ANTHONY C. HILL
FAMILY REUNION CAST
and Meg made a point of putting on first time black women directors, we had like 4, which is unheard of.”
was excited when he got the call to work with DeLoatch again on Family Reunion for Netflix.
Dent said Netflix’s support was something she hadn’t witnessed before either. “They asked questions if there was a cultural reference they didn’t understand. If they recognized they didn’t understand it, they were like okay, we’ll trust you on that. It was the total opposite of what I had experienced,” she said. Dent who worked as a writer for DeLoatch on the Eve show came into the industry working as a writing and production assistant for shows like Girlfriends, The Jamie Foxx show, The Wayans Brothers and Living Single and found that as she moved through different shows over the years that women were slowly moving up into positions as show runners. DeLoatch was one of the show runners who really controlled her set well, controlled the room well and got shows up and running. Dent transferred from University of California, Santa Cruz to Howard University where she found creatives like herself and an understanding of culture that she missed in classes at Santa Cruz. “I didn’t have to worry about having two hour discussions about The Cosby Show where people didn’t understand that there were black people that were doctors and lawyers,” Dent remembers. “Going to Howard really raised my confidence level before I got out to L.A.,” said Dent. “It helped with giving me a strong sense of self and community and I felt like I was more mentally prepared for people’s opinions of who I was in a work space.” Anthony C. Hill, co-executive producer for Family Reunion had also worked with Meg DeLoatch on the Eve show and worked as a writer on shows like The Parent ‘Hood, Malibu Rescue, Raven’s Home, and House of Payne. He
“The people at Netflix are willing to say three words that are huge that most white people don’t say: ‘I don’t know,’” said Hill about working for the Netflix streaming service that he says allows black writers some freedom. “They may not understand why it’s funny, but they let it ride.” “Having an all black writers room is a huge deal,” said Hill. “Their version of us, a lot of times is wrong. When I am in the room with white writers and black characters and I say something, a lot of times they’re like I don’t think he/she would say this. They want to argue with me.”
EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, MEG DELOATCH AND TRACEY ROYAL Gerima to guide her in a class so intense that he didn’t bother to learn student’s names until towards the end of the semester. “He would call us turkeys or something,” she laughs. “By the end of the semester he knew my name. He said, “A lot of you like to drop out, so I don’t bother to learn names until the end.” Tanyi says Family Reunion fills a niche that has needed to be filled for awhile. “It reminds me of the great family shows we watched like Fresh Prince, Family Matters, A Different World - shows that speak to multigenerations. And to see an all black writers room. It feels historical.”
Hill graduated from Texas Southern University. “At TSU I was in an environment of young black people and faculty who want to move forward and do something different,” Hill said. Growing up in a blue collar town he was a television fan. Characters like Dick Van Dyke’s Rob Petrie who worked as a comedy writer appealed to him. “I kept thinking what a cool job that is,” Hill remembers. “That’s his job, he writes jokes and goes home. He doesn’t have to lift anything or get dirty.” “Rob Petri would always lean on the desk with his legs crossed,” said Hill. “One day I had two writers in my office so we could go over a story and at one point I leaned on my desk and crossed my legs and it hit me. I got that job. And it was working with us.” Twilla Amin Tanyi, a Howard MFA graduate is the assistant production coordinator for Family Reunion. Howard, for her, was an incubator for black filmmakers - with talent like Bradford Young (Solo: A Star Wars Story, When They See Us, Space Jam 2) and Hans Charles (13th, 1 Angry Black Man) in the same program when she was there. And with professors like Haile
ERICKA
BLOUNT
DANOIS,
an
award-winning
journalist, writer, editor, and professor began her career as a stringer at the Philadelphia Tribune with a cover story on the king of Philadelphia International Records, Kenny Gamble. Ericka graduated from Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism and has worked as a staff writer, editor, freelancer, and stringer for a number of publications including: Spin, The Washington Post, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, ESPN The Magazine, Sports Illustrated, The Root and Playboy, among others.
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