An authentic conversation about black excellence

Sly Lives! is more than a dissection of the life and times of Sly Stone - it’s a discussion about his struggles, his talent, and the nature of black genius.

For this piece, we wanted to highlight that fact by offering viewers a chance to experience the discussion directly through the words of the men who endeavored to start it.

I designed our interview questions with the theme of discussion in mind - not just to generate as talking points about the film, but as prompts to get the two men to describe their personal experiences & beliefs that relate to the film.

This was complicated by the fact that we weren’t able to shoot Ahmir and Joseph at the same time, so we gave special instructions to the shoot team to allow the two men to go on tangents or even skip over individual questions if it meant allowing the mean to speak passionately and at length about their beliefs that informed the film.

The resulting footage was extensive, but our process ensured we had everything we needed to craft an award-worthy conversation.