WRIT 340 WP1
Sights, names, sounds, and scents began to crystalize in starkly imaginative ways around the age of three. This heightened state of awareness was evident in the way I experienced something as ordinary as getting picked up from preschool. Each day I would play my own guessing game about which of my parents would pick me up from preschool. The ride home would differ greatly in sound depending on whether my mother was coming to get me or my father. Most often my father would pick me up which was cool because he would let me listen to all the kids songs I wanted to hear - Radio Disney was our jam! However, when my mother would walk through the door with her beautiful long locs, and her stylish business suit, I knew the ride home would grace my ears with the sounds I needed to hear; the sounds that would help make me a storyteller.
Her playlist was iconic to say the least, with the music of John Legend, Mariah Carey, India Arie, and Beyoncé just to name a few. But the song that changed my life was “You Don’t Know My Name” by songwriter, singer and producer Alicia Keys. The rich production of that song became the early soundtrack to an original narrative that I would visualize on my drive home. When I look back on it, I essentially took the scenarios that were illustrated in the song and merged them with the images and feelings of my surroundings during my ride home with my mom. This everyday experience began to birth a whole new world that my fresh three-year old mind readily absorbed. The connection between music and brain development is well-documented. Research from the University of Georgia showed that, “Children who grow up listening to music develop strong music-related connections in the brain. Some of these music pathways actually affect the way we think. Music seems to prime our brains for certain kinds of thinking (Bales).”
I began to mentally chronicle certain landmarks along the ride home; the Walgreen’s on the corner of 119th and the flower kiosk right across the street. Those places became trail markers in my mind that let me know that I was not far from home. The moment we reached home I would run to my father and ask him to turn on the television to the music video station. It was so satisfying to see that the music video for my favorite song matched almost exactly what I had imagined. The flow, composition, story and style that Chris Robinson, the video director, employed ignited the neurons in my brain that ultimately inspired me to dive into storytelling.
Fast forward about 10 years later, my parents bought me my first camera, a “Nikon D3300” for my birthday and for an upcoming international trip. About a week later we were off on a trip to South Africa and Zimbabwe. It was the first time I had ever traveled out of the country. I read the camera’s Owner's Manual and Google’d videos on Youtube explaining the “in’s and out's" of my new camera. The pride in my heart was breathtaking, I was overwhelmed with such a strong purpose and responsibility to document our ten-day trip.
As I collected footage, I could instantly tell where I was going to use the clip in the edit and how long the clip would last. Drake dropped his “If You're Reading This It's Too Late” album about two weeks before we headed to Africa. That album was the only thing I was listening to and I knew I had to include it in my edit. I received a bit of push back from my mother as she wanted to incorporate the cultural sounds of South Africa in the edit. We eventually came to an agreement that included both of our notes and the end result was extremely gratifying.
The Africa vlog/documentary was the earliest beginning of my exploration into becoming a filmmaker. The breathtaking beauty, vastness and wetness of Victoria Falls; the spectacle of the Zambezi River; the history of Johannesburg, South Africa; and the mass confusion of the traffic in Harare – all captured through the lens of an awestruck teenage would-be storyteller. It took two weeks to finish the first cut, but through it all I gained resilience and learned the value of persistence. I also began to develop my eye for how I wanted to visually tell the story of our experience. I must confess that I began to get frustrated whenever I shared a new cut of the documentary with my parents. It seemed as if their notes grew longer each time: “Go back and add this.”; “The driving clips are too long!”; “Savannah, Drake cannot be in almost every scene!” “Why not? Everyone loves Drake?!” It truly boggled my 14-year-old brain that anyone in the world could dislike Drake.
Nevertheless, I complied and went back to the editing program on my family computer and made the changes that were requested. (The travails of an early film production major). Once I finished my final cut, I wanted to show it off to any and everyone. With the help of my father, it felt like the whole world saw my project due to him faithfully - and slightly obsessively - sending it to everyone he knew or ever came in contact with. Much like many black Southerners, my first audience was my church family and my first screen was the projection screen at church which “debuted” my African V/Log. It was there my work found its first screen and I found my first audience. When I screened my CTPR 310 film, “Overthink,” as a junior at the University of Southern California many years later, many of the same people from my church debut were in the audience. Film and storytelling has always felt like second nature to me, with the support of my family I have been able to pursue this dream which I am grateful for because it is increasingly becoming my reality.
The richness of African-American culture deserves to be showcased and preserved through film. Much like the sounds of Alicia Keys shaped my early ear and eye for the integration of music and film - through video. Gina Blythewood has come to represent my storytelling mentor - although I know all of her work, and mine she will one day discover. Blythewood and I share a love of place and time. She first captured my attention in her film, The Secret Life of Bees. I am a Southerner, and The Secret Life of Bees takes place in a Southern town and tells the story of heroic women forging out a place of respect and independence for themselves, and making room to care for others whose lives went against the prevailing culture of the day. Set in a South Carolina town - my family’s place of origin - in 1964, the film is an adaptation of a book by the same name by Author Sue Monk Kidd.
As book adaptations go, Blythwood’s depiction hits on characteristics that have become central themes in my own storytelling journey. The story of strong, independent matriarchs with hardscrabble stories of survival and sensitive hearts that lead with love over all else. When I first saw the film, and as I have watched and been inspired by other films with similar themes, it harkens back to Julia Dash’s iconic film, Daughters of the Dust, also set in South Carolina and let me know that the same setting needn’t tell the same story. It reaffirmed the complexity and importance of place in a storyteller's journey - just like my earliest memories on the drive from school everyday – we may all come from similar places but we each have our unique perspectives which lead to new, fresh and valuable stories that deserve to be told.
As I now am completing my senior year, literally my final semester, at USC School of Cinematic Arts, I have observed the temptation to follow trends in filmmaking, but I have also seen creatives forge their own paths, tell their own stories - their way - and then that somehow becomes the new trend. Even at my age, I vividly recall when my senses began to sharpen and I became aware of my own instincts. The journey now is learning to embrace and trust in those instincts to tell the stories that are uniquely mine to tell, and to trust that my senses will enable me to craft stories that create connection and serve as the backdrop for some other young person’s pathway to whatever their dreams may entail. I am contributing my perspective to this industry, which even today as a Black, female creator, in a Hollywood that has made progress, is no less a challenge - even as I fight to “take up space” at a University that is world renown for its Cinematic program. With the memories of my earliest introduction to music, and how they began to help me shape stories, I know my vision and my instincts will continue to sharpen with time and tenacity.