![]() ![]() And that's where I became a filmmaker - by just actually doing stuff. If you're not working on your films, you're working on your classmates' films. We spent very little time in the classroom, without making films. All you had to do was submit a creative portfolio, and I was accepted.įor the next three years, that's all I did was make films. But, luckily for NYU, you didn't have to take a test (applause). Unfortunately for me, at USC and UCLA you had to get an astronomical score on the GRE, (and I still feel a lot of those standardized tests are culturally biased). We only had the facilities for Super 8, so I wanted to learn film grammar, learn how to make a film, and I applied to the top three film schools - USC, UCLA and NYU. Upon graduation, I still did not have the necessary tools to be a filmmaker. When school began I showed it to my class and I got a favorable response and that's a great feeling, the initial time that happens, where you do something and people respond to it. My first film was a Super 8 film called Last Hustle in Brooklyn, which was really like a highlight film of Black people and Puerto Rican people looting and dancing. People were having these block parties all around the city and that's when the dance the hustle was out. And in the summer of 1977, which in New York City was the summer of the Son of Sam and also the blackout, I could not find a job and I bought a Super 8 camera and I went around New York City that whole summer just shooting stuff. Mostly because it encompassed all the arts. When I chose mass communications., for me film was the thing I'd think this was what I wanted to do. Now I see that if my parents didn't insist on it, even with me kicking and screaming, I'd have not become a film maker. Now I could see that that exposure was very important, even though I didn't know that that was what I wanted to do, even though I didn't want to see these plays, I did not want to see my father play jazz. I remember going to see Broadway plays, The King and I, stuff like that. We were raised, all my siblings, we were raised in a very creative environment. My father is Bill Lee the jazz bassist, and I grew up with him taking me to hear him playing in clubs in the Village. I was very fortunate because my parents were very creative. I chose mass communications - and that major encompassed film, TV, print journalism, and radio. And like most underclassmen there comes a point where you run out of the elective classes you can take (laughter) and you have to declare a major. So going to college, I went to Morehouse College, Atlanta, Georgia, I'd no idea of what I wanted to do. In fact growing up I wanted to be a professional athlete, I wanted to play second base in the New York Mets, but genetics conspired against (laughter) that dream happening. We just went there, and showed up, and the projector was turned on, and stuff was on the screen. I never knew that people actually made movies. Growing up in Brooklyn, New York, we went to the matinees regularly and sat through the film six times every Saturday and drank all the Coca Cola we could drink and ate all the popcorn we could eat and threw stuff at the screen and tried not to get thrown out. Unlike most filmmakers, I did not see a film when I was four years old and decide that was what I wanted to do. ![]() I'm glad to be here, and thank you very much. (Publisher's note: Please note we have no connection to Spike Lee and emails to our magazine will not reach Spike Lee. If you'd like to listen to these talks go to HotWired magazine. In Motion Magazine thanks Capretta Communications in San Francisco for all their help in getting us into the conference and providing materials for this coverage. Laurie Anderson played music and sang/performed a set arranged for the evening. For a brief biography of Spike Lee and a complete listing of his work in film, videos, commercials and books - click here. He then showed some of the commercials he directed for Nike and Levi's as well as an extended version of music video he did for Michael Jackson. ![]() Spike Lee told of his early years as an independent filmaker and some of the efforts to release the movie Malcolm X. Each of the three presented their work and ideas in their own way. Billed as a progressive interactive event featuring original multimedia presentations the Imagination conference featured movie producer and director Spike Lee, musician and artist Brian Eno, and performance artist and musician Laurie Anderson. ![]() The following talk was given by Spike Lee at the Imagination Conference in San Francsico, June 8, 1996. ![]()
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