Patrik-Ian Polk (born July 29, 1973 in Hattiesburg, Mississippi ) is an American director, screenwriter, and producer. Polk, who is gay , is noted for his films and theatre work that explore the experiences and stories of African-American LGBT people. In 2016, Polk was included in the Los Angeles Times Diverse 100 list, which described him as "the man bringing black gay stories to screens large and small".
32-557: Polk made his feature film directorial debut with Punks (2000), an independent film that he also wrote and produced. Punks had its world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival . In 2004, Polk created the television series Noah's Arc , which made its debut on Logo in October 2005 and ran for two seasons. After the series' cancellation, Polk wrote, directed, and produced a film spin-off, Noah's Arc: Jumping
64-633: A series concept that again focused on the lives of several gay African-American men. The original one-hour pilot was produced independently and released as a web series in 2004, and to assist in funding each episode, the show was originally envisioned as a DVD subscription series. After the web series was well received, the series was picked up by Logo as a half-hour series. The series focused on issues like same-sex dating , same-sex marriage , HIV and AIDS awareness, infidelity , promiscuity , homophobia , gay bashing , and same-sex parenthood . The series ultimately ran for two seasons on Logo before it
96-524: A theatrical film , is a narrative film ( motion picture or "movie") with a running time long enough to be considered the principal or sole presentation in a commercial entertainment program. The term feature film originally referred to the main, full-length film in a cinema program that included a short film and often a newsreel . Matinee programs, especially in the US and Canada, in general, also included cartoons , at least one weekly serial and, typically,
128-732: A Feature Film, and Outstanding Directing in a Feature Film. It won GLAAD Award 's for Best Feature Film (Limited Release). Noah's Arc: Jumping the Broom was released on October 24, 2008, on a limited basis, at theaters in Los Angeles , New York City , Atlanta , Chicago , Palm Springs, California , and Washington, D.C. The movie showed in Ocean City, New Jersey , Detroit and San Francisco in early November. The movie then began showing at theaters in Philadelphia and Dallas in at
160-609: A different Passion Play in May 1903, The Life and Passion of Jesus Christ , in 32 parts, totaling 44 minutes. Defined by length, the first dramatic feature film was the Australian 60-minute film The Story of the Kelly Gang (1906). Similarly, the first European feature was the 90-minute film L'Enfant prodigue (France, 1907), although that was an unmodified record of a stage play; Europe's first feature adapted directly for
192-459: A feature's running time is 60 minutes or longer. The Centre National de la Cinématographie in France defines it as a 35 mm film longer than 1,600 metres (5,200 ft), which is exactly 58 minutes and 29 seconds for sound films . The term feature film came into use to refer to the main film presented in a cinema and the one which was promoted or advertised. The term was used to distinguish
224-457: A second feature-length film on weekends. The first narrative feature film was the 60-minute The Story of the Kelly Gang (1906, Australia). Other early feature films include Les Misérables (1909, U.S.), L'Inferno , Defence of Sevastopol , The Adventures of Pinocchio (1911), Oliver Twist (American version), Oliver Twist (British version), Richard III , From the Manger to
256-531: Is any more or less talented than I am.... What I am saying is doors were opened to Greg that just simply were not open to me; he was given access that I wasn't. Fifteen years in, I've had to carve out a career of independent work while a lot of my white gay counterparts and white straight counterparts [are] doing the kinds of things that I just simply have not even been given the opportunity to talk about doing. Feature film A feature film or feature-length film (often abbreviated to feature ), also called
288-793: The Sundance Film Festival . The film was chosen to open the San Francisco International Lesbian & Gay Film Festival . In November 2001, Punks was released theatrically at the Quad in New York City . It was nominated for the GLAAD Media Award and the Independent Spirit John Cassavetes Award in 2002. Punks later had its television premiere on Logo on August 7, 2011. After Punks , Polk began developing
320-532: The Broom , which was released theatrically in 2008. His subsequent feature films, The Skinny , starring Jussie Smollett , and Blackbird , starring Mo'Nique , Julian Walker and Isaiah Washington , were released in 2012 and 2015, following festival runs. Born in 1973 in Hattiesburg, Mississippi , Polk was interested in television and movies as a child, notably Spike Lee 's 1986 film She's Gotta Have It . He later attended Brandeis University , where he
352-524: The Corbett-Jeffries Fight and The Jeffries-Sharkey Fight (1899). Some consider the 100-minute The Corbett-Fitzsimmons Fight to be the first documentary feature film, but it is more accurately characterized as a sports program as it included the full unedited boxing match. In 1900, the documentary film Army Life was produced by Robert Paul . It was a programme of 33 short films, with a total running time of around 75 minutes, following
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#1732790658759384-752: The Cross , Cleopatra (1912), Quo Vadis? (1913), Cabiria (1914) and The Birth of a Nation (1915). The notion of how long a feature film should be has varied according to time and place. According to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences , the American Film Institute and the British Film Institute , a feature film runs for more than 40 minutes, while the Screen Actors Guild asserts that
416-443: The Manger to the Cross , Cleopatra and Richard III (all 1912). Actor Frederick Warde starred in some of these adaptations. The first Asian feature was Japan 's The Life Story of Tasuke Shiobara (1912), the first Indian feature was Raja Harishchandra (1913), China 's first feature film was Zhang Shichuan's Nan Fu Nan Qi (1913), the first South American feature was Brazil 's O Crime dos Banhados (1913), and
448-472: The U.S. and Japan alternated as leaders in the quantity of feature film production. Since 1971, the country with the highest feature output has been India, which produces a thousand films in more than twelve Indian languages each year. In 1927, Warner Bros. released the first feature-length film with sound, The Jazz Singer , whose audio track was recorded with a proprietary technology called Vitaphone . The film's success persuaded other studios to go to
480-522: The United States and France, but were released in individual (short film) scenes. This left exhibitors the option of playing them alone, to view an incomplete combination of some films, or to run them all together as a short film series. Early features were mostly documentary-style films of noteworthy events. Some of the earliest feature-length productions were films of boxing matches, such as The Corbett-Fitzsimmons Fight (1897), Reproduction of
512-614: The Wind . Digital Video (or DV) has quickly changed how most films are made. First used to create special effects and animated movies, digital cameras became more common on film sets in the late 1990s. In 2002, George Lucas ' Star Wars: Episode II – Attack of the Clones became the first major studio film shot primarily on digital video. The ability to instantly play back footage and quickly transfer footage to computers for editing helped to speed up post-production time. Digital film making
544-422: The considerable expense of adding microphones to their sets, and scramble to start producing their own " talkies ". One of the next major advancements made in movie production was color film . Even before color was a possibility in movies, early film makers were interested in how color could enhance their stories. Early techniques included hand tinting : painting each frame by hand. Cheaper and more widely used
576-494: The end of November and performed above expectations, with $ 30,336 per screen average that IndieWire dubbed "astounding". Despite this, the film received poor reviews from mainstream film critics; Time Out called it a "silly soaper", and Variety described it as "a lame feature" that was "blandly staged". The New York Times called it an "agreeable melodrama". In 2012, Polk released his third feature film, The Skinny , which he wrote, directed, and produced. The film tells
608-740: The film with Rikki Beadle-Blair . The film had a successful run on the film festival circuit, winning awards at several LGBT-oriented festivals, including Outflix Memphis, Atlanta 's Out On Film Festival, and the Crossroads Film Festival in Polk's native Mississippi. The film was the closing night gala screening for Los Angeles' Pan African Film Festival (PAFF), where it won the Founders Award for Best Narrative Feature Film. Blackbird received mixed reviews from critics upon release. The Hollywood Reporter called it "too all over
640-419: The first African feature was South Africa 's De Voortrekkers (1916). By 1915, over 600 feature films were produced annually in the United States. It is often incorrectly cited that The Birth of a Nation (1915) was the first American feature film. The most prolific year of U.S. feature production was 1921, with 682 releases; the lowest number of releases was in 1963, with 213. Between 1922 and 1970,
672-453: The longer film from the short films (referred to as shorts) typically presented before the main film, such as newsreels , serials , animated cartoons , live-action comedies and documentaries . There was no sudden increase in the running times of films to the present-day definitions of feature-length; the "featured" film on a film program in the early 1910s gradually expanded from two to three to four reels. Early features had been produced in
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#1732790658759704-477: The map to take seriously". The New York Times said that the film has an "impressive, palpable conviction", although it ultimately "suffers from soapy excesses and narrative disjunctures". In 2017, Polk joined Being Mary Jane as a producer and writer. In 2020, he started co-producing the Starz show P-Valley . Polk is openly gay , which has greatly influenced his work; in discussing his inspiration for
736-436: The pragmatic sex education that few others would provide" —Mikelle Street of The Advocate on Polk's career (2020). Polk made his feature film directorial debut with Punks (2000), an independent film that he also wrote and produced. The film starred Rockmond Dunbar , Renoly Santiago , Jazzmun , and Devon Odessa , and focused on the stories of a group of gay African-American friends. Punks premiered at
768-526: The screen , Les Misérables , came from France in 1909. The first Russian feature was Defence of Sevastopol in 1911. Early Italian features included L'Inferno (1911), Quo Vadis? , The Last Days of Pompeii (1913) and Cabiria (1914). The first UK features were the documentary With Our King and Queen Through India (1912), filmed in Kinemacolor and Oliver Twist (also 1912). The first American features were Oliver Twist , From
800-479: The series Noah's Arc in an interview, Polk said: "I wanted to see black gay characters and there were none on TV. So I decided rather than complain about it, I'd do it myself." Polk lives in Harlem . Polk has spoken out about lack of diversity in the entertainment industry, contrasting his struggle as a black gay man with his white , and also gay, counterparts: The same year Punks premiered at Sundance, there
832-532: The story of five friends who are Brown University classmates—four gay men and one lesbian—as they reunite in New York City for a tumultuous Gay Pride weekend. Following a festival run and limited theatrical release, the film premiered on Logo on July 8, 2012. His third feature film as a writer and director, Blackbird , starring Mo'Nique and Isaiah Washington , was released in April 2015. Polk co-wrote
864-624: The training of British soldiers. Inauguration of the Australian Commonwealth (1901) ran for 35 minutes, "six times longer than any previous Australian film", and has been called "possibly the first feature-length documentary made in Australia". American company S. Lubin released a Passion Play titled Lubin's Passion Play in January 1903 in 31 parts, totaling about 60 minutes. The French company Pathé Frères released
896-548: Was toning : dying the film in a single color, used in many films in the 1920s. The film processing lab Technicolor developed the Three-Tone coloring technique that became the standard for color film. It was a complex, time consuming, and expensive process that many movie studios were not eager to try. One of the early adopters of the three-strip process was Disney . Some of the most notable films Technicolor processed with three-strip were The Wizard of Oz and Gone with
928-403: Was another film there by a white gay filmmaker called The Broken Hearts Club . The films are eerily similar except The Broken Hearts Club is a mostly white cast. Both films were well received, but [its director] Greg Berlanti — who is a friend of mine, very talented and this in no way is to take anything away from him — has gone on to become a premiere television producer. I'm not saying Greg
960-548: Was canceled in 2005. Polk's second feature film, Noah's Arc: Jumping the Broom , a spin-off of Noah's Arc , was released in 2008. It was written in collaboration with fellow writer from the series John R. Gordon , and picks up after the cliffhanger at the end of the second season. The film focuses on the marriage and wedding of the main character, Noah Nicolson, and his boyfriend Wade Robinson at Martha's Vineyard . The film received three NAACP Image Award nominations: Outstanding Independent Feature Film, Outstanding Writing in
992-510: Was given a big boost in 2005 when the Digital Cinema Initiative created a guide for manufacturers to create a universal standard, to make the technologies more compatible with each other and more user friendly. Shooting movies on digital also led to new technologies for distributing films. Titan A.E. , released in 2000, was the first feature film to be released for viewing over the internet. Digital distribution changed
Patrik-Ian Polk - Misplaced Pages Continue
1024-571: Was the arts editor of the college newspaper. He received his undergraduate degree from the University of Southern Mississippi , then went on to study at the University of Southern California (USC) School of Cinema and Television. "Polk has built for himself a full collection of work that was formative for a generation of Black gay men. [..] Through these works, as well as the work he still does, he allowed Black gay men to not only see versions of themselves but also provided them digestible venues for
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