About
"In Da Cut" is the third film produced by Biblical Films Inc. It is directed by Lamont A. Coleman. Coleman is an NAACP award winning actor, attended San Francisco State University, where he graduated with a B.A. in Theater Arts and directing, Co-founder of the Coleman and Smith Artistic Company where he acted as Artistic Director, and most recently has a recurring role on Tyler Perry's The Haves and the Have Nots. Coleman, who's directing credits include the SDBFF award winning "In the Closet" and the Las Vegas Film Festival award winning documentary "Mama & Me", spearheaded the development of "In Da Cut". The story is based on the reality webisode of the same name which follows some inner-city young men in their late teens to early twenties as they come of age in the challenging and alluring culture of Hollywood, California. Coleman was a mentor to these boys and facilitated their training in theater and film production. "In Da Cut", the movie, was written to show a slice of the life of these young men and the challenges and experiences that they collectively faced. It follows the story of Michael Albert, a recent film grad who is a very promising writer, as he returns home to his old neighborhood and his family's small christian production company. However, Michael has no intention on working with his family but instead wants the glitz and glamor of all that big Hollywood has to offer. However, when a popular starlet decides to work with the family's production company, Michael decides to hang around and finds himself getting a lot more of big Hollywood than he bargained for. With this film, Coleman had some specific ideas in mind, and one of them was that he wanted to continue working with young enthusiastic men and women and bring them together with some veteran actors to reach across generations. He hired fresh faced actors and actresses including Steven Burnett to play Michael and then hired veteran actor Johnny Brown from Good Times fame as Michael's grandfather, and Tyrone Burton from Robert Townsend's Parent'hood as his brother. Taking a page from his many years of directing stage, Coleman workshop-ed his newer actors to build the camaraderie and develop new bits for filming ahead of production. He called it his "boot camp" and encouraged all the actors on set to create from their characters and not be hand-cuffed to the script. Coming from the theater himself, Coleman believes strongly in character development and improvisation and directed the actors to "play". It resulted in several scenes and story lines being added to the film as he enhanced actor's roles who showed up with their "A" game. The strategy also allowed some young actors the opportunity to work with veterans that they would not normally have the opportunity to do with other film companies. Coleman, a christian, believes in reaching back and providing examples for the next generation in not only making art, but creating family friendly environments while doing it.