How hard can it be to get to a baseball game? In David Fortune’s “Color Book,” the answer is: very.
“Color Book” tells the story of Lucky (Will Catlett), a single father dealing with the recent death of his wife and trying to raise his son, Mason (Jeremiah Daniels), who has Down syndrome. When Lucky decides to take Mason to his first Atlanta Braves game, their simple trip to the ballpark turns into an expansive trek across the city, hoping to make it to the game on time.
As exciting as that premise may sound, “Color Book” is far more intimate than epic. While he was working on the idea for “Color Book,” Fortune knew he wanted to tell a story about a Black father and his son. But as he spoke to more and more parents – and specifically, more parents of children with Down syndrome and other disabilities – he became more interested in sharing a slice of life story that so often goes ignored in cinema.
“Color Book” is the opening night film of this year’s Atlanta Film Festival, finally making its way back to its home city after almost a year on the road. Ahead of the screening on April 24, I had a long and lovely conversation with Fortune about the making of the film. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
You premiered this film at Tribeca last year. Is that correct? How does it feel to be bringing it home to Atlanta?
David Fortune: We took this film all over the world. We took this film to France, New York, California. We took it to New Orleans, Chicago, Minnesota, every place you can name. Everyone really felt the need that, hey – we need to really bring this story back to the city.
It means so much because I recognize how much it means to the people in the city of Atlanta, because this is their home. This reflects their lives, their walk throughs, when it comes to taking MARTA trains across the city – even the location of the Atlanta Braves, and understanding that’s a huge part of our community story. It means so much, just to bring this film back home and allow the community of Atlanta to see a reflection of themselves in the most beautiful and honest way. There’s no better way to premiere this film than the Atlanta Film Festival. That’s what took so long, us wanting to do it justice. I feel like the Atlanta Film Festival is the perfect place to screen “Color Book” for its Atlanta premiere.
I’m so glad you brought up the community of Atlanta and those unique aspects of the city. The thing that’s obviously interesting about Atlanta is it often stands in for so many other places in movies, like New York, or London, whatever it might be. It’s rare that a movie filmed in Atlanta actually takes place in the city. Could you talk about bringing to life the city’s unique character? Because it’s not just the most iconic parts of the skyline, right? It feels very lived in.
Fortune: Well, to your earlier point, you have so many productions that film in Atlanta, but it’s not about Atlanta. I’ve always noticed that. I wanted to make sure that not only does this story take place in our city, but we are truly immersed in the characteristics of our community and the people in it as well. We didn’t focus so much on shooting skylines or landmarks, but we want to just normalize the experience of, what is it like to grow up in Atlanta? What is it like to walk through Atlanta? How do we normalize those experiences … because it’s everyday to our characters in the film, Lucky and Mason, so it should be like that to the audience as well.
I’ve read interviews with you where you talk about writing this script, and eventually coming to this idea of wanting to tell a story within the Black community that often isn’t told, about raising a differently-abled child. You’ve talked about how you spoke with parents, and you worked as a camp counselor for children with Down syndrome. Could you speak to how the story evolved over the course of speaking with those parents, and what things you learned from that experience that made it into the script?
Fortune: Initially, I just wanted to capture a Black father/son story. I wanted to wake up one day and look on my YouTube and see a trailer of a Black father and his son going on a journey anywhere. It could have been Six Flags. It could have been the neighborhood swimming pool. It could have been the Braves game. I just wanted to see that beautiful, intimate connection between a Black father and his son. But as I started to really speak to parents, and more so parents who were raising children with Down syndrome, I got a more interesting and nuanced perspective of what it is to be a parent, and the highs and the lows, the joys, the struggles, that all goes into parenthood.
I felt like, when it came to this idea of a Black father raising a son with Down syndrome, that imagery hadn’t really been seen, especially when we talk about cinema. But I know that experience does exist. For me, [the two ideas] slowly, but surely grew to one another. It wasn’t instant. It didn’t happen like a flash in the pan. But day by day as I began to reflect and think about the story, and think about what it could be, they drew to each other very naturally and organically.
One thing I gathered was that there are highs and lows, there are joys and there are struggles. It’s very complex, and it’s more than one thing. That’s what I wanted to show in the film, that raising a child who has Down syndrome is not always a struggle, but it’s not always sunshine and rainbows. Another thing I gathered from those conversations was …. these parents aren’t looking at their child as disabled, or having a disability. They’re simply looking at their child as, that’s my son. That’s my daughter. They’re funny, they’re outrageous, they’re creative, they’re artistic. They’re much more than their disability. So my writing and my approach to it was, we’re not really going to address Down syndrome. We’re just going to live in it. Because if the parents aren’t talking about Down syndrome day to day, why should Lucky?
It was interesting to me that none of the struggles that Lucky was having as a parent really arose from the fact that Mason had Down syndrome. They were just struggles that anyone raising any child would probably deal with at some point.
Fortune: Every film is different. For a film that does call attention to Down syndrome, there’s beauty in that too, because many parents are facing those struggles, and those mountains that they’re trying to climb with raising their child who has a specific disability. There’s no one way or the other. It’s just that “Color Book” called itself naturally to say hey – it’s a father/son story, and the son happens to have Down syndrome. We get to dive into specific perspectives, and that’s what makes this film very unique.
Where did the idea for the body builder joke between Lucky and Mason come from? Sometimes, they’ll just look at each other and make body builder poses.
Fortune: It evolved over time. I think sometimes as artists, we need to allow our films to evolve and grow. At first, it was a karate chop. They were doing their little karate chop, and that was their thing. That was their go-to. But, you know, sometimes I have to take myself out of my film and ask my characters, who are you? What is your story? And once you work on a film long enough, the film begins to reveal itself to you, and begins to tell you – the director – hey, this is actually what we do.
The body builder pose just came naturally. I looked at the film “John Q,” and I looked at the ending when they do the muscle man pose to each other. I then kind of placed that into the film, and it felt natural. It felt organic. I also made a short film called “Us,” which is about a Black father trying to teach his son, who has Down syndrome, how to play baseball. I remembered the child actor who I was working with, he always used to love to flex. So for me, it came organically from a film it was inspired by, but also from a young boy who has Down syndrome, who loves to show off his muscles and flex his biceps. I added those moments into the film because it felt honest and organic.
Was there a reason you chose a baseball game as the end of the journey? What was your connection to baseball growing up?
Fortune: It was actually one of my first loves as a kid. I used to always watch the Atlanta Braves play the Yankees. My family was from New York. We moved to Atlanta. So it was that natural rivalry between the New York Yankees and Atlanta Braves. So growing up watching Chipper Jones battle Derek Jeter, Andruw Jones go against Bernie Williams, was such a thrilling excitement for me.
When I did the film “Us” … I wanted to give those characters an activity that they do together. I thought about the different sports … But baseball felt very true. It felt true to me because that was my first love. That was the first sport I really gravitated towards. And then also, the beautiful science of baseball – the technique with hitting, catching, throwing, running. Baseball is such a technical sport. It requires a lot of physical and emotional discipline. There are a lot of things that you could learn from the sport of baseball. I felt like a father teaching his son this sport, there’s a lot of emotional conflict that can arise.
After I did that short, I wanted to dive deeper into these two characters’ lives. I didn’t feel satisfied. I didn’t feel complete. I was like, how do they wake up? How do they go to sleep? What do they eat for breakfast? How do they get ready for their day, you know? As I was building that story, I was like, what journey do they go on? I asked myself, what is their story? They both love baseball. What if they go on a journey to a baseball game?
I wanted to talk about the casting process a little bit. I feel like whenever I talk to directors, they always say it comes down to the chemistry. Could you talk about finding William Catlett and Jeremiah Daniels?
Fortune: Alright, how do I make the longest story short? [Laughs] When it came to finding Jeremiah, our main focus was to put out a national, worldwide casting call for any young boy who has Down syndrome who is Black as well. We thought we were going to get the biggest pool of selections. Everybody’s going to want this role! Everybody’s going to go for this. It’s going to be amazing. We only got a handful of child actors who submitted, and we actually auditioned, maybe six? We were expecting like, 50-100. We were really expecting to bring out a crowd.
But that’s simply because not many parents see representation of themselves in the arts. They don’t know that this opportunity exists and that it’s possible for their children, simply because they’re not seeing enough of that on screen, on their television screen or in cinema. They don’t know to even engage their children into acting, which is a bigger problem we need to address. But nonetheless, we happened to find Jeremiah, because one of my producers had a friend. In just a random conversation, a friend just said, “Hey! I have a younger cousin who has Down syndrome. And he’s a personality.”
When Jeremiah Daniels came in for a Zoom call, he smiled, and immediately we all started smiling. It was infectious. It was contagious, but in a great and amazing way. After that, [we said] let’s bring him in for a chemistry read with Will Catlett, and see how he responds there.
In our chemistry read, it was so organic and seamless. I remember they were just sitting on the couch, and Will had him under his arm, and Will was talking to his parents, and they were just cuddled up, kicking it. It was almost as if they were father and son already. After the chemistry read, I called Will to the office area, and I asked, “Hey, what did you think of Jeremiah?” And the first thing he said to me – he looked me dead in my eye, and said, “That’s my son.” He said, “That’s my son.” After that, I couldn’t argue with him [laughs]. So it was Will who really snapped it, and said this is who I want to play Mason. As a director, I had to listen to that and had to honor it.
This has been on the festival circuit for quite some time now. How has the experience of getting feedback about the film been for you, and what’s been the best part of that response?
Fortune: Overall, the experience and the response has been overwhelmingly positive and really great. You really get a chance to see how this film, while it’s so niche, it’s so universal. Many people could connect to the grief aspect. Many people could connect to the parent aspect. Many people could connect to the disability aspect. Many people could connect to going on a journey with your child somewhere. Many people connect to living in a community. That’s something I don’t know if I expected. [It has] been very overwhelming to me, simply because you have individuals from all races, age groups, generations, finding themselves in this specific story.
When we took “Color Book” to Deauville, France for our international premiere, I was nervous, because I’m like, how’s this film going to translate to a different country? In a different language? I remember 1,500 people came out to the international premiere … I remember Will was coming down for his Q&A, and a woman just jumped on Will and hugged him, and wouldn’t let him go, you know? They were so moved by it. After the screening we were in Deauville for a couple of other days, and everywhere we went people kept stopping us. All they would say is “Color Book!” And they ask for autographs and stuff like that. So just to see the impact that it had overseas in a different country, with a different language and different customs, just shows how universal the story is.
[Another thing that struck me is] how it resonated with Black men. I’ve never seen Black men so vulnerable when sharing their experience with this film in Q&As. Black men can be very guarded with our emotions, especially publicly. To see tears in men’s eyes as they talk about the movie, and getting choked up and overwhelmed with the emotion – it impacted me greatly, because I had never seen this side of us.
The last thing is this impact within the disability community. When we did our test screening in Atlanta … I remember seeing parents come in with their children who had Down syndrome and other forms of disabilities, and to see them watch the film and gravitate to it, to me, means everything. Because it started from those conversations. I really just wanted to paint an honest reflection of their lives. I remember after the test screening, my producer got me out of my seat at the test screening to introduce me to a parent. When I met her, all she had was tears in her eyes. And she told me, “You did it. I saw my family. I saw myself on the screen. I’ve never had this experience in my life.” There are no words, there’s no critics’ reviews, there’s no awards, there’s no recognition that could replace that.