Issa Rae has expanded her brand once again.
The media mogul has partnered with Tubi to help support young filmmakers. Rae and co-founder Talitha Watkins’s production company, Color Creative, has partnered with the streaming platform, Tubi, which is popular with Black viewers and filmmakers.
“Tubi isn’t just a streaming service for fans to enjoy- it has become an outlet for independent Black filmmakers to showcase their art,” Phil Lewis, editor at HuffPost said in a statement. The actress, who also started making her films and sharing them on YouTube, agreed. Rae is now moving forward to help other filmmakers reach their goals.
Tubi and Color Creative launched Stubios, a “program for creatives that enables their fans to have a say in what gets made,” as reported by Essence. “It aims to support first-time filmmakers and creatives from non-traditional backgrounds to create larger-scale film projects with the help and guidance of the ColorCreative team.”
In a statement, Rae said, “They have done a great job of seeing their audience, cultivating that audience, and now investing in that audience tenfold.” She continued, “Not only investing in the audience, but they’re investing in creators to make long-form work for that audience and putting it in some ways in their hands to determine whether or not the work that’s produced out of this program is worthy enough to continue. And I love that about it because it fosters a creator and audience relationship that can often be ignored. Democratize is the process, which is how I came up with my own digital background. But I really appreciate and think it’s incredibly cool that they are actually and quite literally putting their money where their mouth is when it comes to Black audience and audiences of all diverse backgrounds, which the creators that are chosen will reflect.”
The program will also provide funding for the filmmakers. Rae added, “It’s hard to be scrappy. Nobody wants to make a film on a shoestring budget. Nobody wants to revise their script and rewrite 100 times to chip away at the dream and just settle for what’s possible. The importance of making sure these creators, these filmmakers have an opportunity to make what they want to make is critical. And again, it’s also audience-fueled, so there will be feedback there that they can take into account. But the resources matter. You can have all the talent in the world. And to our credit, and I think to audience discernment, people can see what you want to do, but to be able to actually do what you want to do makes all the difference. With ColorCreative, in general, we want to make sure that people have the resources because we want to stand behind them.”
Talitha Watkins chimed in and said, “We’re giving these creators a fast track. We’re giving them deep industry knowledge from all of the creators that we work with at ColorCreative, being able to crew up these productions. We’re going to tap into our client base to give them mentorship and guidance on script development and directing along with other things that they need to move into this new world of long-form content. In a way, it feels like guardrails on a superhighway. I think I know as Black creators, we’re ready for that. We’ve been storytelling our whole lives. It’s just like let us in the game. And this just feels like a really awesome way of letting us in the game with financial support, with mentorship, and community.