It is like the ultimate “Blair Witch Project” in the hood, you know what I mean? These are definitely not actors in the sense where they have to audition for a feature.
#Snow on tha bluff real or scripted movie#
Even if every scene in the movie is not 100% real, it really goes down and these are real people showing you what really happens in the Bluff. There real wasn’t anything to believe in, it’s to just share it. It’s not a Hollywood production in that aspect.ĭo you know what is real and what isn’t in the film? Did they share that with you or did they keep “tha Bluff” shrowded in mystery? Those cuts you see on Curtis’ face are real. Those people are real and they’re really there. Although “The Wire” was based on reality, all “tha Bluff” is reality.
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It is not like “The Wire” where there was lights-camera-action. I wanted to lend my help to it as much as I could to get it out.Īt the end of the day I can’t worry about what people think, but what I would hope is that people walk away feeling some type of empathy for what they see because these are not actors. The community called the Bluff in Atlanta is a forgotten city. I want to shed light on people that don’t really get it. It is what it is, and the reason why I want to produce is to be involved in stories that I find interesting. But at the end of the day you can’t worry about that. Were you at all nervous about backing something like this?Īs a producer, you’re always nervous about what is going to be received properly or not. So I just got in contact with them and I send I’d like to help to make this thing complete and after that I stayed out of their way. I saw that from the clips that I’d seen on YouTube and Twitter. Obviously they were already on to something. Given that the film wasn’t completed when you initially came on board, what did you bring to the project apart from your clout as an established artist? I got in contact with the director, Damon, and said, “How can I see more of this?” We got it together and shot the footage for the feature film and it got picked up.
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It intrigued me enough to make me want to see more. And then I saw another clip of this guy cut really badly on his face, and that reminded me of when I got cut on my face. The first thing I thought was, “Wow, this guy looks like the real live Omar Little,” you know, Curtis. A friend of mine brought this clip for me that was floating around YouTube. The way I got involved was actually through Twitter. How did you get involved with this film in particular?
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Your visibility obviously helps you get behind projects like these and promote stories that you are extremely passionate about. The director, Damon Russell, initially coy about what was real and what was scripted, now emphasizes that “Snow on the Bluff” isn’t a record of actual events, that it’s just another lo-fi indie film, like “The Blair Witch Project.” Nothing to see here, officer.Indiewire caught up with Williams to find out how and why he came onto the project (directed by Damon Russell), and what Wu-Tang Clan fans can expect of his upcoming turn as Ol’ Dirty Bastard in the biopic of the rapper, “Dirty White Boy.” Because the footage is so raw, they say, the Atlanta police sought it as evidence in some criminal investigations. The makers of “Snow on tha Bluff” flip that reasoning. Often makers of feature films using a documentary’s tools - hand-held cameras, jumpy cuts, ambient lighting, fragmented narrative - say they do so to approximate reality. No one seems to have a steady job, and there’s no shaking the sense of wasted souls in a forsaken sector of society.
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This riveting account of thug life - the unglamorous, impoverished variety - is punctuated by constant profanity and undecipherable slang, occasional violence, steady drinking and weed or crack smoking. “They say drugs kill you,” he says to the camera, before disagreeing: “They help you out.
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We also learn about Snow’s business: selling drugs that are largely supplied, it seems, by ripping off other dealers at gunpoint during late-night raids. So we tour the Bluff while he introduces his crew, his baby mama and two toddlers, his grandmother, the street corner where his brother was fatally shot. The dealer, Curtis Snow, steals one other thing too: the idea of filming everything he does. A dealer approaches the car, smoothly talks his way in, directs them to a secluded street, then, pulling out a handgun, robs them of their money and - why not? - the camera. From the start of “Snow on tha Bluff,” which runs without any introductory credits, this jolt of a film drops into a you-are-there crime scene: Three college students - one manning a video camera - drive into the Bluff, a run-down neighborhood in West Atlanta (actually, run-down is being kind), looking to buy drugs.