9. Antoinette Levine

than a movie. American Meat a podcast that digs into the history and mystery of American Meat, a film directed by and starring Edward James almost that had a huge impact on Latino cinema and culture. I'm your host, Alex Fumeto, and I'll be diving into the behind the scenes controversy every episode. I'm gonna try to peel back a layer of the story by trying to go deeper into the intentions and motives behind the film and the backlash. You

were just hearing the voice of Antoinette Levine. She was an associate producer and supervising location manager on American Met. What that means is fulsome prison. Ramona Gardens, any of the play, says they managed to shoot this movie, which is a big part of what made the film feel so real. Antonette was responsible for those. She's retired now. In fact, she lives on a remote island, so we had to interview her via zoom, which is maybe why

the audio sounds a little funky. But she worked on some location heavy movies, including The Adams Family, The Rookie and Under Siege, so needless to say, she knows what she's talking about. A location manager, she says, is reached out to by a producer or a film company. But what you're doing, what your job is, is you first are sent a script. Let's just say I've reached that level of location management. Let's let's just we American me

in there for a minute. So I've done a number of projects with Clinty Swiss producer David Valdez, and Eddie Almost actually reached out to David. I didn't know this up front, but Sean Uh I forgot Seawn's last name for a minute there. But I got to reach out from the American me production to please come have a meeting with an Almost because David Valdez had recommended you. And so in essence, I was good at reading the

script and getting a vision already. And once you've done that, you're already starting to have you read that script before you even go in for your meeting, And for me, it became important for me to be interviewing who I was sitting across from as much as they were interviewing me. Once uh, you're sitting in there and you're pitching your

thoughts about the film. If you're if you're brought on board, you start working with the production designer, the person who makes the locations look a certain way, shoulder to shoulder with the director in terms of the vision of the film. The director, who in this case was Edward James Almos, who was very very actively involved in the whole process of creation. And now we've all made movies. The only difference between this movie and other movies because that we're

stuck in between a war zone. They were right in the Cusp book, like three different groups of kids. And what Anna is afraid of, and rightfully so, is that there are so many as your kids here because she's afraid that it's gonna cause of conflation. So she's dealing with the director with a very specific vision for locations that have a lot of pretty dangerous complications to them.

And as a location manager, you're actfully doing a little pitching, because you are also responsible for what's going on behind camera. Do you have a place to bring a hundred people? Is the neighborhood or the vicinity going to let you in? Can you get a film permit in this location? And it goes on and on and on, um and in in that way, Let's use even American me as an example of what do you do as location manager. First of all, you've got to get the state of California

to say yes. And secondly, because I became very good at I became really good at get people that really in the real world should say now like absolutely not to say yes, including secret service, you know, including in the es in l a which was, as we've discussed,

a really violent time. When we flash back to the time period that the film takes place in right to bring it back to American nineties, were well the nineties is when you shot right and I was put out a time where there were you know, riots in l A. Um, we're shooting the riots. Yep, you location managed Falling Down, which is to me one of the most underrated films. It's a gangland thing, isn't it. We're having a territorial dispute.

I mean, I've wandered into your pissing ground or whatever the damn thing is, and you've taken offense of my presence. And I can understand that. I love that movie. I've watched it, I don't know how many times, UM, and that from what understand were you producing that? Were you working on that movie during the riots? Yes, we were working during the riots, And that's a perfect I think

that's a great example. So I was down there looking for locations for falling down at the time when I got the call and essentially was told, um to really just hurry up and kind of get out of there if you will. I was essentially for those I think it was a five or six day period of the riots where everything was shut down, everything was on fire, and people were purposefully angry. Um. It really links in

so much. American Me was shot just one year before the l A Riots, and the main characters literally conceived through a sexual assault that occurs during a riot y. The scene ends with Santana's adopted father played by Sal Lopez, screaming out his girlfriend's name, Espenanza Hope coming up. Antoinette tells me about getting the Famous Actors Trust and the warnings that she and the rest of the crew heard before they signed on to the movie. Here's another warning

for me, though it's commercial time, welcome back. This is more than a movie. I'm Alex Fumeto. Today we're talking to associate producer Antoinette Levine managed to get fulsome prison to say yes when Edward James almost wanted to film there first, though she had to get the job. Tell us again, how you met Edward James almost? And tell us do you remember the first meeting, the first proper sit down meeting with with j L. I believe they'd give they'd give him it would they've given him an

office at on the Universal lot. I believe that first meeting. I believe it was at the Universe a lot on Now I'm kind of a little fuzzy because I'm really actually in the four walls of the room with Eddie sitting across from me at a desk, and so it likely, very likely was it one of the producer's offices up on Universal, because the location manager comes on very early, long before you get um, you know, some sort of

warehouse offices out in the world. Um, so in that way for me, I was just so taken with his past for this project. He he understood enough about filmmaking in that way, certainly maybe even coming up he did, you know he did stand in the liver standon the

liver was before that, UM, certainly Miami advice. UM. He'd been on the streets in Miami, so he knew enough to know that, and he knew enough to reach out to David Valdez to look for a location manager who had HUTSBA you know who you know, who had gone us, who was going to show up and and deliver um. But he wanted to let me know. He said, I'm gonna be having this conversation with all my department heads. Um. You know, the project, the subject of this film is

very near and dear to my heart. I wanted to have this film made so I can take it around these United States of America and speak to young people so they might become determined to make different choices when choices are presented to them and options are available, because he knows that there is some space for choices. But he said, I'm making this film for that reason, but I have to have you know that it's not gonna be easy, and it may not always be safe. We

were at we we could potentially be treading on sensitive toes. Um. Absolutely, it was all of that. It was it was it was that we were gonna want of film in places where really you shouldn't bring a hundred people Fulsome State prison for instance. Um, we didn't know we would get to film there, and that was a I have to, uh, if if you're okay with me jumping ahead just to say a little bit about Eddie in the atmosphere of negotiating Fulsome State prison. Yeah, absolutely, so let's yeah, let's

talk about Fulsome because people need to understand. If you've seen this movie, it was shot in an actual active prison, which I have a lot of questions about. But I just want to hear you tell us a little bit about about that experience. All right. I would just say, his passion and his presence. His passion and his presence, we're so vital to the meeting that we were to

have up at Fulsome State prison. Um. I'd helped organize and schedule a meeting with the with the warden because because the warden is like the mayor or the uh president in Ied States is like the warden. It's his prison, it's his prison. And even that had you know, the California State that's a particular permit process, but that was it wasn't even possible without the warden signing off on the project. And so I was able to schedule a meeting with them and bring in in in my peeps.

And I remember this meeting because the visual I have of it is that we were sitting in a circle. I remember that. That's my impression of it. I do believe we were sitting. Maybe it could have even been folding chairs because it didn't feel like it was really comfortable, but we were sitting in a circle. As for this meeting, it was it was so amazing because it was almost

like a tag team between myself and Eddie. Well, if you're talking to a warden and maybe his lieutenants are you know, he's key people who would want to have around him at the same time to have this conversation, A no would have been absolutely the right answer. I mean, that's the that's the you know that that's my background is turning nose into yes. Is that was Eddie's presence was like critical to this because um, yeah, sure you

can say we're universal pictures. You can try and you know, throw that card out, all of that, But it was his his passionate intention for this film to make some sort of difference. And if these prison authority figures had any sensibility, and this is I believe, prior to all this huge privatization of present prisons the prison system in the United States, that they were still California employees and they still were intent upon their mission of doing some

sort of good in this incarceration rehabilitation industry. Now, hum, some of them had a heart. I think there was. There was there was an alignment with a sort of synchronistic possibility here. I actually scouted a lot of prisons. I went to Solidad, I went to a lot of different prisons and and scouted a lot of prisons. It was Fulsome that visually really worked for the picture. Um, but they were the ones that said yes to this meeting as well. But his presence in that meeting is

what got us to yes. Brian Brotherhood and the Blood Gorilla Family shared the rd out, but Fulsome belonged to us the oldest clicker the Mexican Mafia. So let's let's touch on that for a second, So why a real prison. Oh, such a great question. Let's just contrast that with the opposite of a real prison, uh set. In the film industry, what you do instead of a prison as you do a set. And yet there are sets in the l A H. Hollywood region whilst where they've built fake prisons

you just don't have, you don't have the scope. A director wants that scope. You want that feeling and that sensibility that it's real. But I feel I have a sense and of that that Eddie also wanted for his actors and for his audience to really get to really be in prison with us, to really be in prison. My prison experience was I got to feel I got to feel them as as an invitee. Um, I got to fill the terror of being locked up um in that sense because even as a free person, you're coming

into the prison and you're not free. You're absolutely not free. So imagine if you were a prisoner and you're trying to live your life out in this place. Um, there's just there's there's a sense of endless despair. So to make a film in a prison is to make the

film real. And what Eddie wanted to do was to make that film as real as possible in that same realm of scared straight right of like, you know, if this doesn't scare you off, if you don't want to have to live your life in an environment like this, make different choices every chance you can. Do you think that he fed off of being in this environment? Was that part of his way of direct of Was he

channeling that environment to direct to act? Were you able to sort of see that as it was happening, I would say yes, um, because he's actually the adamant actor when he's in front of camera. But I do believe that he was brilliant in his conception of the actual infrastructure of the film. The world say make it as real as possible, because then i'm I'm, I'm that's my I'm directing all my young actors and even the extras and whoever whoever. You know, we enrolled I think hundreds

of extras, you know. So it was like he wanted the whole atmosphere the prisoners were in the film. Yeah, so there's a piece of that too, like a part

of our that whole circle meeting with the warden. What about the gangs though, because this is another thing that you know, like we talked to the Danny's right, We talked to Danny round Little Puppet and Puppet, and one of the things that they said was, you know, and this is without getting in too much into the controversy surrounding the film, the that that like, you don't make a movie like this in prison unless you have the okay of the bosses in the gangs right that they're

they're just not going to allow. And that was a very com helling point that they made. As a location manager, were you having to kind of have conversations with the guys that ran a certain block or ran a certain area. No, I was not. I didn't have to be uh engaged with any of I was actually not allowed to be.

You're you're you. You're never supposed to engage with any of the inmates, even when they're extras, even when they're extras um and it's like you just you aren't engaging with the inmates Like that just seemed to be like kind of uh. I don't know how spoken that was, but we we did do orientations for all of the crew members before they could come in, very very strict orientations.

I don't have any of those materials with me. So I don't remember what we said, but we were telling everyone to button it down like they literally you just imagine any scene from any movie where the friends or family are coming to visit the inmate, just that is very is very telling that they're not supposed to touch or they're not supposed to give them anything. So it was it was we were still separated from the inmates right um in that way. So yes, there was no

for me. I don't know who would have done the permission getting of the I don't even know what was going on in that element or realm. I I believe that even after we got the permission from the warden that yes, go ahead, and then it was it was step by step by step. It wasn't like, oh, then we're just gonna come in next week and film. Then it was like where are we going to film? Inside

balls and State prison? And so I had to walk around and do more location scouting within the campus if you will, the complex of course as a woman, as a female. And but the beautiful thing was happened is that here's the thing. There was a captain who was the captain of the cell block that we were going to use who began to walk with me. And once that happened, there were no more cat callings. There was no more So I ended up having Um, I got respect.

I ended up getting respect, and so my fear level went down. Like I was never afraid, but it was always very uh frazzling, energetically frazzling, tiring, you know, because you always you do have a certain sense of red alert going into a man's prison. Uh. He was, he

was in charge. He was the one who was able to make all of this yes, no decisions uh as we moved forward internally in the prison, and so I was shoulders shoulder with him a lot because in filmmaking there's this constant, constant asking for, asking for You're always asking your your eyes asking for something more, or you're asking for something different or can we you know that sort of there's always changes and so but I was working with a great uh first director who understood, um,

you know, he's he's always assisting Eddie. And I think that's why the Associated producer credit for me, because so much of my job was really to understand what the limitations are. UM. As much as I'm gonna always push for what the company needs, and mostly for what a director needs on a film, what's their vision for the film. If our job as location managers, no matter what the film is even a dude, my dude, where's my car?

Is to understand what the limitations are. It's like, you cannot we note, we cannot go back and ask for another schedule change. It ain't gonna happen. We're gonna get locked out here. And with that in mind, being in a prison, were you ever concerned? Were there ever any events that you were like, oh, okay, this, I might be in danger now? It was eventless because everybody's on

their best behavior. Um, the inmates are sort of uh in a way, almost bragged if you want to be on this film, right, Um, so it's a perk for some of them. Yeah, it was a perk because it was something different, It was something interesting to do, something they'd probably never done before in their lives and might

never do again. The only crew members that left because I believe Eddie had given that same cautionary tale speech to all of any department had coming in, but certainly at our final production meeting, it was just too much for them. Um. The cat calling that I received as a women and men would receive as well, and they didn't have a production of a captain walking around with them. And a couple of them left and that was the only time anybody left. So that was the only incident,

if you will, that verged on. You shot in real people's lives, yes, right, Like when we talk about shooting in an apartment building and Boil Heights, we're not talking about a building. We're talking out a home. And it was a complex. And the beautiful thing about it, Alex, was that it was a complex that um it was an interior. It was built in the late twenties, I believe.

And if you walk through this the stucco gate walls, you come into a courtyard and each of the apartments had a little stair case coming down to the middle of the courtyard. So it isn't like a modern day you know, hallway with doors and everybody separated. This was an interior courtyard, apartments doors facing each with a stoop, sort of East Coast style. Each apartment had a stoop, and there was all these different lives going on at each of one of those units. That's why it worked

beautifully for the film. But the people that lived there their lives were all going on at the same time. We've come into this one location and all of a sudden, who's there to greet us? Put a little kid three years old for whatever reasons, the parents are not around him. He's very tough little boy. He has been on the street for a long long time. Sleepy, you would have been the movie with us. He would have been the movie with us. See what they're doing. It makes you

sensitive towards the fact that environment is everything. You can see it. If this child was getting exposed to a person, even reading a book, he would accept it. Okay, don't laugh, don't laugh, whatever you do you're on cameras, don't laugha he is the future gang member because he's out on the streets and he sees it going on and he's

attracted to it. Yeah, he was down during the riots and the nine two, like absolutely doubted in the community, talking with people, you know, absolutely so being in the neighborhood, going out on the streets with Eddie, even during the scouting. It was just an amazing community engagement experience. Um I didn't catch a lot of the flak that some people

talk about that the film may have been stirring up. UM. I I didn't engage with that, maybe from a place of there's nothing I can do about how people are going to react to this film. I would hope that there's going to be a larger UM percentage of the global community that is going to look at this film for its meaningfulness, UM, you know, for its storytelling, for

its ability to be a cautionary tale. UM. But absolutely going out into the vibrant Latino community on the east side of l A during the pre production and the filming of the film was maybe almost just a very inspirational UM. I keep getting flashbacks from walking through the men Gallo. There's UM and I remember Eddie at one time saying, oh my god, I could I could be I could be south of the border right now. UM,

for the richness of the culture. But we're walking through a mercallo with on a final text out if you will. There was a shop that I had been looking for and I was showing it to them to for us to be able to utilize. And the people were just so enamored with Eddie, and he was so graceful and would just take time talk and say hello. It was never about him. It was always about community UM and

our purpose for being there coming up. I asked Antoinette about her experience with gang consultant and murder victim and Alis Atrica, as well as the pressure Edward James almost was under making American me. Welcome back to more than a movie. I'm Alex form Metal. We're talking to Antonette Levine, the movie's location manager. The movie was able to shoot and boil Heights thanks to the work of a gang interventionist and consultant named Anna Lisa Raga, who was ultimately

murdered just weeks after the film's release. My experience of Anna was that she was a key component to our community relations UM in the way that she helped mentor our Hollywood union selves, our crew members, and in that way of um of proper behavior UM when they're going on bringing their cells and their professional livelihoods into two neighborhoods that are claimed by gangs. UM that that we're really in somebody else's neighborhood and we're the visitors. And

what's the proper way to show up? UM in mannerisms and clothing. You know, you're not wearing red or black or or blue or whatever the colors may have been um that were prominent colors of the particular gangs. What made her an ex How did she know? How did you know how to guide you that way? Because she worked in youth gang services. She was a community uh uh like UM, I didn't know a lot of this about her before I worked with her, because she was

almost like another crew member in or almost consultant. And um, I was so deeply engaged with my responsibilities on the project. UM. So I learned more of it later, Um, you know, reading more about her background. But she was a beloved UM in the youth gang services uh offices or in an area as a mentor and a guide, sort of like an abuela if you will, certainly ada and uh she was very important to the community. And uh, yeah, that's all I'm gonna say. I'm not I'm just to

honor her life with that. Edward James almost must have been under an inordinate amount of pressure, whether he would ever even admit that or not to be a Chicano filmmaker at this time making a movie about essentially his people, albeit a sector of his people that he hoped would

be different. Um with an activist purpose and a studio behind him who was sort of behind him but not super present, and and at the same time trying to commit himself to this incredibly realistic representation of his hood, you know, UM and his and his uh you know, the heritage of these places that have been marginalized, right like the I mean he is juggling chainsaws here, right, yes, and Alex this was the nineties, how many years ago? With this, UM know? Today it would only be a

slighted difference. UM it for me the question of how much there's still a missing of presents and there's still a missing of presence. Um. You the Hollywood wants to Yeah, we're we're four. We represent four acting just acting like four almost of the population on TV. So you know, before we before we wrap things up, I just I really just wanted to ask you of all the scenes in the film, which one is your favorite and why

it might have been. Where Eddie's character Santana was um speaking with his I believe it was the little boy. He was speaking with the little boy who I think was his little brother outside during uh. I think there was a party or a wedding. Uh was that it was that it was the scene with the adult male and the young youthful male um and that it was tender. It was a tender moment. Check it out. That is your route me. Sometime I was a little while, I

used to read them to my homeboys. They listened to said it was like poetry the way you loved doing to me, It's like a metaphor and a symbol of the whole film, in the importance of the film. And also there was a naivete. It's it felt um on on the part of the adult um that is also a delicate and tender piece, a certain naivete. On our next episode, we speak with Danny Harrow, who fielded phone calls from and was even followed by the Mexican Mafia for his role as Edward James, almost his right hand

man on American Me More Than a Movie. American Me is a production of Exile Content Studios in partnership with I Hearts Podcast Network and Trojan Horse Media. The show is produced by me Alex Fumeto at Angry Yuka on the Internets, and our senior producer is Nigel Dora. Our executive producers are Rose Red, Nando Vila, and Kareem Tapp. Production assistants from Sabine Jansen and Stella Emmett. Mixing and sound designed by the waterlo Albornos. Our executive producers at

I Heart are Gisel Bansas and Arlene Santana. For more podcasts, listen to the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.