DJ And?: 3:31

Hello and welcome to the Hilltop Glove Podcast. Today, we are thrilled to have the talented Kenate Hendricks with us today. Kenate is a creative powerhouse known for his work in filmmaking and podcasting. He is a writer, director, and producer of several short films, each of which has captivated audiences with its unique storytelling and compelling characters. One of his most recent works, Blood of the Land, is set in 1873 and follows the struggles of freed people in Jubilee Parish as they Are being displaced by white men. Can I tell you is also the host of co host of the black summit podcast, where he and his partner Brooks tackle current events and discuss the hardships faced by the black community through their podcast. They shed light on important, important issues and offer a platform for meaningful conversations. We are honored to have Canate join us today, and we cannot wait to hear some more about his creative journey and inspiration behind his outstanding work. So sit back, relax, and let's jump right into this conversation. Thank you for joining us today. How are you doing, brother man? Man,

Konate: 4:31

I am blessed, and thank you for having me. I'm humbled, and thank you for that intro. I like to meet that guy. You make me.

Tamyia: 4:43

I watched the film. So I liked it. Blood of the land. I was like, okay, this is in Charleston. I like it. Thank

Konate: 4:49

you so much. Appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you. No problem.

DJ And?: 4:52

So we always like to start off, um, by giving our audience because our podcast for millennials learning how to adult, we like to treat this almost as a digital Rolodex. So they need to know a little bit about who they're about to call before they make the call. Right? So could just tell our audience a little bit more about yourself, what your childhood

Konate: 5:11

was like, um, Okay. Yeah. My childhood was you know, pretty interesting growing up. Um, you know, two sisters and only male falls on my mother's side. My father, you know, had other sons, but, you know, born in Baltimore, Maryland, moved to Charleston when I was real little. So I've raised Charleston. So I'm Geechee. As they say, you know, you, you, you, you want me hear the Geechee talk, hear you wanna hear the gee, bring it out. I hear it already. Bring it out. I gotta bring it up. You know, they say, you, you, Hey, I wanna

Tamyia: 5:36

hear you dog Geechee, because I ain't coming too. People don't understand what I saying,

Konate: 5:40

what they saying. Hey, you, you know what that's saying. They say either you a comea or you a beya. Yeah. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. So, so I can send myself a BEYA only thing. Yeah. That says Baltimore is my birth certificate. Other than that. and bread, you know, so I grew up eating fish and grits and all that good stuff. So, so yeah, so, you know, growing up humble beginnings was in the military when the military after after high school, what branch army was in the army. Yeah. When the army, and then, um, later on went to school for business. And was going back to school again. Actually, I was going to go into pharmaceutical. My mother's a nurse. She wanted all of us to go into the medical field because, you know, medical is recession proof. Whatever happens, you're always going to need it, right? But what whatever happened, I guess, you know, it didn't work in the cards because I was an engineer in the military. And just so I end up going to school for business. So when I went back again for another degree just so happens... With the medical field, they only allowed 24 in the pharmaceutical program, 24. So the government is paying for me to go to school once again. So therefore there was like, well, either you wait in order to get your stipend or you can change your major. And my next thing I like because I'm very creative was film. So that's how I came back into film, you know, and got got heavy and dive into the film industry. And I look at it as a business as well, because, you know, there's Show business, you know. It is. It is a business, yeah. So that's how I became in film and in 09 did some stuff with Army Wives and there was another, yeah, another show was being filmed here. It was Reckless and The Inspectors. Yeah, that's right. There's a lot of stuff down here, man. This is a A few, few things like that and I did a couple of commercials, um, With Dominion Energy and MUSC, did some special effects on that. And then also, um, I worked when Top Chef came. Yeah. So I worked, I worked on Top Chef for when he was here for almost the entire season of that. And then, then some other independent independent projects and things like that. DP to Porgy and Bess. Are you familiar with you know, Lauren Douglas Warren? No, she's outta Columbia. Work with ET TV and grits. Shut

DJ And?: 7:52

up. Wait. I

Konate: 7:53

got you. Yeah, yeah, I got you. Which od

DJ And?: 7:57

Oh yeah, because when he said, I understood who he was talking

Konate: 8:00

about that Yes. Yeah. Yeah. So I, I dpd their, her project for a while and then. then getting into my own bag and doing some short films and things like that with some of my alums who we all graduated from film school together. Okay. So, and that's my crew who I normally work with because we all, you know, like they say, it's a film family. You're right. So, and these are people we would you know, 10, 12 hours a day. So I'm comfortable with them. They come for me. So, you know, we'll work with our same crew. And then I develop Ivy League films, which is my film production, which, as you said earlier, a couple of short films I did, and we got a few accolades for some of the films that we did. So yeah, and you know, and here I am today.

DJ And?: 8:42

Hey, man. Well, of course, what you're talking about your creative journey, what influenced you growing up? When it comes to your creative

Konate: 8:50

work? Well, you know, I know this may sound cliche, but you know they always say life, art imitates life, right? So, so, and I like to tell stories, well first, when I was young, I used to draw. Which I still can, you know, and granted, you know, your parents, they're going to encourage you even though it looks like crap, you know, but as I got older, I got better and better, and I was always real, real good at art, you know, and for me, like, like, you know, art imitates life. To me, when I'm doing a film, It's just like, I'm painting a picture with people, you know, cause I, if I can't see it in my head and I can't do it, so I have to be able to see it. So when I block out actors, it's just like, I'm literally creating living art. Yes, that's how I, that's my motivation. So, you know, that's how I am. That's how I think, you know what I mean? So like, if I'm on a set, like if I'm working with you guys and I'm doing, I may just literally zone out for a minute. Right. And, but I'm. I'm, you're process moving things around, whole thing. Then I say, okay, let me get you here. I need you here and I want you guys to do this. And then we can tweak it and fine tune it if need, need be. Mm-Hmm, you know. So that's pretty much my process. That

Tamyia: 10:05

kind of goes right into our next question though, like, you know, as a producer you're responsible for like behind the scenes aspects of production compared to like the director when you get to do the creative element. So like, which role do you like more than the other producing or

Konate: 10:19

directing? Oh, that is a very good question. To be honest with you, I really like directing more. And I'll tell you why. When I first came into film, I was in front of the camera. I took acting classes. That's, that was, yeah, yeah, yeah. I did, um, South of Broadway. And then when I, my degree, there, there's a class called the camera and acting. I took that as well. But when I came into school to learn more about film, Because, uh, I wanted to, I wanted, like, I want, like I said, I have stories and I wanted to create. And so I wanted to learn about the, you know, how things work behind the camera. Now granted, I saw Army Wives, but I didn't get a lot of the technical aspect of it. Cause you know, we, we setting up scenes, we move on quick. So you don't see what everyone does, right? Big productions. There's a lot of moving parts. Huge, huge production. You know what I mean? So, so when I went to, to film school, I wanted to create my own and I figured the reason with directing, the main reason why I went that route is because not only myself, I can help others. You know, if I create something and people want to act, and if they're not getting all the roles, at least they can have a real... They can you know, um, they don't have to stay in one particular genre of film. You know, they can, they can exercise their range or what have you. And so that way I can help others as well. That's why I prefer the directing more, you know. Yeah, yeah. You're making the calls. Right, exactly, exactly, yeah. So that's why I prefer the directing over the producing. You know what I mean? But, not saying I don't like that.

DJ And?: 11:57

Producing is amazing. You got to have producers. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Konate: 12:00

Yes. You understand that? Yeah. You got to have producers. You have to have producers. So

Tamyia: 12:04

as a producer, like what are some hardships that you face, like producing your own films, like scheduling or is it finding locations, booking cast members? Ooh,

Konate: 12:15

man, that's, that is another good question.

Mic: 12:20

If nobody's ever worked on a film, like, it is ridiculous how many people it takes, even, even if it's just a handful of people doing it, then everybody's got to do like

Konate: 12:29

50 jobs. 50 jobs, man. It's like, you know, um, and actually I'll answer it in two parts if, if, if not a problem. Yeah, yeah. Um, the first, okay. Just to give you a brief, have you ever, y'all heard of Masterclasses? Yeah. Yes, I'm watching them now. Yeah, yeah. So, so I've, I've watched the one Scorsese, one of my favorite directors, of course you got Spike Lee's, the Antoine Foucault's, and James Cameron's. So I remember watching Spike Lee's when he did She's Gotta Happen. Yeah. Yeah. And that was outside of Hollywood and he pretty much was saying that it's impossible, not, it's almost impossible, but it is possible to make a film outside of Hollywood. Right. When you, when you're independent, you're the producer, you're the director. You know, sometimes you're the writer, you're the craft service, you're the P. A. Sometimes you, sometimes you might even have to do like me, cause I cut hair too, sometimes I gotta be the barber, I gotta be on set. So cut hair too? Yeah, I cut, yeah. Yeah? So I cut hair too, so. So, so with that aspect, when you said about far as how hard is it with producing, For example, when I did Blood of the Land, we started that project in 2016 from its infancy and we didn't finish until 2020. Because I was trying to get funding and we had all type of campaigns and things like that. So, and I did a short film. Previous, previous, right? And I produced that, which I had a couple of EPs who just put up money, but for the most part, with EPs, executive producers, but for the most part, I did most of the producing and everything myself. So, with Blood and Land being a time period piece, I know it's going to be even harder. So what I did was my crew if I may, I shout the names out. Aaron Hamilton is my DP. And Tangenica who's green, who's normally my, she, she normally be my AD on project. So I brought them in as producers to help me along the lines of getting certain things and you know, and facilitating certain things. Now we ran into a lot of problems. We had to reschedule shoots and things like that. But it is hard in the sense of. Just getting people where they need to be, you know, there's certain parts of the film, certain components where it's, it's very trying to keep it as authentic as possible. Right. So I don't know if you saw the film, there's a part with the blacksmith. So although the movie is set in 1800, everything he made and everything he brought is from 1800s. But he would come all the way from Charlotte. Because that's how committed he was to do the film. You see what I'm saying? And, and, and just to use locations, right? Going out. In the latter part of the film production, I finally got a locations manager to help me out. So going out, talking to people, and people letting us use their properties for free, right? And some people end up reshooting and some people cancel, so we shot all over in rural South Carolina. And then the thing is, when you're doing these things, so, because... Sometimes actors can't make it all locations, some have a location. So I find myself being like a politician. I had to apologize so much to people for certain things, man. But you know, to be honest with you, it is hard, but the, the hardest thing is I would say doing both. Directing and producing what I was doing. Even though I had producers, but still, everything still pointed to me. Everything. Everything still, you know, each department. Hair, makeup, wardrobe, and all of the wardrobe I bought out of my own pocket. You know, everything you see and I paid for all out of my own pocket.

DJ And?: 16:08

So did you have to, alright, gosh, stop there, wait one second. Good Lord Jesus. Yeah,

Konate: 16:12

get you

DJ And?: 16:13

some funding. Yeah man, wait, so, cause I know how expensive wardrobe can be. And this is a period. Man, just fabric. I've started sewing lately. Fabric is expensive. And this is a period piece, so who was making this stuff? Well,

Konate: 16:26

Luckily, I had another female I met on when I did Top Chef. She wanted to be a costume and work in wardrobe, even though she works in finance. It's still on some productions to this day. Crystal Neesmith, I shout out to. Shout out. So, um, but she, I got her. It's like the men's stuff, I, you know, I can do, you know. And what I did was I went to thrift stores, Salvation Army. And you know, and, um, goodwill. And I, I, I, you know, I was able to find some old things, but the women's stuff, I needed help. So I had her come on board and send her a lot of, um, send her a lot of images of what I was looking for. And then we, and then luckily there was this consignment place that dealt with old costumes right off of Rivers Avenue. And we found that spot and I was able to found, find the main characters, the mother, the daughter, find their, their, their costumes and their outfits. And then even, you know, back then the woman would always wear headscarves. Yeah. So Crystal, when she was helping me get the women wardrobe straight, and she even went a step further. Well, we got to go to Walmart. I'm like, why we got to Walmart? Because we got to get fabric. She literally found fabric. To cut out, to tie the scarves, to match everything, and back then, even the smallest details, like You know, like, men, we say shirts, women say blouse, right? Yeah, yeah. Nowadays, their shirts have collars. But back then, they didn't. They didn't. So she even went as far as cutting out all the collars on there, which I didn't even think of cutting all the collars out on the women's tops and everything to make it look real authentic. Yeah, so. That's

DJ And?: 18:04

why I had to ask about the wardrobe. The wardrobe, yeah. Period

Konate: 18:07

pieces. Period pieces. But we did raise... Some funding. Mm-Hmm. We did read, we, we did have a campaign. We we did, we used we had Kickstarter. We got a little bit of money. We used Indiegogo. We got a little bit of money. So then we went back and did, um, what's the one when people donate money to help? GoFundMe. GoFundMe. Mm-Hmm. We did GoFundMe. Right? GoFund. So what I did was I said, we gotta change the marketing strategy. So I, I realized that. It's easier to get five dollars from a hundred people than to get a hundred dollars from one person, right? Yeah, so I if you if you remember when um Remember when, when, when the, the hurricane hit in, in, in Haiti? Yeah. Remember when it was Red Cross? They say just, and Bush and Clinton was saying, hey, just, just, we don't want all, just give 3. Yeah, text to donate. Yeah, yeah, text to donate. You know, if we get, we're happy if we get a hundred people to give 4 versus one person giving a hundred. You know what I mean? Because that's 400 versus 1. So I said, you know what? Let's just ask everyone for five dollars. Just give five bucks. And then... People started giving 20, 200, you know, so, so I'll tell any filmmaker if you want to get funding, some type, if you want to use you know, GoFundMe, ask for the minimum. Small, small. Yeah, and they will give more. They will give more. Yeah, wow. So we raised a little over three, a little over three grand. You know, and then some people gave some money and some people were just so, so, so engulfed in the project that they, they, they wanted to see it come to fruition and, you know, and they, they were so dedicated to it. So, and you know, we, we were very blessed in that aspect, man. And, you know, I, and still, I, I told, I told everybody I couldn't have done it without them.

DJ And?: 19:50

Man. I like how, how forthcoming you are and giving out that, that respect. And yeah, yeah. Cause. I'll tell you for a lot of folks that are listening to our podcast and that want to do these things that I have had short forays into doing it. This part about raising funds is a big thing for any creative endeavor. It's

Mic: 20:11

what everybody ends up talking about. Yeah. It's a big thing. How do we get money to do the things? Boom. Yeah. Right? Boom. Because it's not like a business venture where I can be like, Well, you know, here's a model that shows that there's a market for this. Like, you know, you don't know if there's going to be a market for creative things. You do not. Or

DJ And?: 20:28

if you're going to see a return.

Konate: 20:29

Right. Right. Especially short films. Come on. You don't see returns on

Tamyia: 20:32

short films. No, I definitely want to do short films. That's why I made sure I was particular with these questions. I

Konate: 20:37

see.

Mic: 20:38

I see your questions. Tell me how to do it.

Tamyia: 20:40

I need the blueprint. This is my first time meeting him. I need to ask the right questions. Yeah.

Konate: 20:46

And you're asking the right questions too. How do you

Tamyia: 20:49

market your films once they're finished? Or do you submit them to film festivals? Or how do you go about that? Okay.

Konate: 20:55

So, Before Blood of the Land, I did a film called Dirty Undercover, right? So that one is a cop drama. It's about a prostitute that dies and they're trying to solve it. So, you know, that type of thing. So... There used to be Autobox was a platform that you used to submit your films. But now it's Film Freeway, right? Cause Autobox is gone. It's Film Freeway now. So, I, I, what I do, what I did was, I submitted it to, and it's all out of pocket. Cause, you know, you gotta pay, you pay if it's also free. And then, you know, so I submitted it to about maybe 12 festivals or so. And we got in a couple. In which we won some awards and a few, you know, so we got in some, so that's normally the route I do with that, with that particular film. That's what I did, and then I did a private, well, I, I, I tried it, that's my alum, I tried it, film department. So then after that, what I did was, um, I, they let me use the auditorium and things like that. So then what I did is I just, instead of making it be all about me, I got a few other people who has few short films and I just did a showcase. So I just, I just, yeah, I had it set up. We had some crafties. You know, set aside for people to come in and unless let everyone showcase their project and their film and then mine was the feature at the end. So, and then, you know, we let them set up, you know, I'm all about community and trying to help everyone as a whole. If you're going to bring that many people

Mic: 22:26

together, you might as well give them a

Konate: 22:28

little, exactly what's going on. Exactly. Yeah. So that's what I did with that film. And then later on, then I had it, it was on Amazon prime for a while, so everyone could see it on prime. And then I just recently, maybe, but. Last year, so I took it off. With Blood of the Land, I did the same thing. I did, of course, the pandemic hit soon as we finished, right? With that, right? We had a pandemic. As soon as we got done, the pandemic hit in 20, finished editing in the studio, doing voiceover with actors, everything. Pandemic shut it down. So we had a sort of a bit of a pushback on that. But then later on in 21, we did get a chance to submit it to some festivals the Charlotte Black Film Festival. We, we was, we became semifinalists the Afro South. The Afro Afro South Film Festival that Lauren Douglas them started last year was their first we we got the viewers choice award in that one. And then Atlanta as well. Um, I think I believe it's called the Starlight Film Festival, I believe. So we won award in that one. And then I did private showings with that film. But this one, I haven't put it on any other platforms. I haven't, you know, I just haven't decided. Put it on any other platform. Sometimes, people want to see it, I'll send them the link and they'll watch it. But I just haven't decided to do anything with it. Cause I, I'm kind of. Okay. Yeah. What's the

DJ And?: 23:47

reason for it? Why

Konate: 23:48

are you? Cause I. I don't, I don't think I don't, I don't have ADD and it's kind of, once I do a project and I'm on it for so long, I don't really want to see it no more. It's like

DJ And?: 23:59

being a cook. You're cooking food all day in the kitchen. I don't want nothing to eat.

Mic: 24:04

I'm good. I've been around all day. Exactly.

Konate: 24:05

You've been around all day, right? You gotta find

Mic: 24:07

somebody to hand it off to then. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Konate: 24:11

Some people want to see it and I'm like, ah, I just shoot them a link and I'm like, ah, I'm good, I'm good. So, you know, I just want to kind of... You know, segway into something else. I kind of seen it. So I just don't really, you know, fool up fool. Oh, too much

DJ And?: 24:28

About the different platforms and I know This is day and age This is one platform that everybody likes to go to to put their films on as you might already know called to be Okay So, what is your what is your What is your judgment or understanding of Tubing and how could that be a? Tool that people who are making films utilize.

Konate: 24:54

Oh my God, y'all, you guys are awesome. You guys are actually hitting all the good questions. We

Tamyia: 25:00

only got 45 minutes.

Konate: 25:03

Dude, it's so funny you said that. Honestly, before, I never watched Tubi. Seriously? I never used to watch Tubi. Huh. Because... On, on social media, it had such a bad stigma of terrible content. And I was like, um, I just look at it and I laugh and I'm, and I even seen some known actors and I'm like, why did they do this? You know what I mean? Yeah. And then people started asking me, Hey man, will you put something on Tubi? And I was like, first I was like, nah, nah, nah. I was like, nah. And then they asked me, will I put. Blood of the Lamb or Dirty Undercover. And then I went and looked at the format for 2B. 2B wanted it to be 40 minutes or, and these are short, 25 to 15 minutes. And I know why, because they're format, because they run commercials. There you go. That's how they make the money. Mm hmm. So. And I will say this, and then I talk to more people, network people, and I'm like, man, you know, but what about 2B? And you know, and they might laugh, and then they always come back and say, now you can hear some choss, and they'll come back and be like, hey, but you know what though? Hey, Lil Keed, hey, 2B the joint, boy, it's Lil Keed, I had a partner of mine, I was like, yo, man, boy, yo, man, hey, real talk, but hey, we be on that Lil 2B now, we be on VT1, that's where they put their stuff at, yeah,

Mic: 26:14

they do, they do. free and if you like me you looking at trying to cut every streaming service you can right now because they all jacking the price up and cutting what they produce in any way right exactly

Konate: 26:25

so so I don't I don't want to because I know you have a question about what's up for the future I don't want to overstep I'll maybe I'll wait until you can wait you can

DJ And?: 26:33

wait okay we can wait to get there I just had to ask you that question too because it led right into the stream so yeah. Yeah, so we had to ask about that because it's something that everybody always tells me it's funny that you say this and of course our audience will know this. Nah, they be saying, man, some of them movies

Konate: 26:46

be trash,

Mic: 26:47

bro, they be trash. Yeah, but

Konate: 26:48

so is half of what was in Blockbuster. This is my point. Y'all remember like it was, right?

Mic: 26:52

Yes, every movie that came out. Oh my goodness. Transmorphers, and you know,

Konate: 26:59

like all of that shit.

DJ And?: 27:00

But We watched it, yeah. We took chances on it. We didn't even get previews

Mic: 27:03

on it. Friday night, and movie machines, and whatever. Man, network television at two in the morning.

Konate: 27:08

We watched garbage. It's

DJ And?: 27:09

true. It's fun. I'm not angry at it. I'm all the time, like, I'm like, well, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's access. And it's a, um, platform that can be used. Facts. It's just a

Konate: 27:22

tool. It's just

Mic: 27:23

a tool. So if they pay an artist, then that's the thing.

DJ And?: 27:27

That's the thing that matters. Are you paying artists? If you're paying, I'm good with it. I'm good with it. And like, like Jay Z would say back in the day, Well, if you don't like my song, just change the station. Right, right. So that's what you can do. That's what's

Konate: 27:38

so dope about Tubi. And then if you utilize Tubi, you don't have to put out the same content. That's right. You don't. You can put out

Mic: 27:44

gold. Exactly.

Konate: 27:46

Yeah. Facts.

Tamyia: 27:47

So I have one more quick question before we move on. Um, Can you talk about the realistic timeline with editing? So you said Blood and Lamb took about four years to, you know, produce it. What about the editing process? Or do you do that? Or do you have someone else to do

Konate: 28:02

that? Man, the beautiful thing about Trident Tech, we learn everything from top to bottom. So almost. Everyone I work with, we can do almost everything ourself.

Mic: 28:12

So you would say there definitely is a value in doing like a proper kind of film

Konate: 28:15

school background kind of thing. Yes, but you don't have to. Right, right. You can always self talk, but... You can. And if you're going to do that, I would say definitely utilize a lot of YouTube. Yeah. You I tell people, if you don't have the money to go to school, definitely utilize a lot of YouTube because you can sit in a lecture all day long until you physically... Touch things. Right. Like I was telling that's your brother, right? Yeah. I was telling him earlier, you know, the beautiful thing about Trident, and it doesn't get there critically acclaimed because it's a two year technical college, but technically it's one of the best film schools on the east, on the southeast coast. I know you ain't lying. Because you got, because you got SCAD, right? Yep, right there. But, but, but we, Trident has over five million dollar worth of equipment. Yep. And day one, when we get there, you get a lab and you automatically touching equipment. Versus when you went to, um... What is that? The Art Institute, they go on theory. You don't touch no equipment until like, until your senior year. And I remember when I was doing Poor Game Best, and I needed lighting because I was the DP, and then I had to teach, while I'm filming their stuff, I had to teach some people sound because the sound guy left. Yeah, I had to literally show them, okay, Matter of fact, Crystal, the one who did Wardrobe, I had to show her, so I had to plug her in to do sound. Good thing we learned everything, right? So they had to get some lighting equipment from me from the Art Institute. Well, they didn't even have proper, it wasn't film light, it was photography light. So you, you can't distinguish between, it's just soft light, like some of what you have here. So there's no tungsten and there's no daylight. So you want to put a certain hue on certain skin, you know, I won't light him the way I light you. I won't light him, you know, different texture colors of skin. So I had to bounce light and things like that, you know, and it was from the audience, too. So they didn't have the proper film

DJ And?: 30:01

light. Because they weren't doing what? Touching things. Yeah, they weren't touching that, right?

Konate: 30:05

Yeah, and they go more on culinary and fashion photography. Oh, yeah. That's what they, that's what they base on. It's totally different, that's what they base on. But as you said, as far as editing, Like, okay, I'll say this. I do some side work for non profits, right? I film a lot of things for them. So, like, I film some rural farms. That's one project. I shoot their conferences. I do interviews, which don't take long. So, it's like... If I'm shooting something and say you want, say it's going to be five minutes long and I might, we might be out there six hours. So you figure it's probably going to take about maybe 12, 14 hours just to edit that. I got to do that in pieces because you're going to see, I might shoot six hour worth of footage, but you, I got to cut it down to this. So, you know, with the editing process, you first things first. You got to get your clips. You got to sync up sound. So I'll sync up sound. I'll do color grading I got to put graphics in there a little cuz I got put Titles for who's this and that then I got it then I'm have to put some royalty free music, you know video transitions all that stuff So the editing process it is actually longer than the filming process. Oh, yes That's what the grind really comes in. That's what a grind

DJ And?: 31:23

really comes in You use your knowledge up front to get a product that you can then grind to. Exactly. So you're making your own, and this is why I always like to explain this with, when it comes to film and audio, um, is you're just creating a raw resource. Basically, it's just like you excavating a diamond. But it's not done yet. You gotta clean the dirt off of it. Still gotta make it rain. Exactly. There you go. Yeah,

Konate: 31:47

like raw ghoul, you know? You gotta. You know, refine it, refine it. First of all, get it

DJ And?: 31:52

out of the ore. Exactly. They're like, what? Yeah, your gold's sitting in there. You gotta take it out of the ore. Yeah, refine it, get down to

Konate: 31:58

clean. And that's how one time when dealing with film, you know, it's just like music industry, you know, you, you, we've run across our share of scammers. I'll share of people who, um, going to say, Oh, you know, I only want it to be, you know, no more about four minutes, but they want to pay you this and they don't realize, okay. Everything that calm is what they want. Cause I got a crew. Now some things I can do myself, but depends on what the magnitude of what they want. I have a crew. Yeah. You know, outside of us, any outside work, we get paid, but if we're doing our own because we come up together and we know we grinding, they won't charge me. I won't charge them. But outside of that and not saying we got to get paid a lot, but we have to be compensated some kind of way. Right. Yes. Right.

DJ And?: 32:45

Otherwise, it's just other things get in front. You got to get compensated for your work.

Konate: 32:48

You got to, yeah, you got to get compensated for it. And then with all the professional equipment that we're bringing in and things like that. So that we, you know, Yeah. We like I did one of my first gigs. I did some work for MUSC. I was filming there. They had a project About it's like an exercise showing people to put through dance So I went to various locations and the lady thought that she was like, okay I shot one and they liked it and she said she said she literally said look here I need You to shoot nine more locations. I got about 200. And I look better. I look better. Luckily, my friend, who brought me in, she was like, Oh, no, no, no. He's not a little kid. He's a grown man. Cause I look young. She said, no, no. He done been in the military. And she came up to me. She had to apologize. She said, oh, I'm so sorry. Cause at that time, I was more. Oh, she's not

Mic: 33:44

just a high school

Konate: 33:45

kid doing some yearbook work. Yeah, she tried to hustle me. Yeah, she tried to hustle me. For the low low. Yeah, for the low low, Yeah,

Mic: 33:53

I guess we've all done those kind of jobs at some point. Yeah, at some point.

Konate: 34:00

Oh, my gosh!

Tamyia: 34:00

Do you Do you have interns or anything to help you with any of this process?

Konate: 34:04

At that time, no, because some, some jobs I can literally, granted, I could use help. Like sometimes if a student want to come, I'll let them, you know, see what I do. I'll build, build the camera or whatever type of setup I'm going to do if I need lighting or something like that. Yeah. But a lot of things I can do myself. Sometimes I could bring somebody in to help them at all, you know, all let them run the audio for me or something like that. I let them mic up, you know, mic up the people, whoever I'm interviewing, you know, in three, three point lighting, it's basic lighting, key light, fill light in the back light if need be something like that. But for the most part. I can do something myself, but I've, I've had people come with me. Like I hired a, um, a creative writer because one gig they, they wanted to create a writer. Now, granted, I write too. I could do it all myself because I write scripts. I could do it all myself. But sometimes it's easier not to change gears every five minutes. So I just said, you know what, I'll hire somebody. I brought her in and, you know, and, and then, and I, I use her to carry some of my bags, you know, you know, Hey, give me that lens. Let me get this, you know what I mean? You know, I don't know. She don't know the difference between the prime and the zoom. So I'd say that lens right there. Give me the, give me that one. Yeah, the little one, the little one, give me that, you know, so just, you know, a few things, but for the most part I'm usually a one man show because if it's a smaller project, you know, I can, I can knock it out. No problem. Yeah.

DJ And?: 35:28

You ready? That's at Charleston right there. That's at Charleston. Real quick, real quick. That's at Charleston right there. I can do it all. I heard that so many times, I was like, you know what? You probably can't do it all by yourself.

Tamyia: 35:42

Tell us about your podcast show because we know you behind the camera. What is it like being in front of the camera? How did you start

Konate: 35:49

your own podcast? Okay, how the podcast got started? Well, Brooks, my co host he graduated from film school with me. Um, I, I might've graduated maybe slightly before him or whatever, but. Remember I said I do a lot of things, so I'm a barber also. So I cut his hair, and when I'm cutting his hair, you haven't heard of Sharp Talk. So he's a little younger, so we may talk about anything between relationships. to politics, to religion, or just anything, general topics. And we would, we would talk and I'd give my perspective from, because I'm older than him, my perspective and my walks of life. And because he's from California, he, you know, his family from the South, but he raised up in California. He didn't raise up in the conservative South. Yeah. So, you know, difference of opinion, you know, sometimes agree to disagree. Right. So he kept saying, hey man, we should do a podcast. And I was like, I'm cutting here, I'm fading them all. Yeah, you know, one after the other. And then, you know, and he had two weeks later, he'd come back and we'd talk and he would say it again. Same thing, I'm fading them up. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, you know what I'm saying? And he said it a third time. This time I'm paying attention. I'm like, okay, yeah, yeah, we can do it. He said it a fourth time. I said, all right, cool. And then, you know, time went on, maybe about a month later, he finally said, man, Let's do it. And we shoot it right in the Foley room at Triton, where we, that's where we get access to a lot of things. Yeah. In the studio, we shoot it right in there. So, and that's how it was birthed. We just went in and just, first it was just straight audio. Then we started doing two cameras set, set up and things in its infancy, so we only been doing it for a couple of months.

DJ And?: 37:33

Not, not, not too long started. What month

Konate: 37:35

did you start? Oh, man, we started

DJ And?: 37:39

because we're in

Konate: 37:39

October right now. So we might have started maybe in before May, maybe like, I want to say maybe February. Oh, wow. Yeah, we haven't been doing it. We don't really have a whole lot of episodes. I think we may just got up to maybe either 400 or 500 subscribers. Or something like that. That's not bad. That's good. Great. Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, I mean, you know, it, it, it's cool. It's cool. It's different from, it is different. It's different. I mean, I like it. Mm-Hmm. But, but me, I, I realize that I'm a person that. One reason why I love directing, I'm behind the camera. I got you. You know what I mean? I don't need the fame. I take the wealth, but I don't need the fame. You know what I'm saying? So, and I like it as if, if I wrote it, I direct, I produce, and if I say you two act. They looking for you guys. They ain't looking at me. So you guys can get all that glory. I can just sit back and tell the story. Even though I made more money than

Mic: 38:35

you guys.

Konate: 38:36

But I can sit back. You know, so with the podcast, and I started thinking, you know, they had me thinking because we was we had a young lady on, he was talking about if we blew up, and I said, man, I don't know, man. If this blow up, I don't know how long I'll do this. Because, because you aren't used to being. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, I start off acting. Yeah. But then now, since I'm behind the camera, I say, Man, I don't know, I I mean, I want it to be successful, but I don't know if I want it to be the point where I'm just like, going around, Hey, man, we know You know what I'm saying? I don't know how I'ma feel about that, you know? Because one Trying to hide it. I'm just like, man, I think this

Mic: 39:09

is something like we grew up with this generation of like, Oh, we're not making it when I, when I'm successful or whatever, like that was just

Konate: 39:15

what we were taught on. Yeah.

Mic: 39:17

But like, I don't know. We've been doing a podcast for a while. I don't see like, like what is blowing up look like? That's a good question. To me, it was when we call people and they're like, Oh yeah, sure, I'll come on the

Konate: 39:27

podcast. Right. That's what caught

DJ And?: 39:29

us off guard. That's caught me

Mic: 39:30

off

Tamyia: 39:30

guard. I think it's when people see you out in the street and they're scared to approach you. Like, I'm on the same level as you. Um, um, don't put me on a pedestal,

Konate: 39:40

please. Yes. Oh, please don't do that. Yeah, treat me like a regular person. I imagine

Mic: 39:44

like what we're doing is basically like... Like local radio level

Konate: 39:48

20 years ago. Yeah, that's not even

Mic: 39:51

drive time, like middle of the day or middle of the evening.

DJ And?: 39:54

Yeah, between, between between 10 and two and

Konate: 39:57

some people, I mean, they actually have journalism background. Some people actually look at themselves as journalism work. And I guess it can be, but I don't have journalists. I just, I don't look at myself as like, you know, journalists. I'm like him, like local radio type stuff on a small scale. That's how I look at it, you know? Yeah.

Tamyia: 40:16

Now, how did you guys come up with the name?

Konate: 40:18

Man, we had a few names and they didn't work. So we was trying to find something that refers to A form for talking, you know, and acting with people and then we went through different name, different synonyms and stuff like that. And then summit came up and then I said, Hey, we black, you know, so easy, but yeah, but actually it was the black summit, but that's. So we changed it to Black Summit because it's TBS, Turn a Broadcast Out. So that's why we Black Summit, just Black Summit. That's smart. Yeah, and it's just black because we black. Yeah. That's on there. We have everybody on there. I like the answer. Anybody can come on there, you know. Yeah. But yeah, we talk about different topics and social you know, current events and social issues and things like that.

DJ And?: 41:07

Beautiful. And of course you talk about things that are happening. Locally here in the community.

Konate: 41:10

Yes. Yes. Yes. Like we, we trying to do a you know, mental health is a big thing. Yes. So we recently this a woman who works in medical field, she said she wanted to come on and we want to talk about some things like that. And then, um, another another friend of mine who was in, in the entertainment industry, he wants to come on and another buddy of mine he was helping people expunge their records. Oh, wow. And then he wants to come on eventually. So hopefully in the future, we are trying to get those things because I, I feel like it's good to entertain, but I also want to inform as well. You know what I mean? So, you know, there's always, you know, I believe there's truth in the comedy. You know what I'm saying? Yeah, there is. So you, we can entertain you, but at the same time, give you something that can inform you that you can take with you and hopefully it'll help better your life, the better someone else's life too. So. Man.

DJ And?: 42:01

That's right, that's right on point. I like hearing that type of stuff. Mm-Hmm. because that's, I, that's the type of content that I like to take in. I love Mm-Hmm. I love things that make you laugh. Yeah, yeah. But they teach you at the same time. Exactly. That's why I love great comedians like George Carlin and Richard Pryor. Like, yes, they telling you something, but you're laughing. But you're laughing. But you're laughing. Yep. Exactly. That's the best way to give out information. Mm-Hmm. Absolutely. Um, I know we're getting to that point. Mm-Hmm. in the podcast where we are going to wrap up, but. I have to do this. Um, cause of course we're going to let you do your shameless plugs and all that good stuff. I gotta ask you this other question quickly on podcasting. How do you all like, do you all look to get guests by communicating, reaching out to people or do your guests just come to you?

Konate: 42:46

Um, actually a little bit of both actually. When they, when they find out. Cause I guess maybe I don't do a good enough job of, you know, but when, if they find out, then they ask, Hey, can we come on? And then a few of them, we did ask to come on the first initial ones. And then, and then usually after we asked them to come on, then sometimes you will see them reoccur. Cause now by this time they've asked us, Hey man, you know, Hey, I want to touch on some of something that they know we. Interested in yeah, can I come back on you know, so a few people asked and some of them get inspired to trying to start their own podcast as well, so So it's

Mic: 43:23

a little say man. Yeah, they want to be heard and we're getting tired of social media Is that forum because it's turned to trash so

Konate: 43:29

people looking for a little bit more? Yeah Professional, a little

Mic: 43:32

more respectable,

Konate: 43:33

a little more calm, and less crazy. That's true, that's true. And I think, like I was telling him, I think that It's one of the, I'm not saying, it's easy in a sense of, There's always something going on in social media, rather be entertaining or something serious like, you know, like we did one on the war with, um, in Israel, you know what I'm saying? With the Hamas or something. So there's always things going on, so there's always something to talk about. There is. You know, there's always something, even if you don't, even if you're off social media and you put on TV, CNN, MSNBC, even Fox, there's always something

Mic: 44:10

there's not, they'll make it up. Yeah.

DJ And?: 44:13

Exactly. I tried to miss it this week. I couldn't miss it. I mean, I work at an orthopedic office. And so I try to avoid all the news all week because I knew some crazy stuff about to happen. Some f boy stuff was about to pop off. So I try not to pay attention to it. By the time I got to Thursday. I hate to say it, y'all, because you know basketball started bad. So I'm up here trying to watch LeBron and them play basketball, right? That's all I wanted to do. I know it's all... It's a

Mic: 44:35

little distraction. Just a little distraction, right? It's a little pointless stuff that doesn't actually matter but looks really

Konate: 44:40

cool. That's it.

DJ And?: 44:41

That's all I wanted. Boom. This man shoot people, blah, blah, blah. They're doing this for... I said,

Konate: 44:46

what is this? What's basketball, now what are you talking about? Dwight Howard. Yeah. I could not escape it. I could not escape it. And see, and these things, i, I just, I don't know. We just have to cover them. You know what I'm saying? We have to cover them. Try to give, you know, your own perspective, you know, not try to, cause everybody got an opinion. It is, you know, so, you know, trying to be respectful. But you're not going to please everyone, you know what I'm saying? If you think that this is for the faint of heart, then this ain't for you. Film, oh that is not for you. You can't. Say that again. Yeah, you can't please anyone, you know. It's not for the faint of heart. It's not for the faint of heart. We ain't making like, like mid 90s sitcoms

Mic: 45:26

anymore. That's

Konate: 45:28

not to watch. Exactly, exactly. So, you know, there's always something going on. Always.

DJ And?: 45:33

Man, um. All right, so just to wrap up. Yeah, of course. We always like to say being as a creative person because you are a creative man How do you stay consistent in creating your short films? Okay, and What current projects are you working on? Ah, good. This is the work life balance

Konate: 45:52

How do I stay creative with short films well actually right now, okay Right now I'm trying to get away from short film. Okay. I'm trying to go into more feature, right? Mm-Hmm. So, yeah. So, but for, and, and that's the segue into what I'm currently working on. Um, I gotta send a, a shout out to Chantel Broon who yeah. Her birthday the other day. Yeah. I need to hit her up and tell her happy birthday. So. Along with myself, I enlist four other writers. So what I'm trying to, what I want to do, project, upcoming project, is a anthology. So we have seven, now these are short. But, they come back as a feature. Compile them together, then it's like a feature, right? So, it's a short called Ripple. It pertains with Father Time will be narrating different things that have, different stories, but they all are compelling. So everyone, we all graduated from from, from film, you know, got a degree from film school. Went outside and list for other writers, including myself. And but I was trying to get Chantel, cause she's a grant writer. Yeah, so I'm trying to get some funding and you know what the whole Hollywood strike and things like that So she was saying that you know, it's hard to find funding right now. It's kind of dried up. It's kind of dried up exactly Yeah, so that's still there But, to go back to what you said about Tubi, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah,

Mic: 47:19

the Tubi side. Tell us how to make money off of free streaming services.

Konate: 47:22

So, everyone was hitting me up about man, you could put something on Tubi, put something on Tubi. So, I have a love for comedy, right? Yeah. So, I'm currently working on a script right now. Matter of fact, I did some work on it last night. So, I'm currently working on a script called This film, a feature film called The Loser. It's about a young, I know right, but That's about to be dope. That's about a young man who's working. He works in a warehouse. He he got his two best friends employed there or whatever. So he lost, he loses his job, because his friends tried to rob the police. He didn't know it. So they calls him his job. So he loses his apartment. So he tries different hustles from ride sharing and things like that, so he ends up moving back home. Right. And then he realized like, you know, a lot of things happened to me because of YouTube. So it's a comedy, right? But yeah, it's gonna be funny. So, Basically after some time he kind of gets his bearing back and then he, he kind of overcome that obstacle. So it'll be a message in it as well, but it's a comedy. So that will be the feature. That's the one I'm currently working on. Tubi, that will be on Tubi. So hopefully, you know, we should be able to start some type of production maybe the later part of November. Okay. Something like that. That's actually upcoming, you're gonna start

DJ And?: 48:43

it? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Propose or at least say, this is always funny to ask a

Konate: 48:47

proposal. He said, no, honestly, I, I, I keep it open to it. Yeah, yeah, I don't, I don't have

Mic: 48:52

it. So with, with to be, as opposed to somebody who's other stream of services where they're actually like financing you ahead of time with to be, you just make it and show up with it

DJ And?: 49:02

or do they, they have specific

Konate: 49:03

standards. They do have specific standards financing. No, no, no, no financing. So. The same way, it's, okay, the Tubi platform is similar to, I don't know, y'all familiar with Amazon Prime? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because before Tubi... Amazon Prime had a lot of the publishing independent independent

Mic: 49:22

films. We can put a book on, on Amazon book stuff right now. If we wanted to record to Audible, it could be up there too.

Konate: 49:28

Exactly. Which, you know, you still have some, even BET plus have some of those films too. Which now I don't know how to get on that platform. You know

DJ And?: 49:38

it. Right. Oh my

Konate: 49:42

God. Oh,

DJ And?: 49:43

I'll be trying to, I'll be feeling bad because I'll be trying to like show them solidarity. But

Konate: 49:50

yeah, that's a whole segment. So, but how their platform works is so once I do the film in the same way with prime, you have to be the marketing, you have to promote it. Oh, I

Mic: 50:01

see. Right. Right. Cause they're not going to put anything into

Konate: 50:03

it. No, they're not going to put nothing into it. So with with, with, with prime. You only get base paid off streaming. With Tubi... If it streams, they run, that's why it got to be long, they run the commercials. So if, yeah, so if it's, if it's, if it's long enough and you're getting a lot of people streaming it, then there's certain ads to go there and then you get your percentages that

Mic: 50:27

way. Oh, I see, I see. The more views you get, then the better ads they can run in it. So there's actually, it's not just like a straight up per view, there's

Konate: 50:35

kind of a, Right, exactly. Interesting. Yeah, so, so I would do a whole campaign. Of course, I would do Private viewing at the auditorium. Yep. Then have everyone you know, by that time it may be on YouTube, I'm not sure, but by that time and then they can all you know, Q code it and then go straight there and then I'll do a big social media rollout. Yep. Mm-Hmm. and stuff. Get some Apple can tell your friends. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, that works. Try to do a big platform and like you love the film. If it's funny. People are

DJ And?: 51:04

going to love, they're going to go and put people, cause everybody

Konate: 51:06

loves comedy. Exactly. Exactly. And they watching everything else on it anyway, so. Even the trashy stuff.

Mic: 51:11

So look, cause I'm know we got Tubi on the TV at home. I know, I do. Look, I'm,

DJ And?: 51:18

I'm, I'm, I know I'm guilty. I've been watching, I've been looking for the trash show so I can see it. So look, if you have a good product. Right. It's going to fly. It's going to fly. And you can tell it, they do. That Toomey does a good job of letting those good products fly. But, um, you have to drop your social, man. Just let people know how they can find you, where to get your actual content, and etc. Yeah, yeah,

Konate: 51:38

if they want to find me and see what I'm, you know, currently, what's up and coming my Instagram that'd be the best way, is ivyleague. It's i underscore v underscore league. Which is my, that's my film. Production Ivy League films and then of course um, Black Summit podcast. And we also talk about things that's up and coming on there as well because my co host he's a filmmaker as well. Perfect. So it gives you a way to. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. You get to plug things and let other people come on and they plug their, their things as well. So, you know, platform for everybody. Excellent. Excellent. Well,

DJ And?: 52:13

we would love

Tamyia: 52:14

to come on. Just just to say we would love to come on your

DJ And?: 52:17

platform. Yep. Yeah. Go ahead. Yeah. We'd love to be a guest. Oh, really? Y'all what?

Konate: 52:23

I

Tamyia: 52:24

mean, it's a lot. It's a lot of, you know, Yeah. It's four.

Konate: 52:26

Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. We'll bring y'all in the studio, man. We have it set up, man. Everything, everybody, all mic'd up and everything. Oh, we definitely

DJ And?: 52:35

don't stay in

Mic: 52:36

contact. Cross production and branding and things, yeah. Yeah,

DJ And?: 52:38

we better. All right. And we gotta make sure somebody's here. Oh yeah, we'll get y'all in person. Because she was actually really pumped to see you today. So that's why

Konate: 52:45

we're happy to be able to get her on the phone. Cause you know, Samaya. Am I saying it right? Tamiya. Oh, Tamiya. I'm sorry. Yeah. Chantel had texted me and said that she said, yeah, we want to shadow you. Yup. Cause Chantel was telling me that for the longest. So she got to see, I just recently shot a promo video for their app. So, but she was, she was a talent. So she got to see some of what I did. I shot it at their offices. Stainless case it. A big, you know what I'm saying? So yeah, I shot. She hasn't seen it yet. She hasn't? She hasn't. Yeah, I already edited and everything and did the graphics, did the color grade and put the royalty free music and had it cut up and everything. So she'll see it Monday. Oh, she get to see it Monday. Yeah, I'm gonna be ready

Tamyia: 53:27

because I've been watching. I've been watching the masterclass short films. I've been watching the masterclass is like crazy. Okay.

Konate: 53:33

That's what's up. I might put y'all to work because I was using PAs now. See, we all see us in the

Mic: 53:42

street, we still fanboying over all of the same stuff, and we still trying to figure out how to do what we want to do in this

Konate: 53:49

world. We are normal humans. Yep, as long as we help one another and share the information, you know, the sky's the limit. Collaboration over competition. There it

DJ And?: 54:03

is. Yes, exactly. Well, we're going to wrap it up here at the Hilltop Club podcast. I just want to let you know. My name is DJ and what is Mike on the phone? We have there we go. And we're here with our esteemed guest today. Can I tell you

Konate: 54:18

Hendricks? Thank you, man. I appreciate it. I'm humble. I'm blessed that you guys have me much love and success to you guys. And I look forward to seeing y'all on the black summit one day. That's what I'm talking about.

DJ And?: 54:30

Well, shoot. We want to sign out today. Just want to let you know, um, if you have somebody next to you, any family members, et cetera, please tell them that you love them, that you cherish them. Um, and until the next time on the Hilltop Club podcast, peace.