about it, I get sensitive about all of. I get sensitive about all of them as well. You know, I'm like, you know, I just want for people to see it and to put some respect on their names, you know, these people that we would not have known before. So, you know, journalists like Jerry Major and Ted Poston and, you know, these people. And as she says, she says in our film, you know, Jerry Major, she says, and some of us died doing it, you know, making sure that people understood, you know, who we were as a people. So for me, yeah, I take it real personal. I carry that. I carry all of their names, you know, forward. And that's why it's very important. Very important for me, the film. Yeah, that's how it feels.
• 27:20
  David Greaves: Voiceless. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, the finishing the film was a joy that it's done. And getting here was a. Was an exercise. It certainly was a marathon, if you will. And it ended in a sprint. In a sprint at the end of it. And it was a. So. And when we finished it, it was such a relief, you know, that is to say that when we were coming down to the end of it, it was 60,000ft of film. So when we were coming down to the point where I was speaking to the editor and I was like, can we have six more frames of this? Is there any more frames of that? And she. And Demar was the editor I was speaking to, and finally she said, It's 100 minute, David. It's done. I said, oh, thank you. That's
• 28:10
  LaJuan Morris: magic words.
• 28:11
  David Greaves: That's right. That's done. That's right. That's right.
• 28:13
  LaJuan Morris: How does working a post production process. Is there a. It's a rap like,
• 28:18
  David Greaves: oh, yeah, no, I'm sorry. It was a. I said, oh, it's. Oh, it's finished.
• 28:22
  Liani Greaves: Go ahead, Leela. It was not a wrap for the rest of us. But yeah, because. So here's the thing. On our film, for example, you know, we. Again, this is, you know, we're new back into this business and I had not produced. This is the first feature film that I've produced. I was producing music videos and special events and all of that. A lot of the same skills around it, making sure that we're all on target. So there's the deliverables that have to happen to the distribution company. And there are things like, for example, talent releases that nobody thought about until the. It's a wrap, the film is finished, and now we have a distributor. And they were like, okay, so we need the talent releases. And we were just like, oh my God. Because it was shot in 1972, everybody's dead. So where are those? So we had to go to. I went to the. I had to go to the. As I mentioned earlier, a lot of my grandfather's materials, his archives had gone to the Schomburg Center. I had to go and call up some of those boxes that had not been yet processed. So we're going through 10, 15 boxes at a time and just going through the files, praying that the. It's
• 29:47
  LaJuan Morris: like a paralegal,
• 29:48
  Liani Greaves: right? Basically looking for the location releases. And thank goodness my grandmother was incredibly organized and that those things were there, but they were not on our. They weren't in our William Grees Productions in our storage. They were at the Schomburg Center. So I had to get photos of them and use those. But it was really. That was an incredible experience. The moment when I sought to see those. The handwriting and the signatures. Yes, exactly. Like Noble Sissel and James Van Der Zee's writing and. And they're signing the releases. That felt really, really good.
• 30:32
  LaJuan Morris: I don't even know if they teach cursive. I
• 30:34
  Liani Greaves: don't think they do.
• 30:37
  David Greaves: His writing was more like calligraphy pretty much.
• 30:40
  Liani Greaves: Yes, it was beautiful.
• 30:42
  David Greaves: Amazing. It
• 30:43
  Liani Greaves: was really beautiful. And not just cause I found it, but it was beautiful. But yeah, that post production process and then it's the, you know, the color correction on everything and the, you know, the sound. And we were very rushed at the end of our film because to finish. Because we'd gotten into Sundance and so it was like crunch time in order to finish the film and then to finish the post production on it. And then after that it was all the deliverables and all of that, which is a whole other thing. Another filmmaker friend of mine was like, oh no, you're having a baby. Making a film is like having a baby. And then she says, then you have to raise the baby. And I was like, nobody told me about raising a baby. I thought I just had to have the baby. But raising the baby is really a lot of steps. Really a lot of steps. Yeah.
• 31:42
  David Greaves: And the process at the end, as I said, I was done. Done with it. But there was always the mix and the color correction. And in my day back then, it was a, you know, you go into the mixing studio for, you know, an afternoon, you know, and you do it. And the lab would do timing and color correction. Now they have a finishing house, you know, and you spend a week on the. In the mixing, you know, and a week in the color correction. It was. I looked. Looked at that. Scared. I said, oh, Jesus, they got a week for the mix. What are they talking about? But it took every moment to do it because they go. And when I was looking at working with them or not working with them, watching them work and seeing what I said, Jesus. You know, the detail, each and every stop. Can we take out this sound? Okay. Put in that sound. Okay. You can do what you do. This picture. Match that color. Yes. Detailed work of which I was, as I've said, blissfully unaware.
• 32:45
  Liani Greaves: Yes,
• 32:46
  David Greaves: that was going on. Yeah.
• 32:48
  LaJuan Morris: So it was still a learning experience. Oh, yeah,
• 32:51
  Liani Greaves: absolutely.
• 32:52
  LaJuan Morris: What was it like being in that room with all those people? You understood the magnitude of their impact at the time, right?
• 32:58
  David Greaves: Going in there? Yeah,
• 32:59
  LaJuan Morris: yeah,
• 33:00
  David Greaves: yeah, I understood the. When my father asked me and told me I was going to be one of the camera people. Yeah, right. Told me I was one of the camera people. And I was excited about it because I knew that it was an important event. But in terms of remembering the event itself, I don't. Because I was working, you know, I was on. I was on, on camera. So I don't really. Matter of fact, one of the things in the out outtakes, I see that there was a buffet of, you know, nice spread. I said, oh, there was food there. I don't remember that.
• 33:33
  LaJuan Morris: You didn't get your union break?
• 33:34
  David Greaves: No, that's what I'm saying. You know, I said a crew are surrounded by food and not seeing and not using, not eating it. Yeah. So, yeah, no, it's so focused on what it is that I was responsible for and what it is that I'm working with the other camera people, you know, the sound guy, you know, so you're just like a dance that you do around the conversations, you know, get both angles, all that kind of thing. And that was the kind of work that we were Doing.
• 34:06
  LaJuan Morris: So you both have things that you do outside of directing and producing, obviously, and that's something that a lot of people do as well. Working in the entertainment industry, it doesn't always pay the bills. You have to have other, you know, things. How do you navigate that? Or what was that like, kind of putting your all into this project and kind of give people advice on how to balance that in their lives?
• 34:32
  Liani Greaves: Yeah, I mean, for me, it was finding, you know, knowing that where my talents are, really knowing where my talents are, and then being able to bring those talents to this work to keep me happy. Right. So I don't feel like I'm doing this. And this is, you know, not something that I want to be doing at the time. So really understanding my own, you know, what my skill sets are and where I'm great and then bringing that in. And so it did feel like, you know, my work as a coach is really about drawing things out. So even, you know, with my dad, like, drawing out, you know, where we go very early on in the process, like, what are we doing? What are we doing here? But working with the. And the editor and all of that, just bringing. Keeping us together on vision, you know, this is part of the work that I do as a coach. Keeping us on vision, keeping us. So this is. It felt natural in that. So in terms of advice, that's what I would say is really spend time knowing where your skill set are, knowing what you're good at, knowing where you can serve, and then doing that as much as possible. And hopefully it pays the bills also. Right. You know, that's the plan.
• 36:01
  David Greaves: Yeah. Even now I'm dealing with both the paper and the film. And I was just chastised this morning. Even as late as this morning. Well, gee, you don't put enough about the film in the paper. You know, what the heck is going. That's right, that's right. That's right. So now I have to go back and do that and do that work. So, yeah, there is a interplay, at least for us, an interplay that happens between the film and the paper. And they're both doing historical work. This month we're doing a re reprint of Ivan Van van Sertima interview that came before Columbus. I've got like three pages on that going in. So the work with history remains, you know, even at this moment.
• 37:00
  Liani Greaves: Well, and we're also working, I mean, beyond the film, we have the William Grease productions, which is, you know, also its own entity. And so that is, you know, there's gonna be A. We're with Criterion and the Film Forum in New York. Later on this month, they're doing. Later on in October, they're doing a retrospective on my grandfather. And so there's several films that'll be a part of that and several of my grandfather's films. So those. You know, that's happening at Barbican as well. So there are other projects that we're working on. I
• 37:38
  LaJuan Morris: was gonna ask what's next? Yeah, love that.
• 37:41
  Liani Greaves: Thank you for asking that. Because one of the projects that I'm really excited about, my grandfather made a film on Ralph Bunch. Do you know who he is?
• 37:52
  LaJuan Morris: Yeah, I went to ucla, so we have a whole.
• 37:54
  Liani Greaves: Ucla. Yes, of course you do. Of course you do. You do. Not many people do, though. That's
• 38:00
  David Greaves: right.
• 38:01
  Liani Greaves: You know, not many people know who Ralph Bunch was. And so my grandfather made a film called American Odyssey, Ralph Bunch. And I want to create a narrative film on him and his life and how important he was. And so that's one of the next projects that we're working on. We also want to create a. With our film or Once Upon a Time in Harlem, a Broadway show, a play around the film.
• 38:37
  LaJuan Morris: Is that gonna be your first kind of step into those waters in the
• 38:40
  Liani Greaves: theater? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I figure, why not? You know, since we're doing things that we've never done before, why not do that? You know, but it sort of begs it. You know, you have these people that, you know, the people that wrote Shuffle along, you know, in the film. And so to bring all these people that are so involved in that, you know, in art and culture and New York to Broadway, I think it's gonna be very exciting. So there's that. And then dad is maybe writing, maybe in his free time writing
• 39:15
  David Greaves: ye. Family
• 39:16
  Liani Greaves: story.
• 39:16
  David Greaves: Family story. On the other side of the family, on my mother's side and my migration from Shreveport, Louisiana, to Chicago and then Montreal and then into Harlem in the late 20s, early 30s, early 30s. So they're sort of like the other side of. Well, the renaissance was happening. There were also these people in the middle of the migration, if you will. The great. My migration. Trying to get a. Get. Get a. Get. Get a footing in the. In the. In. In the city, you know, trying to. My grandmother was a entrepreneur, you know, and so that they're like. They put it like the. If you have the. If you call the intellectual elite, they were the. The. The folks on the ground who were really the. The base and of the. Of the. Of the community, you know, providing that, quote, hair service, you know, and my. So all of that is just very interesting. I think it's very interesting.
• 40:24
  LaJuan Morris: Yeah. It seems like there's a through line of impact and history and just making sure that, you know, people are able to learn from these films and these works. I mean, knowledge, you know, is everything so. Well, thank you guys for that and that contribution.
• 40:41
  David Greaves: You're looking at the totality of dad's. Dad's work and the importance of it to black people and to folks to know themselves, for black people know themselves. That, I think, was something that he was always talking about, raising consciousness. That was a big thing with him, raising consciousness. And his films reflect that, particularly, you know, the black. The black experience. And as I think that, like places like the HBCUs or even the high schools, when they see this film, oh, gee whiz, they can go then see the names and then go research the names, then come back and look at the film with a whole new. Whole new understanding and say, oh, yeah, that's what Sam. That was him, though. That was her. You know, I think that'll be. That'll be something that happens.
• 41:38
  LaJuan Morris: Yeah, I think that's a great place to leave it. Thank you guys so much. Thank you for having us here. We're so
• 41:44
  Liani Greaves: happy to be here.