of course, Hollywood Shuffle, where Townsend wrote, directed and starred in the film. Hollywood Shuffle was a small budget of $100,000 while The Five Heartbeats was almost $9 million.
“So I created this very unique Townsend Bible and everybody knew what everyday was gonna be, from the first minute you stepped on set until you left and went home. And then I had rehearsal. So everything I did, I was trying to not waste money but try to make a movie that people would want to see again and again.”
Townsend took an unpopular way to shoot the film, by shooting the entire movie in reverse order. The effort proved to be effective.
“The first scene we shot of the movie was the church scene. And so Eddie is playing all this pain in his face and singing the song with Baby Doll and we haven’t done anything yet,” said Townsend, who credited Wright for delivering exactly what was needed to convey Eddie’s surprise appearance at the church service Duck attends after being invited by Choir Boy. “All of that is Michael Wright as an actor delivering a brilliant performance because all the pain he’s playing we really haven’t played yet.”
Although the movie was shot in a different order, Townsend and “Five Heartbeats” co-writer Keenan Ivory Wayans (yes, the “In Living Color” Wayans) made