[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=96Y24a0cyCE[/youtube]
Absolutely. My job as the composer was to enhance the film in an audio-visual way. I was the editor, too, so I had to go back and forth. I would edit, and then if I didn’t like a scene I would think about music to enhance the feeling of it. So basically when I was composing music, I took into consideration not just Rudy Ray Moore films but all Blaxploitation films, from The Mack to Superfly to the Dolemite films to Black Heat to Black Belt Jones. I wanted to stick within ’71 to ’74, only movies that were made at that time, because anything after that they were getting a little more into disco. It was basically supposed to be a combination of those good Blaxploitation films from the early ’70s,
How did you walk that fine line between imitating these other films, but also giving Black Dynamite its own sound?
We didn’t want to just rehash the music. We wanted to act as though as I was a composer in the ‘70s competing against Isaac Hayes and Curtis Mayfield. What would I do in competition with them. as opposed to just being like them?
The movie is very deadpan—all the humor comes organically from the character and the universe that he inhabits. How did you maintain that tone, without getting too jokey?
We did it as a team. I was the editor, I made decisions, but we all said yes or no to everything. How we figured out what worked or didn’t work was screenings. Before the movie was released, we had at least 12 screenings, and we would see what was actually funny to people and what wasn’t. There were parts of the film that I didn’t think were funny that people loved. A perfect example is a lot of people’s favorite part in the movie is “I threw that shit before I walked in the room.” To us, it was cool, but it wasn’t that funny, it was like whatever, because we’re watching it a million times. But to someone just watching the film for the first time, it blows their minds and it’s so unexpected. We’d forget those things.
.Interview: Adrian Younge Brings ‘Black Dynamite,’ ‘Venice Dawn’ to Pagoda
