{"article":{"id":218486,"heading":"Q around the block to see this film","author":"Q","created":"2008-06-24 13:25:27","modified":"2013-11-11 00:53:46","last_modified":"Mon, 11 Nov 2013 07:53:46","article":"<p>The Deadmeat story began in London in 1990, having left drama school where he trained with <br>  <br> American Drama Coach Doreen Cannon at RADA, who taught the likes of Pierce Brosnan and <br>  <br> many other well known Hollywood actors. Q found work as a film actor, with Ken Russell in Aria, <br>  <br> and then with Bruce Beresford in Mr. Johnson, a drama set in 1920&rsquo;s Africa. &ldquo;Bruce had just <br>  <br> finished Driving Miss Daisy with Morgan Freeman, and he told me that with the limited <br>  <br> opportunities for black actors in Britain. I&rsquo;d have a better chance if I wrote a book or a <br>  <br> screenplay. I began Deadmeat soon afterwards and when it was finished. I used desktop <br>  <br> publishing software to design it myself. I had the first part printed as a pocket-sized, 60 page <br>  <br> booklet and started selling.&rdquo; He converted his Ford Escort into a mobile Deadmeat billboard and <br>  <br> sold the book in night clubs for &pound;5 a copy. A lot of people I met thought I was crazy, but I <br>  <br> eventually sold almost 4,000 copies.&rdquo; The concluding booklet was followed by a cassette and <br>  <br> videotape and Q gradually built up a cult following. <br><br> Fab 5 Freddy the host of &ldquo;YO! MTV RAPS&rdquo; saw Q selling books in a nightclub in London, and was <br>  <br> so impressed that he interviewed him on the show and turned him into a &ldquo;clubland maverick.&rdquo; <br>  <br> Q finally found a mainstream publisher, Sceptre, whose approach to marketing appealed to him <br>  <br> and he wrote a &ldquo;remixed&rdquo; version, which a member of the West Yorkshire Playhouse <br>  <br> recommended to director Jude Kelly and they turned it into a multimedia drama, which starred Sir <br>  <br> Ian Mckellen of &rdquo;X-men&rdquo; fame, who appeared as a manipulative art dealer, and they weaved <br>  <br> digital film, photography, websites, rap, a live band, disc jockeys, poetry, gospel singing and <br>  <br> audience participation onto a framework of a &ldquo;straight&rdquo; stage dialogue. Live, filmed and virtual <br>  <br> characters appeared on the stage and the big screens. &ldquo;Did Sir Ian McKellen need to do a <br>  <br> project like this?&rdquo; asks Q, &ldquo;No, the fact that he was prepared to take the risk was a great statement <br>  <br> in favour of what we were doing.&rdquo; <br><br> Influenced by French films, such as Betty Blue and L&rsquo;argent, Q set out on his quest to make <br>  <br> Deadmeat into a movie, he was commissioned to make a pilot, he decided to make an interactive <br>  <br> short film that was linked to the imagery of his website, the short was picked up by UIP in London <br>  <br> and placed in front of the Keanu Reeves movie &ldquo;The Watcher&rdquo; in over 20 cinemas. <br><br> Q was discovered by the iconic fashion photographer Nick Knight when he accompanied a friend <br>  <br> onto a shoot, and together they went on to shoot major campaigns for top fashion designers. He <br>  <br> forged a personal friendship with designer Ozwald Boateng and did his fashion shows in London <br>  <br> and Paris, and still wears his suits to this day. Ozwald has said that Q is the only person that looks <br>  <br> better in his suits than him. <br><br> Q has continued to work as an actor appearing in prime time shows such as &ldquo;Waking The <br>  <br> Dead, Silent Witness and Ruth Rendell Mysteries.&rdquo; Deadmeat the movie brings together a <br>  <br> stellar cast of Britain&rsquo;s best black actor&rsquo;s and with the same flare as Spike Lee and Tyler <br>  <br> Perry, it is written, directed and produced by Q. <br><br> The film has done a clean sweep of the black festivals in Los Angeles, namely The American <br>  <br> Black Film Festival, The Pan African Film festival and now the Hollywood Black Film festival. <br>  <br> It has won the Best British Feature at the Black Filmmaker&rsquo;s Festival in London. It has won <br>  <br> The Accolade Award For Excellence in California. Q was nominated for the best director of a <br>  <br> first feature in the Pan African Film Festival. <br><br> &ldquo;There is a new wave of Black British Talent who are working very successfully within the <br>  <br> American movie industry, such as Idris Elba and Marianne Jean-Baptiste, that is what he <br>  <br> aspires to do.  <br><br> Q is pleased the primary film festivals in urban Hollywood have all made him <br>  <br> feel welcome and have given Q the opportunity to showcase his work, network and meet <br>  <br> their great talent in all departments of the business, it has changed the way he thinks about <br>  <br> making films and it has raised the bar, what more could an aspiring filmmaker ask for?&rdquo; <br><br>  <br>  <br> <\/p>\n","contact":"q@deadmeat.com","link":"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/deadmeatmovie","address":"","phone":"","parent_id":0,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","summary":"A Black British indie filmmaker makes waves in Hollywood, with a low budget feature.\r\n\r\ntrailers 2.30 seonds and 1.22 seconds","numcomment":0,"fileurl":"\/uploads\/2008\/06\/q3.jpg","filesize":"2.0 mebibytes","article_url":"\/news\/2008\/06\/218486.php","image":{"original":"\/uploads\/2008\/06\/q3.jpg","small":"\/uploads\/2008\/06\/q3.jpgthumb.jpg","medium":"\/uploads\/2008\/06\/q3.jpgmid.jpg"}},"attachments":[{"id":218487,"heading":"High Q rating","article":"","author":"Q","parent_id":218486,"mime_type":"application\/pdf","created":"2008-06-24 13:25:27","modified":"2008-06-24 13:25:27","fileurl":"\/usr\/local\/www-domains\/la.indymedia.org\/public\/uploads\/2008\/06\/kwabena_manso_press_usa.pdf"},{"id":218488,"heading":"Q here to be part of the club action","article":"","author":"Q","parent_id":218486,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","created":"2008-06-24 13:25:27","modified":"2008-06-24 13:25:27","fileurl":"\/usr\/local\/www-domains\/la.indymedia.org\/public\/uploads\/2008\/06\/press_1.jpg","image":{"original":"\/usr\/local\/www-domains\/la.indymedia.org\/public\/uploads\/2008\/06\/press_1.jpg"}},{"id":218489,"heading":"Q here for an Internet Thriller","article":"","author":"Q","parent_id":218486,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","created":"2008-06-24 13:25:27","modified":"2008-06-24 13:25:27","fileurl":"\/usr\/local\/www-domains\/la.indymedia.org\/public\/uploads\/2008\/06\/press_2.jpg","image":{"original":"\/usr\/local\/www-domains\/la.indymedia.org\/public\/uploads\/2008\/06\/press_2.jpg"}},{"id":218490,"heading":"Right on Q","article":"","author":"Q","parent_id":218486,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","created":"2008-06-24 13:25:27","modified":"2008-06-24 13:25:27","fileurl":"\/usr\/local\/www-domains\/la.indymedia.org\/public\/uploads\/2008\/06\/q_press_6.jpg","image":{"original":"\/usr\/local\/www-domains\/la.indymedia.org\/public\/uploads\/2008\/06\/q_press_6.jpg"}},{"id":218491,"heading":"Q-ing up for deadmeat","article":"","author":"Q","parent_id":218486,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","created":"2008-06-24 13:25:27","modified":"2008-06-24 13:25:27","fileurl":"\/usr\/local\/www-domains\/la.indymedia.org\/public\/uploads\/2008\/06\/press_film_4.jpg","image":{"original":"\/usr\/local\/www-domains\/la.indymedia.org\/public\/uploads\/2008\/06\/press_film_4.jpg"}},{"id":218492,"heading":"Q play for tomorrow","article":"","author":"Q","parent_id":218486,"mime_type":"image\/jpeg","created":"2008-06-24 13:25:28","modified":"2008-06-24 13:25:28","fileurl":"\/usr\/local\/www-domains\/la.indymedia.org\/public\/uploads\/2008\/06\/press_3.jpg","image":{"original":"\/usr\/local\/www-domains\/la.indymedia.org\/public\/uploads\/2008\/06\/press_3.jpg"}}],"comments":[]}