TV One is known richly as the voice for black cinema, hardcore news, romance stories, poignant reality spins, and its true-crime segments.
It’s not really a surprise that they would bring more offerings to the table that’s compelling and dramatically gripping as far as their movie lineup is concerned. TV One is broadening the assembly with a new genre and take on storytelling.
As it turns out, their newest action flick "Down for Whatever" is written and directed by Tim Folsome. It’s also a winner for the 2017 ABFF (American Black Film Festival) Screenplay Competition.
The jut project surrounds the lives of Husband, Mike [Hosea Chanchez] and wife, Tracy [LeToya Luckett], who opened up the screener in the comfort of their home, surrounded by family and friends. Obviously, it creeps into a darkened place right at that moment.
Description: Tracy grew up in Foster care, so she longed for the traditional family environment that apparently, she never had. Mike suddenly loses his partner in a not so random murder. Tracy supports him, until she receives an unexpected visit from a social worker who informs her that the twisted suspects that shot the cop are indeed, her biological sisters Denise and Sonya.
TV One teamed up with Swirl Productions for an outstanding episode! Kudos to them! This time, they did it. They’ve created a crème de la crème project that scoffs at their previous films as a standout affair. Make no mistake about it, TV One has delivered preeminent biographies and shorts in the past, but this is completely different. It’s a motion picture, urbanized from the imaginative dossier of Tim Folsome.
Jubba Seyyid (Sr. Director of Programming and production TV One) agreed that the script was unique— "It provided a different entryway into stories that we don’t typically go into because it has more action than we’re used to making. With action, come bigger budgets, stunt people, pyrotechnics, and all kinds of things that we associate with it. We knew we had a good script in our hand and story, when it actually won based on all the execs and how they had a chance to vote on this thing. We knew that we had a big task in front of us. Obviously, we wanted to get the right people, which we ended up doing in terms of the cast. Swirl jumped aboard. While looking at the script, we knew we could make it look and sound cool, while being fun. We also tackled some serious issues in terms of abuse. There are a lot layers to this film. When you look at this story, when you look at adoption, when you look at assault, when you look at police brutality, we tackled many issues in this film. I think we were able to execute it because we were all on the same page, trying to achieve a goal that we all had experience doing individually, but now coming together as a collective. With the production company being Swirl, with TV One, the network wanted to make the best film in our first time tackling this kind of genre. Many props have to go out to everybody who had a hand in this because this was certainly cliché… it took a village, and as a team effort from the PA’s to the execs, all the way to the producing directors and of course, all the talent who pulled it. They didn’t have a ton of time with the script, and they pulled off amazing performances that I think the network can say we’re supper proud of, and I know the producers are as well.”
Folsome said that this was definitely his favorite screenplay, of all the film scripts that he’s written.
“I think it was the emotional element of it. Everybody had an emotional scene in the movie. Everybody normally, with movies I do, a lot of them are thrillers with people chasing each other; but, [in Down for Whatever], each of them had heart. Every time I would read the script, it brought me to tears. It was an emotional movie and that was the reason why I liked the script the most.”
Folsome is looking forward to how audiences will respond to the movie now that it’s go time.
“I was satisfied with audience at ABFF [American Black Film Festival] that they seemed to have embraced the project. You never know. I write a script, and put it on paper. You never know how people are going to respond to it. You have no idea. When people read the script, it may have a different feel from when it’s actually done. I’m just looking forward to seeing how it plays. I’m excited about it, and I’m excited about the actors in the project too, because when I write the script, I just write the basic of the characters. When I talked to these four brilliant actors, and I told them that they have take to take it to a whole other level. They definitely have taken this movie to a whole other level and I appreciate that. I’m looking forward to seeing it, and just getting a response from the audience.”
Tim Folsome is a native of Youngstown, Ohio. He’s directed project like “Uninvited Guest (1999),” “Hidden Blessing (2000)” “Jacked Up (2001),” and “Cutthroat Alley (2003).” As a writer and director, he’s quite familiar with all the key points that make an ordinary screenplay, a cinematic success.
Whelp, it’s do or die time… TV One is presenting their flagship action movie, and we’re definitely tuning in. We hope that you will too!