George Tillman Jr.

George Tillman Jr. (born January 26, 1969) is an American filmmaker.

In 1973, when Tillman watched Five on the Black Hand Side and Claudine in 1974, he felt empowered and knew he wanted to become a filmmaker.

"Those were the films that made me realize that African American films- this is before they started calling some films of that era Black exploitation films-spoke for us, and I wanted to be involved with that."

Tillman went to John Marshall High School in Milwaukee and he took Mass Communications Magnet Classes.

As a teenager, Tillman made amateur videos and created Splice of Life, which was a program for a local Public-access television.

After high school, Tillman attended Columbia College in Chicago and majored in Film and Video.

Tillman decided to move to Chicago because he thought a lot was happening there creatively.

"There is a lot of theater there, and there are a lot of things happening in Chicago that I wanted to be a part of, so that's where I went to film school," according to Tillman.

While in film school, he created a 30-minute short, Paula, which was a story of a 17-year-old, single African American mother who works in a diner and motivates the people around her.

Paula's success attributed to numerous awards including the Black Filmmaker's Hall of Fame Award "George Tillman Jr.".

In 1975, Tillman became inspired to create his own films after seeing the film, Cooley High.

To Tillman, Cooley High spoke to the African American audience in both tears and laughter, and Tillman decided he wanted to contribute to that medium, but did not necessarily know if he wanted to become an actor, writer or director.

In 1991, Tillman graduated from Columbia College and became a part of a directing and producing partnership with his college friend, Robert Teitel.

Together, they created Menagerie Films.

During that time, Tillman supported himself by being a production assistant.

He helped work on various commercials, but he always knew he wanted to direct.

"Usually, I was the first guy on the set and the last guy to leave—eighteen hours of hard work. And I just felt like if I want to direct, why am I doing this?"

Tillman's only experience of being close to a director was made was when he worked on the film, Mo' Money.

The writer of Mo' Money, Damon Wayans told the union that he wanted more African Americans to be a part of the crew, which is the major reason why Tillman got hired.

Tillman was a set dresser and was able to see how they made the film.

At that point, Tillman realized that if he wanted to direct he had to write his own script to make everything happen.

"It was going to be a long road from being a PA (production's assistant) to a director."

Tillman began to write his script for Scenes for the Soul, and sent the script to New Line, but they passed on it.

Initially, the budget to produce Scenes for the Soul was a million dollars, but Tillman and his partner, Tietel, could not raise a million.

The amount they had raised was $150,000 and that was over a period of two years.

Tillman had to resort to his film short, Paula, and decided to have a screening.

He invited investors to come donate from anything to $500 to $5,000.

By the end of the screening, Tillman and Tietel raised $130,000 and with that, started shooting.

and winning the Midwest Regional, Dramatic Category, of the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences' 19th Annual Student Academy Award competition (1992).

In 1994, Tillman directed and wrote his own feature-length film, Scenes for the Soul, which was shot in Chicago.

Tillman directed the films Soul Food (1997) and Men of Honor (2000).

He is also the producer of Soul Food: The Series on television and the four films in the Barbershop series: Barbershop, Barbershop 2: Back in Business, Beauty Shop and Barbershop: The Next Cut.

Tillman was nominated for the Black Film Award for Best Director for Soul Food (1997).

He directed the 2009 biopic Notorious, about the late Brooklyn-born rapper The Notorious B.I.G., and directed and produced the drama The Hate U Give (2018).

Tillman was also nominated for the Black Reel Award for Best Director and Best Screenplay for Notorious (2009).

Tillman was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

His father, George Tillman, worked at the American Motors plant in Kenosha, Wisconsin, and his mother was a secretary.

Throughout his early childhood, Tillman would borrow his father's 8mm camera and would start to shoot things with Milwaukee's Public-access television cable TV channel.

By age eight, Tillman got his hands on his very first television script, All My Children, and wrote his first soap opera as well as his first five-minute show.

Tillman recalled, years later, to an interviewer in regard to receiving the All My Children's script," I told them about a certain plot change that I wanted and I thought I could help the characters out…That was the beginning for me, the writing."