Mostly to survive the insanity of the indie film world. It's really important to have strong connections within. And I'm not talking about people that are going to make your career because they're not going to make your career. Nobody's going to make your career. You're going to make your career. I'm talking about people who are going to be supportive of you and there for you when you have problems, because they're they've been there, too.

Obviously film is a visual medium and storytelling characters are great. You hear people talk about it all the time and of course it's important not knocking it, but that's not all that makes the film okay. If that was all that made a film, it would be more like a play being recorded. And you see that a lot in older movies of the Golden Age of Hollywood, where they really haven't gotten as visual.

If you're out in the world and you're making a film traditionally on set, you must have a DP and you must have a sound person. I know so many people go, I'll just record the sound with my camera and use natural lighting. No, it's bad news.

The great thing about being an indie filmmaker is that you don’t need to worry about pleasing some committee of executives. Instead, you are free to create what you want. Of course, this leads some people into the void of “too many options” and “too many things I want to make” and “maybe I’ll just watch tv instead….”

I'll hear about underrepresented communities and I'm going to focus on women because I'm a woman and it seems like the right thing to focus on. Why are they behind? Have they moved ahead? Well, they haven't because if you look through history, just in general, I'll go by the United States because that's the history I know the best, you’ll see women couldn't even own property.

Music and movies. Music is so important. Sound is so important. So first I want to say that is a thing people drop the ball on. Figure out how to keep your sound good, whatever way that is. You can be really inventive with hidden mikes and other non-expensive things and a sound designer is really great to have.

A list of a few of the films that I have found to be inspiring plus one of my own that I hope will inspire you.

I recently saw a post from a major acting studio online. They did a survey of their students about working with directors and the students replied that they feel harassed and disrespected by directors more often than not.

NO ONE SHOULD HAVE THIS MUCH POWER.

When indie filmmakers look for talent traditionally they look to the pool of people they know unless they have funds to get a couple of “star names” in the film.

When we all first went into lockdown, it seemed like a time where we would all come together through being apart and take care of each other, make sure we all stayed healthy. What actually happened is that it became more apparent about how divided we were and how our attempts to squash systemic racism were failing, miserably.

We all know it is best to write about what you know. 200%. Your writing will be more authentic and will connect better with viewers. But what happens when you are writing something that may be about you know in terms of messaging, but there are things you want a character to be involved in or have a background in that you don’t know about and haven’t lived through yourself?

So, a lot of people feel their work is very precious and aren’t willing to let go of anything. It’s great to believe in your work, but often I feel these people miss out on making something creative.

Oh, I’m putting the standard 20 million dollars into advertising. NOT!

Oh, I’m hiring a sales agent which will cost me almost as much as it cost to make this film. NOT!

Oh, I’m…NOT! NOT! NOT!

There are five main characters of Detention 101. I started creating them by thinking what would the characters of The Breakfast Club be like if they grew up to be adults?

And then I thought about the system of classism in the US.

Detention 101 covers many social themes. In general, it is about white classism and if you stick around through the whole film, you will find a final comment by the film itself on the characters in the film which I hope drives the point home about how broken we are as a society.

So, why did I make a film that had to be shot during a pandemic without the ability to be with actors in the same room? And why this film in particular? These are the things that I reflect upon when I think about all the work that went into this film that likely very few people will see…that’s the truth about the indie film world. One thing I can tell you is that it helped me keep going despite the fact that I truly felt humanity was collapsing in on itself.

Success! Success! ACHIEVE! MAKE A LOT OF MONEY AND BE FAMOUS AND THEN YOU WILL HAVE SUCCESS. HA HA HA.

Is it merit or marketing when it comes to the Academy Awards. I haven’t seen a lot of the films up this year, but regardless of that, I can say without any pause or doubt that it is not merit and it is marketing.

It’s Valentine’s Day. A holiday I hate. Invented to sell more cards and overcharge people for a rushed dinner. It would be great to blame men for this and maybe at the very beginning they started it. (Valentine’s day does go back many, many centuries.) But it’s actually a woman, who never married herself (oh, the irony) who started pushing it to be the popular holiday it has become.

So, women often hear in the film biz that “We would love to promote women filmmakers but there just aren’t that many around.” Well, I suspect the same holds true for people of color making films. And like women, I’m sure there are plenty of them around.