MasterClass: Spike Lee Teaches Independent Filmmaking

We never had the money to shoot the film in its entirety.

Everybody knew it.

I knew it.

Warner Brothers knew it.

The bond company knew it.

But I said we gotta go because they waited 20 years already,

and who knows might be another 20 years.

We always knew there would be that fateful day when

we would run out of money.

We started September.

We went to Christmas, and we had a break.

And after the break, we came -- holidays we had to go overseas.

We had to go to Egypt, Cairo.

We're-- and also we wanted to end the film in South Africa.

Came back from overseas and soon after that,

all the people working on the film post-production,

got a registered letter they were fired.

There were meetings before that because Warner Brothers not

want the film to be the length that it was.

And economically the three-hour film

means one less showing in the movie theater.

But we knew that we needed that time to show the full totality

of this man's life, of Malcolm X's--

Detroit Red, Malcolm X, El Hajj--

you know, so you needed the time to show the evolution

of this great man.

But Warner Brothers, they weren't having it.

So we were just shut down.

And I was like, damn.

This shit's fucked up.

And when the bond company takes over a film,

Warner Brothers is out of it.

They said, look Spike's not going to cut the film.

All right, we're done with it.

Let the bond company take over.

Studied Malcolm for a year prior to shooting.

No, I try learn as much as I could about the man,

and suddenly I kept thinking about self-determination,

self-reliance.

Self-determination self-reliance.

Self-determination, self-reliance.

You know what?

There's something there.

I said I know some Black folks.

They got some money.

But here's the trick though.

If I was going to ask somebody for money,

they would have to know it's not an investment

and you can't write this off.

I said that's the only way I'm going

to be able to get the money.

I mean, we've got to forget about the bond company.

We've got to come up with some money

somehow so I could at least hire my editor Barry Brown so we

could work on a film and not just be,

you know, pulling our dicks.

We got to work on this film.

I made a list of prominent African Americans

that got money.

Numerous people-- Tracy Chapman, Janet Jackson, Prince,

Oprah Winfrey.

There's an African-American woman, an entrepreneur named

Peggy Cooper Cafritz, her.