My Love of Film and TV
I stumbled into my Radio/TV/Film (RTVF) degree at Howard University in my attempts to determine what my dream of writing would be. I was initially an English major but Lord knows what I was thinking when I made that decision… I just knew I loved to write and I had a lot of doors telling me being an artsy or creative person wouldn’t pay my bills or do anything for me. So, how could I build on my passion of writing and create a career? I had no idea, but becoming an English major only showed me one door, teaching…. and that is not for me. Not in the traditional sense anyway.
I looked a little further into the, then, C. B. Powell School of Communications, and transferred to get my feet wet with the possibility of public relations but I needed to get into the school before they stopped excepting transfers, so RTVF is where I landed. I took one class and honestly it took my breath away. I was exploring what it was like to be me, a black woman, in film throughout history. It intrigued me so much, I stayed and learned what I had an interest to learn.
Script writing and play writing is where I landed on my journey to grow as an artist and that is where I found my love. Watching and critiquing movies, analyzing TV shows, character development, plot creation, and so many other elements to story telling offered a way to get my struggles and my ideas off my mind and onto paper. Attending an HBCU gave me the opportunity to do all of those things AND safely discover myself as an artistic black woman in these outlets.
I toyed with the idea of working 14 hours days on set to grow in the industry and become known as a director or producer of sorts, eventually, but that a way of placing myself into shoes that were not mine on a path that did not align with my passion for writing. After graduating it took a little while for me to find who I really wanted to be and what I really wanted to do to effect change in the world and how I could take all of my skills and joys and apply them to my life in a way that could help me become my own boss one day.
Cinema takes me into a world of possibility, fantasy, and excitement. It gives me new outlooks on life and encourages me to push the bar. 2019 is a pivotal year for me as my five year milestone for graduating from Howard and has made me stop and think what have I done for myself? I have lost myself in the world’s of so many characters that I forgot to bring what I learned from my love of cinema into my own world. It, honestly, became an escape rather than a catalyst to do better for myself; and, although, getting away from reality is good every once in a while, the escape can’t become the preference where we choose to be content.
My change of heart and decision to do better for myself comes from the amazing black women (and girls) that are killing it in the Film/TV Industry today encouraging us with their major strives in spite of everything that’s against us as black women: Marsai Martin, Ava DuVernay, Amanda Seales, Shonda Rhymes, Lena Waithe, Issa Rae, Ruth Carter, Hannah Beachler, Octavia Spencer, Viola Davis, Danai Gurira, Jessica Williams, Phoebe Robinson, and my list could literally go on and on. There are so many Black Women being acknowledged and on their way to being acknowledged for being hard working women in the industry, and they deserve support from the rest of us in the form of self confidence if nothing else. These women are standing in an industry that has been dominated by white men and women for so long, where our stories have been told by people other than us, through eyes that are not ours, for far too long. It’s truly up to us to continue on the path of stopping this trend.
This is why I write!
So, start today! Write, paint, draw, sing, dance, consult, engineer, build, publish, manage, account, teach, whatever it is… start to do it again…. today. Because if there is no other reason for you to get back to your passion, there is this one reason… you deserve it. You deserve to love what you do, be a person you can love, encourage somebody to follow in your footsteps, encourage somebody to make their own footsteps, and believe in yourself and EVERYTHING that you want to do.
I saw a post that quoted Tenola Plaxico and a portion of his amazing message was, “You have EVERYTHING, because you have yourself.” You don’t need anybody else to do what you love, love what you do and the support, encouragement, growth, and success will come to you like air. God created you with a purpose and your purpose is not to excel in somebody else’s dream or work. It’s time to do what you have to do.
Be D.O.P.E. Black girl!