Michael Ralph brilliantly plays the street prophet, a West Indian who foreshadows the Harlem riot.

Making this movie was a great opportunity for me to explore high-definition. I'm glad I got to see what the challenges are, what makes it better. It works wonderfully.

The clothes back in those days were made so much better than clothes are today. They actually took time to make clothes to fit a woman's body. Today they make clothes that fit sizes, so it stretches to fit this and that.

The radio for these women is like television is for us today, which is really like looking at the radio.

A director just pushes them a little this way or that way.

But it was not possible to do this movie, in this matter of time, without a solid rehearsal period.

In scoring we have a lot that was not evident in the shooting. The radio is on all the time.

The biggest challenge was that we had to shoot so quickly and with such a limited budget.

I use something that is a real staple in the directing world. It's called a dance floor. You lay it down so that it's so smooth you can roll around, and you can put furniture on top of it. It's seamless and you don't see it.

It's kind of dangerous to cut in the camera, but that's the only way I know how to direct.

You have to examine a scene on the page first. Then you get into the basics of acting: Who are you? Who are you talking to? How do you feel about that person?

There are some scenes that work beautifully in a moving, sweeping master, which is how I like to work.

Even when you have a big budget, you can't just shoot everything.

As far as pacing the shoot is concerned, I know when I've got it. I don't think there's any reason to take ten takes unless you need them.

That's the only way I can control my movie. If you shoot everything, then everything is liable to end up in the movie. If you have a vision, you don't have to cover every scene.

Michael Ralph brilliantly plays the street prophet, a West Indian who foreshadows the Harlem riot.

The riot isn't seen in the movie, but it is alluded to. He has this one speech that gives a great sense of texture and paints a picture of what was happening in Harlem then.

Everything has to be well thought out - what do you really need, when can you do with less coverage.

Time management is a big part of the director's job.

The production team's first meeting took place at my house. I had ideas and a color scheme in mind, how I wanted the movie to look, because that has to be a real collaboration.

It goes back to a style of moviemaking I remember seeing as a child, in movies like The Man With The Golden Arm, which I think was shot all on a sound stage.

But out of limitations comes creativity.

I got my dailies every day, although I couldn't always look at them because I was usually preparing for the next day's shoot, both as an actress and as the director.

I'm always moving forward.

I design my shots. I walk the rehearsal as the camera and say 'this is where I want to be... I want this look.

I didn't need the insurance. I do it again if my DP tells me it didn't look good in the camera or if the actors didn't hit their marks. But if everything was working why do it again?

If a university official's letter accusing a speaker of having a proclivity to commit speech crimes before she's given the speech - which then leads to Facebook postings demanding that Ann Coulter be hurt, a massive riot and a police-ordered cancellation of the speech - is not hate speech, then there is no such thing as hate speech.

I can see in your eyes, I can see in your faces, I can see you cry. But what I want to say, there's no reason to cry. Do not, in the name of peace, go in the streets and riot.

A riot is at bottom the language of the unheard.

We hoped against hope that what we had been doing was enough to prevent a riot. It was not enough.

A riot is the language of the unheard.

It would be stupid tameness, and unaccountable folly, for whole nations to suffer one unreasonable, ambitious and cruel man, to wanton and riot in their misery.

You can't just lecture the poor that they shouldn't riot or go to extremes. You have to make the means of legal redress available.

It seems as if an age of genius must be succeeded by an age of endeavour; riot and extravagance by cleanliness and hard work.

If you look at the data, the inner city that was the riot zone lost 55,000 jobs in the ten years from 1992 to 2002, instead of gaining a surplus of 50,000.

Michael Ralph brilliantly plays the street prophet, a West Indian who foreshadows the Harlem riot.

The riot isn't seen in the movie, but it is alluded to. He has this one speech that gives a great sense of texture and paints a picture of what was happening in Harlem then.

I became chairman of the inmates committee. Got into a lot of trouble. Was accused of fomenting a riot. Was accused of plotting to kill the warden.

He didn't riot. He got on his bike and looked for work.

Who ever hears of fat men heading a riot, or herding together in turbulent mobs? No - no, your lean, hungry men who are continually worrying society, and setting the whole community by the ears.

The learning process is something you can incite, literally incite, like a riot.

We live in a time where government is not a leadership thing, it's more a business that's out there and running riot, so I guess the people have to go out there and say stuff.

I wouldn't attach too much importance to these student riots. I remember when I was a student at the Sorbonne in Paris, I used to go out and riot occasionally.

When I worked with Robin Williams, now there is improv! He is just as funny as you think he is. We did at least five or six takes of every scene, improvising every scene differently. He was a riot.

Passion is the mob of the man, that commits a riot upon his reason.

While F.D.R. once told Americans that we have nothing to fear but fear itself, Mr. Ashcroft is delighted to play the part of Fear Itself, an assignment in which he lets his imagination run riot.

Again and again, when Westerners are perceived as denigrating Muhammad, the Koran, or Islam, Islamists demonstrate, riot or kill.

Why do we have to have another riot?

I'm more of a people pleaser.