Background

When I was growing up, I wanted to be a fashion photographer. As I got older, I came to the realization that fashion photography wasn’t the true path that I wanted to pursue. Although I am a sartorial woman, that world isn’t for me; it doesn’t interest me as much as it did when I was younger. It would never be enough if I wanted to survive, evolve, and create in an industry built on deprivation. Additionally, though I loved photography and cinematography, the technical aspects were my weak points. I had trouble understanding the connections between numbers and lighting, fills, the way our eyes interpret light and frames. I thought it was a moral failure that I couldn’t conquer something that confused me; it wasn’t a flaw that I couldn’t perfect this type of art, it just wasn’t something I could do as well and as beautifully as I wanted to. My brain may not have been wired for one thing but it didn’t mean I was stuck.

What I love about photographs is (the idea of) the human. The way our limbs move, the dumb conversations we have, the life-changing ones, the sadness and pain our bodies carry; ignited with one look, discussion, event. Anything in the world can be interpreted through an eye; shown in such an impactful way which is why you need different people to say it. As a sensitive, curious—somewhat melancholy and sardonic—person, I love to ruminate; to be open to all that is and could be. Naturally, I’m drawn to presentation, performance, possibilities.

Much like the building blocks put into a film or the layering of paint on canvas, all my experiences, the things I enjoy, the artistic attempts, are all a part of my realization as an artist. Those parts make up the whole that is me. The whole that is me that could be. So when I was presented with possibility—all this work that goes into a film that’s much more than just the writer-director dynamic, less about the glory of being seen and more about the glory of being a part of something. All these pieces to make up a world we want to create and realize on film. Cinema is the world an artist like me always dreams of; a world where fucking anything is possible and if a photo is worth a thousand words, then a film….

The mind has its limits but I’m interested in the way beyond. Something outside of ourselves; the unattainable, sometimes overwhelming, the cosmic. Though that creative daydreaming is helpful and a part of me, much like my executive dysfunction, I need to be brought down to earth. To make these things a reality in our constructed medium.

Career

Yes, I went to film school and yes that comes with immense debt. Yes, I want to be an independent artist but I also need to survive, right? Juggling many different gigs in 2020-2021 is either impossible or extremely difficult. Even before a massive worldwide devastation, it is harrowing to think that you will never get to the place you want to be. But it gives many of us more freedom to explore and it reminds me of the ultimate goal: to have fun. To create because I love it. To know this is my life, not just a career. The love and care seeps into everything.

If I can show people what I want to say because that’s what I want to make and I enjoy it? If I can speak less and have the work speak for itself, I can contribute meaningfully (more in artist’s statement). If I can work with people—those who all have this goal of making something fucking magnificent…this is a never-ending journey but will be a life well lived.

School

Film school gave me the foundation to try many different things. There, I grew to understand that there are the things I love and things I love to do, sometimes both collide though not always. That’s the symbiotic relationship between the arts. There, I tried so many new things; things that I was okay at, things that I was great at but didn’t love, and things that I loved doing though it may have been the first time, or I wasn’t that amazing, or I was good but could be better (and that’s with everything!) With those things, I could take them, love them, learn and know to keep making shit. This is never ending.

As mentioned, filmmaking (and art) is way beyond the dynamic or duality of writer-director. It is more than the self literally being seen. Having work boil down to just a select group of people who work tirelessly and hard because they love film. Originally, this was not my understanding. Artists are egoists and control freaks who need to tame certain parts of themselves to understand. I am no different.

This is a major personal and triumphant example: I went into school thinking that editing was unimportant, tedious, that I hated it. However, when I was forced to edit something—terrified because I can’t half-ass anything and I hate screwing up—I almost had the opposite issue with editing that I did with photography (and quick attempts at DP work). It worked with my brain, it made perfect sense; the pacing and timing along with the story was something I could finetune and finesse. Get better at. Build upon.

I learned that editing makes me a better director, writer, artist. However, it is one of the most profound tools for storytelling that we have ever witnessed.

Experience

I’ve gone from producing a film about a woman stealing a baby as a favor for a friend, to constructing a cabin in a studio with way too intense film school energy, to trying to figure out a way to show a girl gone mad for my first major short-film as an end to my stint in a fucking weird, life-changing environment. Those strange, awful, beautiful, vast experiences lead me to expanding and trying different things when I was in school—working on productions that weren’t strictly for my courses or were outside of school, building up my knowledge, taking extra classes. All that was collecting information, growing, understanding who I am and what I want to do.

Along with developing my skills and creating my own works, I am a freelancer. Currently, I am a Production Associate at Cisco & Co. Productions, a black woman lead production company focusing on coordination and projects in film and theater in New York City. I also freelance with PA work, editing both video and copy, and, as cliché as it sounds, I make a lot of coffee. Post-grad work isn’t easy but my post-school experiences, jobs, freelance gigs are all getting me to where I want to be.

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