This episode of Myths Exposed has Unique Access sitting down with legendary director and actor Bill Duke. The New York native starts off by talking about the three stages of directing.
“Directing is an interesting phenom, pre-production, production and post-production,” Duke explains. “In pre-production, you are preparing for production, which means you take this script you are given and you have a vision that you are passing on to the crew and cast, which helps you manifest that vision on the screen.”
Duke talks about how most people think of directing in that creative process and that it is a very important process, but that there is more.
“The foundation of directing in terms of getting those images and getting that filmed on screen is the job of management,” he says. “You are managing three things: time, people and you’re managing money. If you don’t have the ability to manage time, people or money, you don’t work. Learning this came to me because I was very fortunate to start off as a TV director. It was wonderful because I took all the jobs that no one else wanted, like holidays and vacations. In those days, there were not a lot of black directors in TV.”
Duke expresses he learned the practical side of his craft on the show Knots Landing. “In those days, you had seven days to prep and seven days to shoot. When I came to feature films and I had six weeks to prep and eight weeks to shoot, I was in heaven. TV had prepared me for features.”
That preparation helps Duke with his work today.
“Directing is a skill I studied for many years and there are directors I know that went to school for directing, but there is a skill directing and using the camera,” Duke says before sharing an antidote about working with a new director. “I went up to this director who also was the writer of the script and I explained to him that there was a contradiction in the script. The director told me to be more green and I still have no idea what that means.”