Word: singleton
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...condescending attitude didn't make Singleton popular with his fellow film students, many of whom found him "arrogant" and "too intense." His professors, however, were won over by his determination to master the elements of structure, dialogue and character development that go into the craft of a good screenplay. "In his freshman year I wouldn't have predicted his success, but John used this program," says Margaret Mehring, who recently retired as head of the writing program. "He was driven to communicate certain ideas, and he was not about to take no for an answer." By the time he graduated...
...been out of school just a month when Columbia Pictures made a bid to buy Boyz N the Hood. Instead of gratefully accepting the offer, Singleton insisted that he be allowed to direct the film. His entire directorial experience at that point consisted of a few homework assignments with an 8-mm camera. "So many bad films had been made about black people, and most of them had been done by people who weren't African American," he says. "I wasn't going to let some fool from Idaho or Encino direct a movie about living in my neighborhood...
Price's huge risk paid off handsomely, but it still exacted a price: expectations for Singleton's future projects will be even higher. So far, Singleton seems to be handling the pressure nicely. Earlier this year, he directed Michael Jackson, Eddie Murphy and Iman in the lavish music video Remember the Time. The director gave himself a cameo role as a camel driver. Next month Singleton will get down to more serious business when he begins shooting his original screenplay Poetic Justice, a lyrical look at relationships between black men and women...
...Singleton has found encouragement in the experiences of other onetime ; wunderkinds who have weathered the vicissitudes of a Hollywood career. He recalls that when he first met Coppola, the older director was screening Jean Cocteau's Orpheus in an attempt to learn how filmmakers achieved special effects in the days before high-tech computer graphics. "What real filmmakers do is they study films, they study their craft," Singleton observes. "No matter how much success they encounter, they are always in the process of studying." Singleton himself watches at least one film a day, a practice he equates with taking vitamins...
PROFILE Director John Singleton: Hollywood's new kid on the block...