![]() It was interesting considering I grew up on the South Side of Chicago - one of the most segregated cities in the country.” Early in his career, Simmons with then-camera assistant (now operator and cinematographer) Michelle Crenshaw. “At USC, I was the only Black kid in the department. The camera came from Roz and Cal Bernstein, who owned a production company called Dove Films. Before I knew it, Carlton was sending me a subscription to American Cinematographer, and shortly after that, he sent me a 16mm Arriflex S with a 400' magazine, some film, and written instructions on how to load the camera. Carlton brought him by my little 50-dollar-a-month apartment, and through a translator, Ousmane said the same thing Carlton had when he saw my paintings and photography. I didn’t even know what a cinematographer was.Ī filmmaker named Ousmane Sembène - the father of African cinema - came to Fisk to screen two pictures he’d made, Black Girl and Mandabi (the latter based on his novel The Money-Order). You’ve got the eye of a cinematographer.” He took a look at my photographs and said, “Whoa. Carlton - without saying it - was an activist. It’s about Black soldiers behind enemy lines in Europe, and it has been preserved in the National Film Registry of the Library of Congress. ![]() government commissioned during World War II. He wrote and starred in a picture called The Negro Soldier (1944), a follow-up to the Why We Fight series the U.S. While there, I met a man who would become my mentor, Carlton Moss, who was a film director, writer and historian. I was taking still pictures and painting - it was a very embracing environment. ![]() My career began while I was in undergraduate school at Fisk University, located in Nashville, Tenn., which is one of the oldest historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs) in the country. I wanted to help create environments where any 12-year-old girl, no matter what color she was, or any 12-year-old boy, no matter where he came from, would be able to walk onto my stage, stand in the doorway, and see the possibility of a future. ![]() A call to action from John Simmons, ASC: “Who’s going to feel compelled to take responsibility to change things?” At top, the author and cinematographer on the set.Įver since my early days working out of a grip truck, I knew that when I was in a position to make decisions, it would be my responsibility to assemble crews that looked like the world we live in. ![]()
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