Janae Pierre: All right, here we go. Thanks for sticking with us on The Takeaway. I'm Janae Pierre filling in for Melissa Harris-Perry. In the wake of George Floyd's murder in 2020, Black students at Southern Methodist University began tweeting, resurfacing the #BlackatSMU, which had previously been used in 2015 to tell their experiences of being part of an underrepresented minority at the school.

Actor: I was told, If you want to be Malcolm X, quit the team so I can have your scholarship. If Black Lives Matter so much, why do you focus on the ones that are not on the field? #BlackAtSMU.

Janae Pierre: That was a scene from a film looking at those stories with roots reaching back as far as 1969, the film #BlackAtSMU has been on the festival circuit and recently was shortlisted by the March on Washington Film Festival's emerging in student filmmaker competition.

Jillian Taylor: I am Jillian Taylor and I'm the producer.

Crislyn Fayson: Hello, my name is Crislyn Fayson.

Aysia Lane: I'm Aysia Lane.

Crislyn Fayson: We are the co-directors of #BlackAtSMU.

Janae Pierre: I asked Crislyn how this film came about and what made them want to explore the history at SMU.

Crislyn Fayson: It began as a non-fiction production class taught by Amber Bemak, a film professor here at SMU. She was curating a team of students basically to research the #BlackAtSMU on Twitter. Me and Aysia were both chosen to be in the class and it was a year course, so through the first semester, we were able to do research, and then through the second semester, we created the film. We shot the film.

Janae Pierre: This isn't a traditional documentary. You used a number of different approaches here, some interviews, a real-time conversation between students and also a scripted scene. You also used though a dance performance that I thought was really powerful. Tell me why you chose to structure the film that way.

Aysia Lane: This is Aysia. I'm tagging in here. Initially, I think to understand the dance scene is to understand the class that Crislyn was referring to. A part of that research was us breaking up into our own topics. I'll use myself as an example. I was researching athletics and what it's like to be a Black athlete on our campus. We were interviewing people. We had some people who were doing archival research, so each person had some research to present at the end of the semester.

The way we chose to present that was through an outline of a scene. Having those chapters in the film, the five chapters that we came with, that was a result of those loose outlines that we had at the end of the very first semester of research. That idea was actually, Everton Mellows, He is one of our associate producers on the film, and he came up with that scene being a dance. From there, me and Crislyn really worked to make sure that we could have that show on camera and really embody the tweet and the story there.

Choosing that structure felt the best just because all of these were such individual and niche events that happened, and we wanted to make sure that we didn't blur the lines by trying to make one longer story. Keeping those five chapters really felt like keeping the integrity of each of their stories.

Janae Pierre: Jillian, as the producer, I'm sure you have a little more to add as far as the structure of the film, right?

Jillian Taylor: Yes. The ideation behind those chapters was a bit like directors pitching for a project. The five people that made the ideas for these chapters did it independent of each other. I think that was really successful in making sure that the way that each story was conveyed was distinct from the others. It was specific to that tweet. All the chapters are very different. It also, the purpose it serves as an audience is some people really connect with the dance piece and on the interviews that are maybe bored, but personally, as somebody with a journalism background, I love the interview part.

I'm super engaged, but the dance piece I'm a little bit more dense for. The different chapters connect with different people in very unique ways, and I think that makes the story a lot more powerful.

Janae Pierre: What was the reaction like on campus?

Crislyn Fayson: I would say that the Black students in particular, which me and Aysia really discussed about who we wanted our audience to be for this film. We knew we were following suit with every student who went to Twitter and shared their experience. We wanted this to be a film that made the Black students feel empowered and seen. In terms of their reaction, they were motivated, excited, some even shocked not realizing that this had happened to their peers or people who came before them on the campus.

It was a beautiful reaction, an awesome and affirming reaction from the Black student body. I'd also say all of the student body. There were a lot of students who were very thankful that we did this work, that we committed to it. No matter how scary it might have seemed holding the campus accountable, but truly it was a really nice accepted reaction from our student body.

Jillian Taylor: The in-person premier that we did on campus about 400 students came, which our campus is about 6,000, so that's a pretty good turnout for a student screening. The event was just incredible to be at because it was usually students that were already in support of us. A lot of the people that were in the film came and their friends. After the event, we all broke up and did conversation pods where we had some facilitators that led people through talking about the film and processing it some.

Just the experience of watching 400 students from our campus all sitting on this-- It was night and we had some lights up and it was very atmospheric and these people were having deep conversations about the history of racism on campus. It was just this incredibly impactful experience to watch people process through this film.

Aysia Lane: Also. This is Aysia. I'm just wanting to give some more context about the timing of the film overall. It came at a really intense time on our campus. We had the Association of Black students that I was a part of at the time. I was public relations chair releasing demands to the president and the university. We had that going on. We also had Black Lives Matter BLM at SMU that was born in that time.

This was just a time of consistent change for the Black community and wanting even better, especially coming off the heels of a Ahmaud Arbery, George Floyd, and Breonna Taylor. The context and the timing of this is something that I really think played a part in how receptive people were to the film.

Janae Pierre: You all spoke about the reaction from the student body, but what about university officials? What are you hearing from them?

Crislyn Fayson: In terms of what we know, there were some professors who came to the premier on Dallas Hall line, which is where we screened it on campus. A lot of professors were glad that the students were finally supporting themselves, speaking out for themselves in a way that was different than they had seen before. In terms of the people who we can tangibly say, we saw their reactions. They were very receptive and they were thankful and interested in the film, and some even wanted to add the film into their curriculum.

Jillian Taylor: This is Jillian. Our main focus was really on students for this film. The professors that we worked with were very, very supportive. To be clear, I'm not sure we really saw the reaction of higher-ups at our university.

Janae Pierre: Each of you are still students at SMU. Do you think things are changing at the university?

Jillian Taylor: It can be hard to tell, because the students that we see usually from the art school or the students that we encounter, we got such positive feedback and such cool conversations come from this film, but there's a hidden world at SMU that is harder to reach. There's maybe a silent majority of students who probably didn't have a very good reaction to this film, that we just don't really hear or see that often because it's a little bit self-contained and that's the part of SMU that's really hard to crack into.

The goal with this film is that it's inspiring enough conversations that'll start to reach that hidden majority. It's really hard to crack into and really hard to get an accurate read on. I can't exactly tell with that part of campus, but it inspired some really incredible conversation within the sphere of people at the screening and who we are interacting with.

Aysia Lane: This is Aysia. To add to that. I think that was beautifully said, Jillian. I also want to say on the flip side of that, within the Black community, I think people are still very much working towards the change that the film is seeking to inspire. I know that there are still conversations happening with people in position of power on the side of students.

We have student leaders from organizations, like I mentioned earlier, the Association of Black Students. I know we have BUF, the Black Unity Forum at SMU that's been formed also within that timeframe of 2020 and 2021, so these conversations are definitely still happening within the Black community. I think people are still very much inspired. We actually have people wanting to see the film who are newer, underclassmen who were not there during the screening and have heard about it, so I think the Black community is very motivated still going off of those flames from the screening and watching that film.

Janae Pierre: I know you've screened at festivals and you just won recognition from the March on Washington Film Festival, so congratulations on that, but I'm curious, what has been the reception off campus?

Aysia Lane: I think as we're getting a more broad audience of people, people who are completely unrelated to SMU in the sense that they've either never heard of the University or maybe they're not even from Texas, having those eyes on the film firstly is a blessing because I think these conversations extend far past SMU, extend far past Texas. It's a larger issue about being Black at a predominantly white institution, a PWI. From my understanding of what I've heard and the feedback that we've been receiving is that people are shocked in a lot of cases that these things have happened within recent years, because a lot of these stories, in fact, majority of them are within the past four to five years at SMU.

A lot of people are, I think, disappointed that conversations like this are still happening for this newer generation given that we are supposed to be theoretically far past these situations, so it's mainly been disappointment in the reality and shocked, but also very exciting for some people that we are still challenging these things within our generation. It's been a positive reception from my point of view.

Jillian Taylor: Janae, this isn't exactly answering your question, but can I ask something to Aysia just answer real quick?

Janae Pierre: Sure.

Jillian Taylor: Something I've think we've seen happen when we're showing it outside of SMU. We also did a private screening at an ad agency, the Richards Group. Something that I hear from people is just like, "Wow, this is terrible. This happens on campus? Whoa." They talk about it as if it's like contained to SMU, to Southern Methodist University. Something that I think it's really showing me is this film is about SMU. Sure, but it's true for any predominantly white space.

That's the goal is here's a specific look at SMU, but these kind of instances, these kind of interactions are happening all the time, and I think sometimes people don't realize this film is specific to one location, but the story is not. I think sometimes people misunderstand that when they watch the film because they're thinking about, "Oh, SMU has all these problems," but it's true for a lot of white spaces. I sometimes wish the conversation would, and I usually say that like, this is probably true for wherever you are too. Like, this is not specific to SMU.

This happens everywhere. Especially for white people, you don't notice it as visibly until you see it on a screen, and so I think it's important for people to watch the film and to try to think about where in their workplace, in their school, in their social circles, these exact same things are happening, that they're just invisible and they're not seeing at the time.

Aysia Lane: This is Aysia. One more thing on that really quickly, SMU in terms of the situations that we're showing that happened would not be able to exist if the outside world didn't perpetuate that. SMU is a just result of what we're already seeing in the larger society that we're in right now, so ne doesn't exist without the other.

Janae Pierre: Tell me what's next for each of you? What are you doing right now although I know you're right inside the fall semester here, but can we expect more films from you?

Jillian Taylor: Yes.

Crislyn Fayson: Yes. For sure. This is Crislyn. [laughs] On behalf of all of us. Yes, for sure. For me, I think graduating this semester, I have an internship I'm finishing up in the spring, but with that time being out of school, I'm definitely going to get back to writing, to just being in a place where homework and my priorities look a little different, where I'm able to really sit in what inspires me creatively, Black stories, Black work, documentary, so yes, I'm excited for that. It's really going to be like a sit back time to write and refill again.

Jillian Taylor: This is Jillian. I think it's fair to say that producing this film was probably a life-changing experience for all of us. It was just we were doing this incredibly powerful work and also just loving being around each other the whole time, and so I think that we all got a taste of what it's like to work with a passionate, connected team. I love uplifting people who have something to say, that's what a producer should do.

It's just an incredible role to fill and I would be just thrilled to keep doing it forever because just supporting people like Aysia and Crislyn, using their creativity to tell an important story is such a cool experience that I am going to look for the rest of my career. I'm going to look to do that over, over and over, because it's just incredible to do.

Aysia Lane: This is Aysia. I want to echo that same sentiment. I'd be re-missed if I didn't give these women their roses and their props for just being amazing human beings firstly, but also just brilliant filmmakers in every regard and really maintaining ethics. I'm also from a journalism background, I think being ethical is so important, especially given social media right now. As for me and what I'm going to do, I think that's a great question. [laughs] I definitely do want to make films.

Hopefully, you will see my name on some more films coming up. I'm actually shooting my first solo directorial debut film this October. Yes, really exciting stuff. That's happening in October, and that will be hopefully out and about by January, but I'm really excited about that. Long-term, I do really want to be telling stories, so I also want to be writing like I said with journalism. Storytelling is really just what I want to do. I'm not too picky about how I do that, but as long as I'm being creative, as long as I'm telling stories that need to be told, then I'm very happy.

Janae Pierre: Jillian Taylor, Aysia Lane, and Crislyn Fayson are creators of the film, #BlackASMU. Ladies, thanks for joining us today.

Jillian Taylor: Thank you so much.

Aysia Lane: Thank you, guys.

[00:18:05] [END OF AUDIO]

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