By Robert Goldrich

Joe Talbot, who recently joined RadicalMedia for global representation spanning commercials, branded content and music videos, made his first major splash as a director with The Last Black Man in San Francisco for which he won the Directing Award for a Dramatic Feature, as well as a Special Jury Prize for Creative Collaboration, at the 2019 Sundance Film Festival. The indie film went on to earn assorted other honors for Talbot, including a DGA Award nomination in 2020 for Outstanding Directorial Achievement in a First-time Feature Film.

The acclaimed movie had its roots back in middle school where Talbot met Jimmie Falls. The kids–one white, one Black–bonded, finding common ground on varied fronts, including being from multi-generation San Francisco families. They talked about their hopes and dreams, and eventually from those informal conversations came a stirring cinematic triumph for them in adulthood, The Last Black Man in San Francisco.

Adapted from Falls’ life story, the film starred  him as a character sharing his actual name, working as a nursing home attendant who wants to return to the Victorian house he grew up in but it’s out of his price range as the neighborhood, San Francisco’s Filmore District—once a bastion of African American culture referred to in some circles as the “Harlem of the West”–has been gentrified. The home, which his grandfather built, is valued at millions of dollars.

The film–which Talbot wrote with Rob Reichert from a story co-authored by Falls–plays in some respects as a poetic lament for those who are displaced, a love story yearning for an America that for many is beyond their reach. The story’s relevance extends well beyond the Bay Area.

Talbot is no stranger to short-form fare. In fact, two years prior to The Last Black Man in San Francisco receiving accolades at Sundance, his short film American Paradise garnered a slot in that festival. And via his former commercialmaking home, m ss ng p eces, Talbot directed an inspired USA Facts commercial in 2021. He also helmed the Adele music video for “I Drink Wine” last year. 

Adele initially reached out to Talbot after seeing The Last Black Man in San Francisco. She was quoted as saying, “whoever directed this, I’ve got to work with him.” In less than a month, the music video generated 20 million views and counting. 

Currently Talbot is getting in gear for his second feature, The Governesses for A24 (the studio on The Last Black Man in San Francisco) with a cast that includes Lily-Rose Depp, HoYean Jung and Renate Reinsve. Prior to embarking on The Governesses, Talbot has a window open for spots, branded entertainment and music videos via RadicalMedia.

SHOOT connected with Talbot who reflected on his career, short and longer-form filmmaking–and how one informs the other–and the allure of RadicalMedia. The interview was edited for brevity and clarity.

SHOOT: What’s the appeal of commercials, branded content and music videos?

Talbot: Creating and getting inspiration from all these filmic mediums. The Burberry ads from Megaforce. I can watch them again and again, the way I would watch a great filmmaker’s work to learn. More of the cool, forward-thinking stuff is happening in the commercial and music video space.

SHOOT: How does your work in short-form, such as the Adele music video, inform your feature endeavors? And conversely do your feature exploits help you bring something different to your commercials and music videos?

Talbot: I’m always trying things out. Some of the best sequences in two-and-a-half-hour films are only a minute long. Shot selection has to be sharp–and becomes truer the shorter the piece is. Every shot matters, particularly in 30 seconds. I’m drawn to an elegant hand–like what [cinematographer] Adam Newport-Berra is doing with Dave Free and Kendrick Lamar. Adam just blew up as a DP from The Last Black Man in San Francisco. Now he’s Kendrick and Free’s go-to guy. [Newport-Berra has shot not only The Last Black Man in San Francisco for Talbot but also the USA Facts campaign, the Adele music video and is set to lens The Governesses as well].

Also with a commercial, you don’t have the benefit of 30 minutes at the beginning of a movie. You have to get people to feel something immediately. You hit an emotion quickly to bring them to your side, to bring them to care. I try to bring that from short form into feature work.

On the feature side, good storytelling is good storytelling. I honed my storytelling in features and it’s exciting to bring that into commercials. Music is a big part of the way I work. I sometimes write music with my composer, Emile Mosseri. We’re writing music ahead of shooting our next film. I did this with him on the USA Facts commercial. There happened to be a piano in one of the locations. He was playing music on set while we were shooting, finding chord expressions that matched expressions of our actors, melodies that go with the piece. We flushed out that melody for what we used on our cut of the commercial, to make people feel something. To do it right, not manipulative, respecting the power that music has from an honest place.

SHOOT: It’s almost like you have an ensemble of talent intact for varied projects–like Adam Newport-Berra and Emile Mosseri who both worked with you on The Last Black Man in San Francisco.

Talbot: For The Last Black Man in San Francisco, I thought at first that this is my first movie. I have to surround myself with veterans whose work I love. It didn’t work out that way. Instead most everyone around us was doing their first big film or it would become their breakout film. It was a godsend that I didn’t have any of those [already established] people whose work I adored. Adam has now shot The Bear and he’s killing it with Kendrick Lamar. 

The first score Emile had ever written was for The Last Black Man in San Francisco. He was a guy in a band who had just moved to L.A.; [film producer] Christina Oh connected me with him. He went onto Minari [for which Mosseri earned an Oscar nomination for Best Original Score]. 

Jonathan Majors was a breakout star [in The Last Black Man in San Francisco]. He’s taking over the world. He’s the new Marvel villain. He will star in the new Creed. [And in the interim, earned an Emmy nomination for Best Leading Actor in a Drama Series in 2021 for Lovecraft Country].

It was a special experience to come together with new people, friends. All of us took that risk on each other [for The Last Black Man in San Francisco].

SHOOT: You came together on a film that was deeply rooted in your friendship with Jimmie Falls. I understand you did a concept video for The Last Black Man in San Francisco to help sell the story and it turned out to be the platform for the very opening of the feature.

Talbot: Jimmie and I were making little movies together since we were kids, turning parts of his life into film. We shot a very funky kind of concept trailer. You see the trailer and you see rough funky shades of what would become the movie. I shot, edited and scored it. That’s part of what I love about directing and finding diverse artists. You’re a one-man band until you find the people you love who are better than it than you–like Adam and Emile and many others.

SHOOT: Would like to further explore the Adele video. What was your experience working with her?

Talbot: It was a fun process. I got to dream on a big level. She was incredibly trusting of us. I collaborated with her throughout and talked about ideas. She went into a space that was different for her. For someone of that high level to be so trusting, vulnerable and open was remarkable. She’s floating down a river in an inner tube sipping wine. I became even a bigger fan of her. If I can, I hope to emulate the spirit of that collaborative experience.

I also met a production designer, Liam Moore, on that video. He’s another of those geniuses I got to work with. He built that whole world in the video. I hope to work with him again on many more things.

SHOOT: What can you tell us about The Governesses, which again brings you together with A24?

Talbot: Olivia Gatwood is my writing partner on The Governesses. She found this book [a novel of the same title by Anne Serre] and brought it to me. She had never written a screenplay before. She and I developed it and this is a loose adaptation. Adam will shoot it. Emile will score it. It’s a very unusual period piece about the least qualified women in the world to become governesses actually becoming governesses–and in their wonderful, unusual way being great at it.

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