Hanibal Chancellor

Hanibal Chancellor is a Washington D.C. creator, writer, producer and director. In 2011, with an idea of a cinematic music video, executive producer Hanibal Chancellor hired Chris "Broadway" Romero and Alex Acosta to help paint his vision through the lens of the camera. The video was shot so well, Hanibal reviewed the unused footage then had an epiphany of making a movie. Without much knowledge of the film industry, he consulted with Washington, D.C. filmmaker Bruce Brown and Los Angeles, California actor Cle Sloan ( Training Day (2001) , Brooklyn's Finest (2009) and Southland (2009) ). After picking their brains, reading and studying everything he could get his hands on about the film-making process, Hanibal began his quest to produce and direct his first feature film titled Transitions. In the first phase of development, he had to answer the fundamental questions of film-making. What is this story about? What sort of characters are involved? Where does the action take place? How much will it cost to make? Who'd want to watch it? After answering those questions, he changed his idea from a movie to an episodic series because the spellbinding story he wanted to tell couldn't be summed up in a feature film. Noticing the rise of streaming platforms and Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, Hanibal didn't want to take the traditional Hollywood route of trying to sell a script. He wanted to build an organic fan-base online before pitching his show to a major network or streaming platform. Anwan Glover ( The Wire (2002) , 12 Years a Slave (2013) ) saw his vision and passion, then instantaneously agreed to be the lead character of the show. Being as though the majority of the cast weren't trained actors, Transitions started out as a non-scripted web series. Once the show began to pick up steam and generate a local buzz, Hanibal eagerly wanted to focus on the art of storytelling by first moving away from improvisation. He then tapped his longtime friend and writer Curtis Fuqua; brother of the critically acclaimed director Antoine Fuqua ( Training Day (2001) , Olympus Has Fallen (2013) , Brooklyn's Finest (2009) , The Magnificent Seven (2016) , The Equalizer (2014) ) to help with the script writing process. With his insatiable desire to be a better director, Hanibal took on small movie roles in Southpaw (2015) , Concussion (2015) , House of Cards (2013) and Fences (2016) . After studying Antoine Fuqua , Peter Landesman , Jake Gyllenhaal , Will Smith and Denzel Washington on those movie sets, he was now ready to take his own production and acting to another level. He then cast seasoned actors Michael Wright ( Sugar Hill (1993) , The Five Heartbeats (1991) ) and Michael Blackson ( Next Friday (2000) , Meet the Blacks (2016) ) to add equity to the production. After winning awards and experiencing local success as a web series, Transitions developed into a TV series set to stream on Amazon Prime Video.