Beyond the Gates: Creating Beyond Traditional Systems

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This season is all about building sustainable creative practices, and today we're talking about what it actually takes to create outside of traditional systems.
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Marcellus Armstrong is an artist, filmmaker, media programmer, and educator.
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His work focuses on archival and material notions of blackness and queerness.
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Since 2019, Marcellus has been collecting oral histories as part of an ongoing film and archival project, Talking Walls.
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A short film created from this project won Best Audience Short Documentary and the Philadelphia Filmmaker Award at Black Star Film Festival, Bat Bat, Bat Bat Bat, in 2025.
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He is currently the inaugural recipient of the Ann Bennett Visionary Producers Prize given by the Alliance for Media Arts and Culture and a preservation and archiving media fellow at People's Media Record.
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Originally from the suburbs of Baltimore, Marcellus currently resides in Philly.
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Thanks so much for being here, Marcellus.
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Before we dive in, tell us a little bit about what you're working on right now and what's been on your mind lately about independent creative work.
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Thanks for inviting me, Saki.
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And then thanks for Alliance for Media, Arts and Culture, and just thanks for the legacy of Ann Bennett.
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Yeah, just really excited to be here to talk about all the things erotic career practice, sustainability, something that's always shifting.
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And what was the question again?
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What is something I'm interested in?
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Yeah, tell us a little bit about what's on your mind about independent and creative work.
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Yeah, and like what you're up to.
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You could start with like what you're up to.
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Yeah.
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Yeah, I'll start with what I'm up to.
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So as Saki has explained, um, I've been working for the past six years on an archival project, on an oral history and archival project cut talking walls.
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Um, and I really see it as an ongoing film collage.
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So uh this year we we went, we released the film last year, and it's done really great in terms of a film festival run.
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That's done really successful, but right now I'm trying to continue the momentum that the film has brought, continue to produce um production for phase two, continue to uh collect oral histories, um, but also get education around archiving work and community archival work.
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I'm a part of a fellowship that every month that we meet, and there's always kind of a training and what it means to kind of be the steward of community archives, and that's been really exciting for me.
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Um and that's what I've really been working on.
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And then I would say that um I would say things that I'm thinking about at the independent CEO practice is um the hamster wheel that it can oftentimes produce and how I am exhausted.
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Um and are what are the ways that I can continue to build my practice and be successful at it, but also not bear myself into the ground as I do it.
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Um, or or create burnout from my own passions, which which sucks.
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Um, I think those are some things I've been thinking about.
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Yeah.
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Oh my gosh.
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So hard not to like get tangential.
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I think I might do it anyway.
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Um, but I feel like that that last piece, I have so many like follow-up questions and I really want to hear about like the the origin story of yourself as an independent filmmaker and like archivist.
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Um, but that last piece around about like not burning out your passions.
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Um, I don't know if it's because we both Tauruses, but that really be the medicines, right?
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Like the medicine, I think the medicine of like Taurus energy, if I can get like astral woo-woo with y'all for a second, is understanding like pace, timing, really understanding like, you know, I feel like there's other energies that do well with speeding past their actual um energy reserves and just kind of powering through and getting it done.
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But something about Taurus medicine is like I don't feel like it, and not feeling like it means something.
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Exactly.
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Think about that.
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Like, I don't feel like it.
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So, like, does that mean I need to rest?
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Right.
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I will say that I am a Taurus son, but my moon is a Capricorn.
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So like the Taurus in me is always just like, you need to rest.
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And then my Capricorn moon is like, no, stay up and finish that.
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And it's always like a constant battle in my head that I think they're having.
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And depending on the season, Taurus wins, and I'm just like, I check out, and then sometimes Capricorn in me wins, and I'm like, I stick out an extra 10 hours.
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So okay, so what's your rising sign?
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My rising sign is Leo.
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Oh God.
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Okay, okay, so I'm a I'm a Taurus son.
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Um, um I'm a Taurus sun, Aquarius Moon, Capricorn Rising.
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So I totally get you.
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It's like it's like that squaring energy of what it means to be productive versus what it means to do actual good work that is authentic.
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And how do we, how do we like relate to like the expectations of professional professionalism, the expectations of productivity that we can sometimes align with versus that Venusian medicine of like, but something in me just don't want to do it.
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Exactly.
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And you know what?
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You're right.
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You're right.
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Like sometimes you need to, sometimes you need to back up from a project, sometimes you need to sleep the night off, come back to it, and then the work is better, or you can come at it in a way that, like, oh, I don't feel like doing it right now.
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I take a step back and then I enter it again where I do feel like doing it, and it's so much better.
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Like the idea that I came with, like everything, like, and it's like punching in the hours of doing things where, like, you know, I'm just doing something just to get it done is not necessarily beneficial for your own passions, if we're if we're you know, sticking to like what is my passion project?
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Yeah.
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Yeah.
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Okay.
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Uh I still want to tangent, but I'm gonna move on.
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Let's talk, let's talk about um your origins, right?
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Like, take us back.
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How did you decide to build an independent film career?
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Was there a specific moment when you realized you weren't going to follow the traditional path, or did it happen gradually?
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Um, that's a really good question.
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I uh so on the call is someone really close to me that has known me some from undergrad.
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And um, I think because Becky is like on this call, like I'm really thinking about my time in undergrad.
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Um, and I don't really like to dwell on my undergrad and related to my art career, but I went to an HBCU.
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And um I went to Lincoln University, which I feel like is a little bit of an underdog in terms of HBCUs.
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And and particularly studying arts at an HBCU is a very particular experience because a lot of HBCUs kind of promote, and even they were founded in this kind of idea of traditionalism of like you need to get a career that's gonna make money.
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You need a lot of a lot of HBCUs are kind of founded in agriculture, um, are founded within like, you know, health or business, like those do really well.
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A art department, my art department only had two people, um, graduating, graduating majors.
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Um, and so I always have, I think in that experience, I always had to find my own way around um an education or opportunities, really.
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Like I always had to find my own way in terms of getting an like an opportunity because it didn't come necessarily to Lincoln and particularly art students, like it was just overlooked.
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Um and so, within that, after uh I graduated from undergrad, I went to an internship at the Studio Museum in Harlem, um, which was really foundational for me.
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And for those that are not familiar, Studio Museum is a contemporary black art museum, um, really kind of the leading contemporary art museums in general, but also the leading art museum for black art.
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Um, and I worked there in development.
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That was kind of my first.
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I wanted to be an artist.
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I've always wanted to be an artist.
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I still consider myself an artist.
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I'm gonna try to keep this short.
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It might, you you asked for like what was my path?
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And my path is like crazy.
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Um and so I started like Lincoln, I mean not Lincoln, Studio Museum was beautiful.
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Best experience that I loved.
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Um, best work experience I ever had.
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Um but as an artist, you don't artists do not work in development or fundraising.
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Um, but it was the way that I just I just love being in Studio Museum.
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Like you, like it's you're just meeting so many different living contemporary black artists.
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Like I remember being going to the gala and dancing with um dancing with Kara Walker or like um uh Soldier Clark or like all these other art or meeting Glenn Lagon, or at the time we had artists in residences were Jennifer, um Jennifer Packer, or um just so many different names that I would just get to know and meet.
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And um, it was really great and foundational for me as an artist that like wanted to move out of development.
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So I was living in New York.
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Um at that point, I I've always been interested in film and media.
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Um, I used to do this thing where I would download a bunch of film and media related to my own identity because I just felt like there was there's very lacking images of black and gay representation through media.
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Um and I would download these images and I would clip them together and create my own movies, and then I would have my own brunches and then invite people over.
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So it's always also film and media has always been like a collaborative communal experience for me.
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Um and so I think after five years of working at the Studio Museum, I was like, hey, like I don't really want to work in development.
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Like I really want to go towards being an artist.
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And at that point, there's always this conversation should you get an MFA?
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Um and I was like, I think I do want to take some time out and get a pro like get an MFA.
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But at that, I also knew that I didn't want a traditional MFA experience.
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Um, I wound up going to Cranbrook Academy of Art in Detroit.
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Um, I studied fiber.
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Um and I was in the fiber department, but I was making videos and media, which is not something like people are just like, well, why are you here?
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Um but it was really about the philosophy of fiber materials, of like the things that we touch around us and form who we are, and how can that translate into video and media that I was I wanted to explore during grad school.
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Um I moved to Detroit.
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Um I fell in love with Detroit and the energy of Detroit and Detroit as a place.
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Um I still try to go visit every year.
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I'm gonna be there next next month as well.
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And I got my first kind of I got my first kind of project where I was holding a camera after grad school and when I was still living in Detroit.
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Um I fell in love with the New Dance Show, which is I won't go into a tangent of the New Dance Show, but it's a really beautiful online archive as well as the historical public access dance show related to like kind of similar to um Soul Train.
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I tried to, I got a small grant,$5,000, where um I wanted to um where I put on a uh a new a dance show event that was related to the Detroit and neighborhood and kind of harking back to the legacy of the new dance show.
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Um that was my first kind of in relationship with community-based media, where people came out, I filmed them dancing, I clicked it together, um, and it was it was beautiful, it was great.
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Um, I realized in that project I'm not good at holding a camera, but I still really was interested in community-based media.
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Um, also, the winters in Detroit were brutal.
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My mom at the time was 75.
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Um, and so I decided that I want to move back to the East Coast to kind of escape the existential depression that I would go through every year, as well as be closer to my mom.
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Um, and so I moved to Philadelphia in 2019.
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I started working at Scrabe Video Center, which is a nonprofit that teaches video production if you want to tell your own story in kind of a very um really beautiful way.
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It was uh founded by Louis Messiah, who's a great documentarian, who has a project called Um Precious Places, which he won a McCarthy Genius grant, where they have like 100 plus short films of community groups telling stories of different places to run the city.
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Um it's really beautiful and great.
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And I think just being involved with Scribe, but also that project, um, kind of shaped how I built Talking Walls, which is the film that has done really well and successful that is about black and queer spaces that no longer exist through the lens of or through the stories of black and queer alters.
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Um and yeah, I think that's kind of a crash course of how I kind of moved through um administrative jobs, moved through places, kind of got, I kind of skipped even oral history telling and how I kind of got some of that education through Detroit Sound Conservancy.
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Um, but I've always kept a job, I've always kept like a side job, but I've always had a practice within film media, um, sculpture, and everything else.
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And it's kind of culminated into a snowballed into um me being here in this room talking to you, which is really great.
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Yeah.
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Come on, Cap Cormoon.
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I always have a job.
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Um my my my brain is just so blown.
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I have so many things to say, but first I wanted to ask you to repeat what you what's the program in Philly that uh that Louis Messiah used that it kind of came from that.
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You said it's scribe.
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And the product that they do is called Precious Places, okay.
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Um and as I was working there full time as a program manager, I I would have to program like 30 screenings a year and like 45 workshops a year, and then I would also oversee at that time.
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They've kind of broken up my my job role after I left.
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But and then um I would oversee their Precious Places program, um, or manage their precious places program, and I would also manage their youth program as well.
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And then eventually, after four, three or four years working there, I moved to part-time, which allowed me to focus on the production of the film that um has led me to here, yeah, talking roles.
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Oh my, oh my God, what a journey.
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I think so, so many, so many like threads that I wanna like, because truly I think listening to all of that, right?
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I'm also listening to the different lands and locations that called you and like how your math opened up from that.
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And so for those of you that don't know much about me, I am a nerd.
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I'm a counter-cartographer.
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When it comes to mapping, it's just how my brain works and tinkers around.
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And I'm also really obsessed with obsessed with the great migration, as many of us are, right?
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And I'm also obsessed with just like kind of tracing, excuse me, tracing um us as descendants of the great migration and like how we're still energizing these places and um kind of just building on the work of um people who have sown seeds here, right?
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So I hear like um Baltimore and Philly and Detroit, like of course you're in love with Detroit.
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How could you not be?
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Right?
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Like, how could you not be?
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That's like me, yeah.
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I was just gonna say that like I I've realized that I love cities that have a distinctive flavor, and and also I love black cities, I love black cities, and just like that's where I feel most home.
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But like Detroit has such a like Baltimore has such a distinctive flavor in terms of the music, the food, the culture, and so does Detroit.
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Um, in terms of the music, the food, the culture, the legacy, the black legacy of like Detroit.
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So it's like that's where I thrive um oftentimes.
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Yeah.
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Yeah, I need to see what Detroit is about.
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I've been in um I'm from Philly.
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I went to Morgan State, and I also studied like a film program at a HBCU.
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So I totally understand.
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Why are you for the arts?
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I didn't even end up graduating, actually.
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I didn't end up graduating because I was like, oh, this is not what I thought this was gonna be.
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Um and it's so funny because I I graduated high school in 2015, and in April of 2015 is when the upgraded uprisings around Freddie Gray happened.
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And I had a I had a nice like little um charcuterie board of offers, but I remember just like baby sake being like, uh, I'm going to Morgan.
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That and our the exact phrases, that land is ready for me, right?
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I had I had like no idea what that meant at the time, right?
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And um just being there and then discovering Baltimore as a city, and I think like after the uprisings, this like perspective of Baltimore kind of like boom, does it be like this unsafe place and this da-da-da-da.
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But like my personal experience was there is so much history.
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There's so many, there's so many archives and maps that are touching.
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And so just having the opportunity to bloom in Baltimore was such a treat.
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And then for like the past six years, I've been living in Tucson, Arizona, which is like not black, like at all.
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Like, like at all for real.
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I mean, I think over the last like two, three years, there's definitely been been more of an uptick in in black presence.
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But I moved out here really seeking the land and like really developing my own methodology and counter-cardiographic practice and like solo camping.
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And so I'm I'm sharing this to say that like a lot of what you said I resonate with.
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And like I see it mirroring in like a almost like the opposite direction, right?
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Where like now I feel like I have created something that um I've created a lived experience in practice that started off very film heavy and has now transformed to something more academic, um, more counter cartographic, which of course can still be explored through through media and film, but I just love like also just knowing it's your cat, uh Cap Moon, Taurus Sun, Leo Rising, just like knowing that and then kind of seeing how that spirit has lived.
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I was actually writing today about how like a lot of us are um conditioned through society, through capitalism, through colonialism to compete with each other when really we're all peers, right?
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We're all responding to, I'm gonna get a little esoteric, but we're responding to an ancestral impulse.
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We're responding to the earth needing to create a new medicine for what's happening now, right?
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And so just being able to see and hear and listen, like, oh, okay, like Detroit was activating Marcellus.
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Okay, Detroit was like, nah, nah, that I know exactly what you need.
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You need like it's not gonna make sense now, but you need these like little pockets of learning oral history, of working with fiberglass.
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It doesn't make no sense to you at all.
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But trust me, there's something about this that's going to be instrumental to where you're going.
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So, you know, I'll be soapboxing, but yeah, no, that's so, but that's like so true.
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Of I think that's there's two things that you're yeah, I think you're talking about is that one of just being comfortable of like going off of your path, of just like, you know, and I think this like a lot of artists, you know, they get focused on like I'm a filmmaker, I do media, I do filmmaker, and their whole circle is film.
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And like, you know, and their whole, like, their whole world is like, you know, they go out to the bar and drinks are, you know, most of their friends are media makers or within film, um, you know, who they date is within those circles are any anything like that.
00:20:18.000 --> 00:20:26.799
And then you kind of box yourself into a bubble which doesn't necessarily do well for, you know, art or thinking about different ideas or perspectives.
00:20:27.039 --> 00:20:42.079
And so, like, being able to um, I've always been not never, I've always, and through the detriment of me in the in my own path, um, I've always hated compromising a little bit about my talents or what my interests are.
00:20:42.240 --> 00:20:47.039
Like, I was a double major at Lincoln, and then like I had to stay an extra year to finish both of my degrees.
00:20:47.279 --> 00:20:49.279
Do I need, do I, did I need both of my degrees?
00:20:49.359 --> 00:20:51.599
No, but I didn't want to compromise on one path.
00:20:51.920 --> 00:21:00.559
Or like the fact of just I've always kept a full-time job or and also have um, you know, worked on an art project that never went in the compromise.
00:21:00.720 --> 00:21:07.119
I've and you know, I went to I studied at Cranbrook and Fiber, but I worked in film and video where people are like, you should be making objects like, why?
00:21:07.200 --> 00:21:08.480
I don't want to compromise.
00:21:08.720 --> 00:21:17.200
Um, and so like always just being able to be flexible with all of your talents and just moving and being off a path can lead you in so many different directions.
00:21:17.440 --> 00:21:30.799
Um, and then also the second thing that I I was like, oh, when you were talking is just um the, yeah, just like the ability to just take on opportunities no matter for the experience.
00:21:31.039 --> 00:21:37.759
And then and then that does somehow lead into you know a skill in the toolbox.
00:21:37.920 --> 00:21:39.279
I think um, what is it?
00:21:39.359 --> 00:21:43.039
There's there's that that quote that's like a jack of all trades.
00:21:43.519 --> 00:21:46.079
Um it's better than none.
00:21:46.319 --> 00:21:48.079
Is wait, it's like a jack of all trades.
00:21:48.319 --> 00:21:49.359
No, a master, yeah.
00:21:49.680 --> 00:21:54.079
A master of something like a I'll I'll look it up.
00:21:54.160 --> 00:21:59.759
But I think that's the jack of all trades is a is better than a master of none or one, but a master of.
00:22:00.160 --> 00:22:01.920
Of one is better, something like that, right?
00:22:02.160 --> 00:22:03.920
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:22:04.000 --> 00:22:06.480
And I think there within that quote, I'll I'll look it up.
00:22:06.559 --> 00:22:09.759
But within that quote, it's kind of like I feel like that's my ethos.
00:22:10.079 --> 00:22:16.880
Where um I've been kind of a jack of all trades, where um I'm about to look it up.
00:22:17.279 --> 00:22:23.119
Uh throughout my career, in so many times a jack of all trades is a master of none, but oftentimes better than a master of one.
00:22:23.759 --> 00:22:31.519
Um where like I have so many jack of all trades over the course of my career, and like they've just been able to help me get to where I am.
00:22:31.680 --> 00:22:54.160
And so taking like learning oral history through Detroit Sound Conservancy, grant writing for nonprofit institutions, um you know, even, you know, and and producing my own like parties or events, being a DJ sometimes for like black and queer spaces, all of that kind of built into the project that I'm doing now with Talking Walls or any project that I do.
00:22:54.240 --> 00:22:57.920
It's just so many things I can pull on because I've had so many different experiences.
00:22:58.319 --> 00:22:58.960
Yeah.
00:22:59.599 --> 00:23:00.799
Yeah, absolutely.
00:23:00.960 --> 00:23:04.960
I I think that the the hosting element of what you've been doing too, right?
00:23:05.039 --> 00:23:09.359
Of like, I think sometimes in like film, exactly what you said, right?
00:23:09.440 --> 00:23:17.680
Sometimes when people are like so obsessed with I'm a media maker, I am a filmmaker, it's really pretentious in a way that isn't experiential, right?
00:23:17.759 --> 00:23:23.119
Like film can really open up um your own worldview, your own taste.
00:23:23.279 --> 00:23:26.720
It can really expand your own cognition.
00:23:26.960 --> 00:23:33.759
So to hear that you've been like hosting spaces or DJing events, and it's also not just a cerebral thing, right?
00:23:33.839 --> 00:23:38.960
It's also a in the body thing, it's in the food thing, it's in the like the laughing.
00:23:39.039 --> 00:23:40.400
It's in the like, well, I ain't get that.
00:23:40.480 --> 00:23:41.279
I didn't get that sister.
00:23:42.720 --> 00:23:43.680
How did you get there?
00:23:43.759 --> 00:23:45.039
That's literally not what happened.
00:23:45.200 --> 00:23:50.319
Like, you know, I ended up having a um recently a little back and forth about the movie Bugonia.
00:23:50.400 --> 00:23:51.440
Have you seen that?
00:23:51.839 --> 00:23:54.000
I have not, but I've I really would like to.
00:23:54.240 --> 00:23:55.920
Okay, well, well, I won't go into it.
00:23:56.000 --> 00:24:00.240
It's streaming in like one of these new platforms, like either like Netflix or HBO or something like that.
00:24:00.480 --> 00:24:05.359
And I was like, that's literally, you know, I was kind of going off on like my um what I got from it.
00:24:05.519 --> 00:24:08.480
And my friend was like, how'd you get there?
00:24:08.640 --> 00:24:10.640
I was like, that's literally what happened.
00:24:12.319 --> 00:24:14.799
Like that's like that's what like this isn't me.
00:24:14.880 --> 00:24:16.640
This is this isn't even me interpreting it.
00:24:16.720 --> 00:24:18.000
That's what happened.
00:24:18.559 --> 00:24:26.160
Like just like that kind of banter and like um communing with it as like a as a as a meal piece is so important.
00:24:26.400 --> 00:24:45.680
So um I love hearing how all of your experiences also impact how you create um and how you think about um showing up in community and how you think about not just being an archivist or a filmmaker, but also creating the thing that needs to be archived right now, right?
00:24:45.839 --> 00:24:49.920
So, like just living, um yeah, and you are you my peoples.
00:24:50.400 --> 00:24:52.319
So next question.
00:24:52.559 --> 00:24:53.759
You my peoples too as well.
00:24:53.839 --> 00:24:55.039
I just want to put that out there.
00:24:56.240 --> 00:24:57.119
Next question.
00:24:57.279 --> 00:25:02.240
Let's talk about money because this is what everyone needs to hear, but rarely gets discussed.
00:25:02.400 --> 00:25:08.240
Honestly, where does the money actually come from to make your films and how do you fund your work?
00:25:09.279 --> 00:25:12.000
That is uh such a good question.
00:25:12.240 --> 00:25:20.640
Um, so the film that Talking Walls is a short film that I've done, which is the best thing that I've made so far.
00:25:20.799 --> 00:25:27.440
Um and hopefully all of anyone that listens to this will be able to check it out at some point at a screening, and we'll talk about that later.
00:25:27.519 --> 00:25:30.160
I'll give a little shout-out um to upcoming screenings.
00:25:30.319 --> 00:25:39.680
But the film Talking Walls was made on a 37k budget, which is actually really small for um typical short films.
00:25:39.920 --> 00:25:47.200
Um sometimes uh short films are within like a 50 to 100k budget.
00:25:47.359 --> 00:25:49.839
Oftentimes they have bigger production teams.
00:25:50.079 --> 00:25:54.400
Um, the way that I mean it has been like it took four to five years to make.
00:25:54.480 --> 00:25:55.920
I'll I'll say that.
00:25:56.160 --> 00:26:17.759
Um the funding came initially from a$5,000 grant um where I, you know, Velocity Fund, I proposed like, hey, I want to do an oral history project on Black Quare Elders, and I'll have an event at the end of this like grant, um, in which case, you know, because that's what Velocity Fund wanted, they wanted, you know, a public-facing event.
00:26:18.000 --> 00:26:22.240
Um, so I was like, yeah, I want to do oral histories of Black Quare Elders and like we'll have a screening of it.
00:26:22.319 --> 00:26:24.720
Um didn't know that it was to take like three or four years.
00:26:24.880 --> 00:26:33.119
But I'll I'll say oftentimes with grants is that even though if they have a deliverable, if they believe in the project, they're not gonna hold you to that deliverable.
00:26:33.279 --> 00:26:36.319
I've heard some people be like, oh, well, I'm not gonna get this product done in time.
00:26:36.400 --> 00:26:37.759
Well, I shouldn't apply.
00:26:37.920 --> 00:26:39.359
No, you should always apply.
00:26:39.519 --> 00:26:41.519
Um, because you never know if you're gonna get the grant.
00:26:41.599 --> 00:26:49.119
And then after you get the grant, you can do all the negotiations with that, with the team about, hey, I don't think I'm gonna be able to have this project done by the end of the year, but what about next year?
00:26:49.279 --> 00:26:51.680
Or just can continue to be keep them in contact.
00:26:51.920 --> 00:27:06.160
After the$5,000 grant, and this also goes back to um a few rules of mine, but one of the things that we've already talked about is the ways that other experiences can build up into or snowball, into where you might become.
00:27:06.319 --> 00:27:11.440
So the largest part of the Talking Walls funding came from Philadelphia Independent Media Fund.
00:27:11.519 --> 00:27:13.759
It was a$25,000 grant.
00:27:14.079 --> 00:27:28.960
The only reason why I got that grant is because through my job at Scribe, I um was helping out Rhea Tajiri um kind of do a body of work, our retrospective screening in relations to Scribe.
00:27:29.119 --> 00:27:31.839
And like we just became really cool and really close.
00:27:32.000 --> 00:27:36.319
And then so she, you know, with that jury process, they asked for recommendations.
00:27:36.559 --> 00:27:42.960
And so um, with my work with Scribe, Rhea recommended me for the$25,000 grant.
00:27:43.200 --> 00:27:56.640
So that's a that's a way of just like, even though, and and this is I'll I'll have, I do think it's important to um support yourself financially through if you can't do it through an independent art practice because it's hard.
00:27:56.880 --> 00:28:02.799
Um, at least always try to get a job, a day job that is related to what you're passionate about.
00:28:02.960 --> 00:28:18.960
And so, like, yeah, like I wasn't working on films or art at Scribe, but and I was a program manager, and that's not just my, it's not my practice directly, but like the the mission of Scribe and what they did there at Scribe was related to my practice.
00:28:19.119 --> 00:28:24.400
And in some ways, just being there actually did help my own practice thus through in that just in that way.
00:28:24.640 --> 00:28:28.799
Um, the rest of the funding came for the talking walls.
00:28:28.960 --> 00:28:31.839
I think I got like a finishing fund from Scribe.
00:28:32.400 --> 00:28:36.640
And then I got um there are a few things.
00:28:36.720 --> 00:28:39.039
I feel like I was able to get our cobble together.
00:28:39.119 --> 00:28:48.640
I was able, after you get a grant, also after you get a grant from organizations, sometimes they have additional buckets of money that's only um available to those grantees.
00:28:48.799 --> 00:28:54.799
So I think I went back to Philadelphia Impedited Media Fund when I was kind of complete and I just needed some color correction.
00:28:54.960 --> 00:28:57.440
And I went back and I said, hey, like I'm almost finished this.
00:28:57.519 --> 00:28:59.759
I just need like$2,500 to$3,000.
00:29:00.240 --> 00:29:01.920
Can you can you give that to me?
00:29:02.160 --> 00:29:09.440
And um, Philadelphia Impedent Media Fund, they were able to do some discretionary funds and actually provide the finishing funds to complete my film.
00:29:09.839 --> 00:29:18.799
Um in general, I have not been successful about like money coming in to support my practice.
00:29:19.119 --> 00:29:29.839
If you go to my website, WilliamResals.com, like and if you see my projects, it goes on and on and on for the past, I don't know, 15, 10, 15, 15, 20 years.
00:29:30.240 --> 00:29:34.319
I have sold one piece in my entire career.
00:29:34.480 --> 00:29:35.680
Um, but you know what?
00:29:35.759 --> 00:29:44.799
That also may just be me and my own lack of like ability to ask for things or you know, downplay my work or something like that.
00:29:44.960 --> 00:29:49.119
Um, but yeah, like I've never I've I've I never sell work.
00:29:49.200 --> 00:29:58.000
And this is actually like I've gotten the most funding through media than I did ever within the proper, I guess, fair quotes art world.
00:29:58.240 --> 00:30:05.519
Um so yeah, it's just I think it's um that's how I've been able to fund.
00:30:05.839 --> 00:30:08.400
Um it is about individual connections.
00:30:08.720 --> 00:30:16.799
I have always kept a job in administration to the to a it's a double-edged sword.
00:30:16.880 --> 00:30:26.960
So, what has also been able to really support myself is um, I think at Studio Museum, and I'm just gonna be very bluntly honest about how much I was making at Studio Museum.
00:30:27.119 --> 00:30:28.400
I was making 30K.
00:30:28.480 --> 00:30:31.440
This is 2010, so keep that aware.
00:30:31.599 --> 00:30:35.200
I was making 30K, I left Studio Museum making 37.
00:30:35.839 --> 00:30:38.319
Um, I left in 2015.
00:30:38.960 --> 00:30:43.200
Uh then I went to Cranbrook.
00:30:43.680 --> 00:30:45.359
I did not have a scholarship.
00:30:45.759 --> 00:30:46.720
Did I have a scholarship?
00:30:46.880 --> 00:30:49.039
I think I might have had one scholarship opportunity.
00:30:49.200 --> 00:30:54.000
I think I did get a scholarship for the first semester, but no, I have a lot of student loans from that time.
00:30:54.160 --> 00:31:01.839
I left student, I left Cranbrook and I worked at Henry Ford Museum of American Innovation as a grant writer, copy editor.
00:31:02.000 --> 00:31:05.119
I think I was making$17 an hour to start.
00:31:05.200 --> 00:31:06.720
It was part-time.
00:31:07.039 --> 00:31:09.839
Um and then I think it moved.
00:31:10.000 --> 00:31:12.400
I think I did move to full-time briefly.
00:31:13.359 --> 00:31:15.119
No, no, I never moved to full-time briefly.
00:31:15.279 --> 00:31:16.240
That place was scary.
00:31:16.480 --> 00:31:24.880
Um and I think when I moved to Philadelphia, I started at Scribe at 54K.
00:31:26.079 --> 00:31:28.400
Um, 54 or 59K.
00:31:29.039 --> 00:31:31.119
And I left there.
00:31:31.279 --> 00:31:37.680
I don't think I don't think I left with any kind of different, like very difference in terms of salary.
00:31:37.920 --> 00:31:47.680
The job that I have now, um, which is a director of programming, it's the first time that I've hit six figures um a year.
00:31:47.759 --> 00:31:49.759
I'm making 100k a year.
00:31:50.000 --> 00:31:53.039
Um, and that feels really great for me.
00:31:53.200 --> 00:31:59.839
It's taken me 15, 20 years for me to reach that level, um, which has not been great.
00:32:00.319 --> 00:32:03.759
But um having a job has always supported me.
00:32:03.839 --> 00:32:07.119
And having this this job right now is probably the most comfortable I've been.
00:32:07.279 --> 00:32:11.680
Probably the um in terms of five in terms of financially, I'm able to save a little bit of money.
00:32:11.759 --> 00:32:15.039
And even those funds kind of feed into directly into the film.
00:32:15.279 --> 00:32:22.480
I would even say that even the money that I got from Velocity Fund or Independent Media Fund, they always say that you should pay yourself.
00:32:22.720 --> 00:32:26.720
Most of the money that I should have paid myself from those grants went into the film.
00:32:26.960 --> 00:32:29.200
Um, so I'll just say that as well.
00:32:31.279 --> 00:32:31.599
Okay.
00:32:33.680 --> 00:32:34.720
That was thorough.
00:32:34.960 --> 00:32:36.079
Thank you so much.
00:32:36.240 --> 00:32:42.880
I think that that was say I started, I started with the administrative job at 79K.
00:32:43.039 --> 00:32:46.960
And then a year or two years later, it pushed back, it pushed up to 100k.
00:32:47.039 --> 00:32:48.160
So I'll just share that too.
00:32:48.799 --> 00:32:49.119
Okay.
00:32:49.839 --> 00:32:50.960
And okay.
00:32:52.160 --> 00:32:56.319
I have so many soapboxy things to say, but I want to be succinct first, at least.
00:32:57.279 --> 00:33:06.799
My succinct response at first is thank you so much for sharing your insights behind the veil in a very serious way where you're pointing to the things, right?
00:33:06.960 --> 00:33:11.680
It's not this like elusive, oh, I it comes in, it's the connection.
00:33:12.400 --> 00:33:15.039
It's like, this is what that connection got me.
00:33:15.279 --> 00:33:16.799
This is what it originally was.
00:33:16.960 --> 00:33:18.480
This is how long it took.
00:33:18.799 --> 00:33:22.720
This is how much I've been making alongside pursuing these passion projects.
00:33:22.880 --> 00:33:24.079
This is where I am now.
00:33:24.319 --> 00:33:38.400
And then this is the soapbox part where to hear you, fellow Taurus, go into the archive of your path from education to finances and knowing that your birthday is this weekend.
00:33:38.559 --> 00:33:40.240
And there's a new moon in Taurus this weekend.
00:33:40.319 --> 00:33:42.160
I am a stars and moons girl, guys.
00:33:42.400 --> 00:33:45.039
Like, and there is a new moon this weekend.
00:33:45.279 --> 00:33:49.279
Happy birthday and congratulations and congratulations.
00:33:49.759 --> 00:33:50.240
Thank you.
00:33:50.480 --> 00:34:06.720
Yes, because every every place that your path has guided you to is why you're able to make work that is so, I know some people hate this word, but so authentic and so rich and so nuanced today.
00:34:06.960 --> 00:34:22.559
So I hope that like as you go into your um birthday weekend, you're really processing the fact that you have shown up for yourself across generations, across not generations, across decades, or generations of yourself, maybe, right?
00:34:23.119 --> 00:34:23.519
I love it.
00:34:23.840 --> 00:34:32.559
Yeah, you know, like you really have um believed in it, believed in your vision, you know, and and maybe that hasn't always been the case.
00:34:32.719 --> 00:34:45.599
You know, of course, we have these micro seasons of doubt or these micro seasons of depression, like you were mentioning earlier, and Detroit and going back home, but there is some kind of overarching agreement that you just never broke.
00:34:45.679 --> 00:34:51.679
There's some kind of overarching belief and contract that you never broke, even in all of those seasons.
00:34:51.840 --> 00:34:53.760
And so, congratulations, you deserve this.
00:34:53.920 --> 00:35:00.719
That was so um insightful for our audience to hear about okay, there are grants.
00:35:00.880 --> 00:35:05.920
Also, listen, you might not finish it on time and you should still apply.
00:35:06.159 --> 00:35:10.960
And also, when you do get it, they might have extra funds for grantees themselves.
00:35:11.119 --> 00:35:18.320
So you really cannot be afraid to um put yourself out there and advocate for the project that you're making.
00:35:18.400 --> 00:35:26.559
And I think that's also a reflection of your belief in what you're making and you understanding how necessary it is, especially with talking walls, right?
00:35:26.800 --> 00:35:37.440
Understanding how necessary what you're making is, not just for you as a as a solo creator, but also what it means for our community, right?
00:35:37.519 --> 00:35:51.119
To actually hear our elders speak and not commodify um our community in a way that is only like glitz and glam and like lingo, but like the actual lived life, the the pain, the heartache, how do you deal with that?
00:35:51.280 --> 00:35:54.719
How many queer elders do we have that could actually speak to that experience?
00:35:54.880 --> 00:35:58.400
How many gay elders do we have that can actually speak to that experience?
00:35:58.559 --> 00:36:03.360
Um, you know, I think people often pedestal Paris is burning, da-da-da.
00:36:03.760 --> 00:36:25.199
But we know, you know, you know, like this was made by a little, you know, a little foreign, like, you know, white girl who was just, ah, but like you know, but like and it's a great, it's a great piece, it's a great intro piece, but to be doing the work of like, um, these are human beings, right?
00:36:25.280 --> 00:36:43.760
This is someone who's lived experience, like you know what questions to ask, you know what insights to listen for, and to really through four or five years stick with whatever it needed to be birthed, you know, like in a lot of ways, being a creative, whether it is through your fiberglass art, which is very stunning, by the way.
00:36:43.840 --> 00:36:47.039
You got the little chiclectas, don't with the little uh the black slippers.
00:36:47.199 --> 00:36:58.880
I used to read them a lot growing up, but um, you know, whether it's that or it's through your um like visual media, these are all like you're like giving birth to something, right?
00:36:59.039 --> 00:37:04.800
It's like, oh, I gotta get this feeling out, I gotta get this emotion alchemized.
00:37:04.880 --> 00:37:06.000
I gotta, I need to see it.
00:37:06.079 --> 00:37:07.679
It wants to be born.
00:37:08.239 --> 00:37:08.719
Yeah.
00:37:09.280 --> 00:37:12.079
So you're like sticking with that, you know?
00:37:12.320 --> 00:37:12.719
Yes.
00:37:13.119 --> 00:37:18.480
I just just yeah, just thank you for all the affirmations because it's good to hear.
00:37:18.719 --> 00:37:23.280
Oh, because I'll I'm just really just trying to be honest and real with y'all because it's it has been hard.
00:37:23.360 --> 00:37:31.599
It's like that type of um, you know, you answer you think that you you have all these goals of a certain type of success.
00:37:31.760 --> 00:37:32.960
And I think I had those too.
00:37:33.119 --> 00:37:40.400
Like along the way, I thought that after I went to grad school, like I would have an independent art practice, I would move back to New York, I would, you know, do all these things.
00:37:40.480 --> 00:37:41.840
And like, have we talked about this?
00:37:41.920 --> 00:37:43.679
Like, life has different plans for you.
00:37:43.920 --> 00:37:49.920
And then um, and then also you have different plans for yourself, and then sometimes those things fall through.
00:37:50.159 --> 00:37:55.920
And I have been through different periods that um have been really low.
00:37:56.079 --> 00:38:02.480
I I would even say after this film has been a highlight of my career, it's the best thing I ever made.
00:38:02.719 --> 00:38:16.079
But when I had um after my screening at Blackstar, which I think was probably the pinnacle of my career, which so special, I won two awards, I had my family there, so many different walks of life for that screening.
00:38:16.320 --> 00:38:18.480
After that, I got so depressed.
00:38:18.719 --> 00:38:27.519
It was like a it was like a post, I describe it as like kind of a PTSD from like the end, like the the completion of a project.
00:38:27.679 --> 00:38:34.800
Um, where it's like you're kind of on this high, you've been working for so long to reach a certain level, and then once you get it, then it's just like now what?
00:38:34.960 --> 00:38:46.639
And there's been, and I think that was the lowest I've been, but there have been oftentimes many different points of my life, not even just with that, because that project was really successful on the opposite end where I bust my ass and like there's nothing that comes from it.
00:38:46.880 --> 00:38:48.400
And then that gets really discouraging.
00:38:48.480 --> 00:38:51.440
And I really don't know, I really don't know.
00:38:51.519 --> 00:39:05.519
I mean, you I forgot how you worded it earlier, but I really don't know what keeps me going sometimes, um, or what keeps me not just going, because I'll always keep on going, but I really don't know what keeps me from creating work sometimes.
00:39:05.840 --> 00:39:08.559
Or um maybe it's the undiagnosed ADHD.
00:39:08.639 --> 00:39:10.159
Like I don't, I don't, I just don't know.
00:39:10.239 --> 00:39:14.559
But I I continue to to try or get things out of me.
00:39:14.800 --> 00:39:29.599
Um and regardless of, you know, sometimes I might take a step back and it's like I need a moment to just like rest and figure out like why I'm feeling certain ways, but I'll I always return back to to creating something.
00:39:29.679 --> 00:39:30.000
Yeah.
00:39:30.719 --> 00:39:33.760
Yeah, it's those those overarching agreements, right?
00:39:33.920 --> 00:39:45.119
Like where we have there's something, there's some kind of agreement that we agree to, we signed to like and through incarnating on this earth.
00:39:45.360 --> 00:39:54.000
And but then that doesn't really account for all of the pain and strife and ups and downs and ins and outs while getting to that agreement.
00:39:54.079 --> 00:40:01.039
I actually um I wrote something on Substack a few weeks ago um called winning is exhausting.
00:40:02.159 --> 00:40:05.039
It's really, it's really exhausting.
00:40:05.199 --> 00:40:16.000
And just to give you guys a little bit of like background from my end, so after I dropped out of Morgan, I um hooked up with White Angle Youth Media in Baltimore.
00:40:16.159 --> 00:40:22.960
And so I was actually the first federally registered art-to-work apprentice in the nation, and that's pretty much how I got to this job, right?
00:40:23.039 --> 00:40:26.159
So I'm the first one that did it, getting paid full-time, 40 hours a week.
00:40:26.320 --> 00:40:26.960
Congratulations.
00:40:27.199 --> 00:40:28.159
Benefits, thank you.
00:40:28.320 --> 00:40:32.719
Benefits, I didn't care about that then, but like full health package.
00:40:32.880 --> 00:40:33.760
But now you do, yeah.
00:40:34.000 --> 00:40:35.920
But now I do, and it was accredited.
00:40:36.000 --> 00:40:37.199
That's what that thing there is.
00:40:37.280 --> 00:40:39.199
It's like my little um federal accreditation.
00:40:39.280 --> 00:40:42.800
So I didn't get a uh um a degree, but I got that.
00:40:42.960 --> 00:40:49.360
And then, you know, years later, years later, years later, um, you know, I'm doing my first keynote in Stockholm, Sweden.
00:40:49.440 --> 00:40:55.679
I'm leaving for Sweden on Saturday, and all these different, thank you, all these different collaborations and da-da-da-da.
00:40:56.159 --> 00:40:59.199
I just did my first book talk here in Tucson.
00:40:59.360 --> 00:41:03.280
I just did um Buku Hodo Fest in New Orleans this year.
00:41:03.519 --> 00:41:05.920
I just did um this is relevant.
00:41:06.960 --> 00:41:07.280
Thank you.
00:41:07.360 --> 00:41:08.000
This is relevant.
00:41:08.079 --> 00:41:10.800
I just did career day at my high school in Philly.
00:41:11.039 --> 00:41:13.519
I just got published in a Land Food Freedom Journal.
00:41:13.599 --> 00:41:14.960
They're like, come back, they pay me too.
00:41:15.039 --> 00:41:16.719
They're like, come back, keep writing for us.
00:41:17.679 --> 00:41:28.320
So, like, it's a real, I feel like last year was a year where content creation and visibility really took off, and I got to like 50k on Instagram, 13k on TikTok, cute, kick you, cute.
00:41:28.400 --> 00:41:29.920
But that was me like just doing what I do.
00:41:30.000 --> 00:41:33.119
Like, I'm just going to the desert talking about whatever I talk about, da da da.
00:41:33.679 --> 00:41:39.199
But this year has been like more like I got three collaboration invitations this week.
00:41:39.360 --> 00:41:42.800
I got an offer to work with Mokata Museum.
00:41:44.800 --> 00:41:48.719
It's not gonna work out, but just the timing of it all is not gonna work out.
00:41:48.800 --> 00:41:50.159
But the invitation, right?
00:41:50.719 --> 00:41:54.639
And I got like two more really cool invitations this week alone.
00:41:54.880 --> 00:41:57.840
But a few weeks ago, I was writing about winning being exhausting.
00:41:57.920 --> 00:42:03.679
And this is I'm putting that in a space to just really slow down what you said about the depression at the Black Star Film Fest.
00:42:03.760 --> 00:42:10.719
Because I think that like as marginalized people and you know, heavy earth placements, right?
00:42:11.519 --> 00:42:16.960
We be, we be like, I'ma just, I'ma go, I'ma get it, I'm gonna I'm not gonna stop, I'm gonna work.
00:42:17.920 --> 00:42:33.440
And as a and the communities that we come from are so used to how to be resilient in the face of a no, in the face of a failure, in the face of struggle, that we don't really have a lot of community care when it comes to you are achieving at a high level.
00:42:33.599 --> 00:42:36.719
And this is also very overstimulating.
00:42:37.519 --> 00:42:45.360
Every time you open your email, there's some kind of yes, you get in the thing, there's some kind of like someone looking at you in this particular way.
00:42:45.519 --> 00:42:54.559
And it's the nervous system does not know the difference between like this is good stimuli and this is bad stimuli.
00:42:54.800 --> 00:42:57.679
It's just processing that there is a lot of stimuli.
00:42:58.239 --> 00:43:01.360
And so it's very exhausting.
00:43:01.679 --> 00:43:04.559
It is very like, oh, okay.
00:43:04.719 --> 00:43:08.639
And the what I've kind of adopted is this was a lot of information.
00:43:08.719 --> 00:43:13.599
I'm gonna synthesize this data and get back to you, which in my body means it's nap time.
00:43:15.280 --> 00:43:16.239
Yes, oh my god.
00:43:17.679 --> 00:43:26.719
You know, it's so it's the like, it's so overwhelming to be reaching milestones that you worked hard to get to.
00:43:27.280 --> 00:43:35.360
And people would think that the working hard of it means that you have the emotional nervous system, capacity, bandwidth.
00:43:35.519 --> 00:43:39.039
And it's like, no, we're the same size, but it's also freaking me out, right?
00:43:39.119 --> 00:43:40.960
Like I'm going to, I'm gonna be in Sweden.
00:43:41.119 --> 00:43:45.119
I've never been to Sweden, and I'm going to do a keynote, it's freaking me out.
00:43:46.639 --> 00:43:49.519
Like I have the keynote in my body, it's about maps as arguments.
00:43:49.599 --> 00:43:54.079
I talk about, I can talk about, I can do the whole keynote right now, but it's freaking me out, you know?
00:43:54.400 --> 00:43:54.719
Yeah.
00:43:54.960 --> 00:43:59.760
So and I think another tool that's been helpful for me is.
00:44:00.159 --> 00:44:02.239
Going to EMDR therapy.
00:44:03.119 --> 00:44:04.480
Have you heard of that?
00:44:04.960 --> 00:44:06.000
I've done it.
00:44:06.320 --> 00:44:06.639
Okay.
00:44:06.960 --> 00:44:10.400
And you know, I'm taking a break from her because she can trigger me.
00:44:10.960 --> 00:44:11.519
Exactly.
00:44:12.719 --> 00:44:16.000
I'll be back to her in like in like June.
00:44:16.480 --> 00:44:36.480
But it did, it's it's just like the okay, I need to increase my bandwidth to receive and actually accept the things and actually hold the things and actually take it still be human and not just have this kick me into a capitalistic overdrive of like now.
00:44:36.639 --> 00:44:37.360
What's the next award?
00:44:37.440 --> 00:44:37.599
Right?
00:44:37.679 --> 00:44:39.599
Like you got two awards at fucking Black Star.
00:44:39.760 --> 00:44:41.920
That's not, that's not a small thing.
00:44:42.079 --> 00:44:45.920
Like that's not, you know, that's a really cool thing.
00:44:46.320 --> 00:44:55.920
But the thing is like that, what you're saying about like I need there's for me, there was no time to, and oftentimes lately, there's no time for me to enjoy it.
00:44:56.000 --> 00:45:06.239
And I and I know it's like I should, you know, tell myself to take a step back and enjoy it, but I feel like I'm also constantly, I and it's like I have always kept.
00:45:06.480 --> 00:45:07.440
I was having a conversation.
00:45:07.519 --> 00:45:18.159
There was an I'll I'll loop back, but like I have always kept a full-time job because of a fear of not being stable, a fear of not being able to make ends meet.
00:45:18.320 --> 00:45:21.280
Um, I have I've never had the luxury of, oh no, I did.
00:45:21.360 --> 00:45:29.280
I treated myself to the luxury of quitting everything and moving to Baltimore after that time when like I wanted to be closer to home.
00:45:29.360 --> 00:45:36.159
Before I went to Philly, I spent a summer here unemployed and looking for like jobs on Craigslist and stuff like that.
00:45:36.239 --> 00:45:41.360
And that was actually like, yeah, I actually I enjoyed that moment.
00:45:41.440 --> 00:45:46.719
But that's the only time I've been able to give myself the opportunity to have an independent art practice.
00:45:46.800 --> 00:46:01.840
And I think I talked to you yesterday about like one thing that I wish I had done in my 20s is to give myself the agency to quit and just pursue an independent art practice because it's easy to do in your 20s, it's harder to do in your 30s.
00:46:02.159 --> 00:46:31.280
Um and yeah, like and so like and I but I've also I remember talking to there was a conversation that someone was talking about where um they come from uh their parents were artists, you know, and they're they're black, and so like their parents are artists, and then they grew up within a creative field, but they never felt like they were talking about how like even though their parents are artists, they still never felt the creative freedom to pursue art as a full-time thing.
00:46:31.519 --> 00:46:44.239
Um, and oftentimes if you look at different, you know, art families or different ways of like how an artist becomes successful, they had come into being comfortable with pursuing an art practice full-time.
00:46:44.400 --> 00:46:45.599
I never had that luxury.
00:46:45.679 --> 00:46:54.800
So oftentimes, like the reason why I have jobs because I just have a fear that, you know, if I pursue my my full-time art practice, I won't make any money.
00:46:55.039 --> 00:47:00.800
Um and so going back to um, I just lost about, I just lost where I was going with this.
00:47:00.960 --> 00:47:12.639
But um yeah, like going back to um, you know, winning in a certain way, it's just like, yeah, like I should take a time and just really enjoy this moment that I reached.
00:47:12.960 --> 00:47:17.280
But I gotta answer this email that is came in my inbox asking me for an opportunity.
00:47:17.519 --> 00:47:25.280
I got to um, and then it's like the thing's kind of envelope in itself where it's like I've dedicated myself to three community groups.
00:47:25.360 --> 00:47:36.320
And so even though like I'm winning, a lot of times those community groups have no idea of like what what level, like they don't know that like winning two Black Star awards is a really big deal.
00:47:36.480 --> 00:47:39.360
They still want me to come to the meeting and I still got to DJ that event.
00:47:39.519 --> 00:47:46.400
Um, and so I just have always like since Black Star, and a lot of times I've just been keeping on going, keeping on going, keeping on going.
00:47:46.480 --> 00:47:48.400
I got this, I gotta do, I got that I gotta do.
00:47:48.559 --> 00:47:51.679
That's gonna give me$250, that's gonna give me another$200.
00:47:52.159 --> 00:47:58.239
I still trying to piece together like any type of funds that like um make me feel stable in a way.
00:47:58.480 --> 00:48:02.400
And um, my alarm's going off.
00:48:02.559 --> 00:48:05.039
Um and yeah, and it's just been exhausting.
00:48:05.119 --> 00:48:08.559
I just haven't had time, and I know I need to teach myself to like, you know, take it.
00:48:08.639 --> 00:48:12.559
Like even this weekend, I will be like, this is my this is my last 30 30.
00:48:12.639 --> 00:48:13.760
I'm turning 39.
00:48:14.079 --> 00:48:17.840
You know, my last time of being young, 40 and 30.
00:48:17.920 --> 00:48:26.880
So like I should take this weekend to just really relax and just take in the stock of everything that I have been able to achieve um and just enjoy it.
00:48:27.119 --> 00:48:27.760
Yeah.
00:48:28.320 --> 00:48:33.199
And just the journey of your life, the fact that you're still living, you know?
00:48:33.519 --> 00:48:34.559
Oh yeah.
00:48:34.880 --> 00:48:40.880
You know, all the all the different you's like you think of like I'm thinking about like the little Russian doll thing, and you just did it.
00:48:41.039 --> 00:48:45.039
It's like there's so many different you's that are here.
00:48:45.360 --> 00:49:03.760
And you know, I think that what you're talking about as far as the like gotta keep a job, gotta that stability piece is really our collective wound from just societal programming, wherever else it comes from, and it's valid, and it don't need to change today.
00:49:03.920 --> 00:49:08.000
But winning two Black Star Wars is a huge fucking deal.
00:49:08.320 --> 00:49:08.960
It is.
00:49:09.440 --> 00:49:14.559
Every, every the job that you have today is a huge fucking deal, period.
00:49:15.679 --> 00:49:24.159
Do you know the the events that you DJ, the communities that you host, the way that you show up, it's okay to just it don't gotta change.
00:49:24.239 --> 00:49:25.920
I listen, listen, Capricorn Model.
00:49:27.119 --> 00:49:28.320
I try to tussle with you.
00:49:28.400 --> 00:49:29.760
I try to tussle with you.
00:49:30.159 --> 00:49:35.679
You know, it's not uh it has to change completely, it's just the end also.
00:49:36.639 --> 00:49:42.000
The end also, and also it's your birthday week, and also the end also, okay.
00:49:42.880 --> 00:49:47.119
I'm gonna be yes, and hope you have an amazing time.
00:49:47.519 --> 00:49:53.599
So, distribution um is the thing that mystifies a lot of independent filmmakers.
00:49:53.760 --> 00:49:55.760
You've made the film, so now what?
00:49:55.920 --> 00:50:00.800
How do you actually get it out into the world without traditional distribution channels?
00:50:02.079 --> 00:50:05.760
That is a really good question, and I feel like I'm still figuring it out.
00:50:05.920 --> 00:50:12.960
I will be really vocal in the fact that my film does not have all the music licensing yet.
00:50:13.440 --> 00:50:21.840
So, distribution in general works really great and really smoothly if you have the rights to everything.
00:50:22.079 --> 00:50:27.760
Anything that you do not have the rights for, you're gonna have to spend time on trying to get those rights or even paying for those rights.
00:50:27.840 --> 00:50:36.079
And until that happens, it cannot be distributed uh within kind of a mainstream format where someone's gonna probably pick it up and then distribute it.
00:50:36.239 --> 00:50:43.760
I did get approach for someone to distribute my film that and it's really through an educational lens, it's not through like Amazon Prime or Netflix or something.
00:50:44.000 --> 00:50:56.400
It's like a um, it's an organization that has like really kind of championed social justice kind of um and nonprofit and uh documentary forms, um, and really in an educational format for an educational opportunity.
00:50:56.559 --> 00:51:02.880
And they they pretty much said that like whenever you have it together, just let us know that like this is not something that necessarily needs to happen now.
00:51:03.119 --> 00:51:05.679
Um, and so I'm I'm holding on to that.
00:51:05.920 --> 00:51:15.360
Um but being that being said, my film and kind of what you were talking about, like my film has a specific community and it is a specific community-based project.
00:51:15.519 --> 00:51:22.719
It is on kind of collecting oral histories from black career elders, our seasoned people, um, but also just like black career stories in general.
00:51:22.880 --> 00:51:26.079
Um, and the audience is for a specific community.
00:51:26.159 --> 00:51:29.039
Um, well, not a specific community, like the the audience is for everybody.
00:51:29.119 --> 00:51:30.559
I want everybody to see the film.
00:51:30.719 --> 00:51:45.039
But I made the film for an audience that when is there in the room, they can recognize the things that I'm showing, the places that I'm showing, without having to have a lower third title on it.
00:51:45.199 --> 00:51:56.239
Um and so if that's the case, then I think when I was developing or editing Talking Walls, um it's like my first proper film.
00:51:56.480 --> 00:52:04.159
So, you know, there's a lot of um, there's a lot of like anticipation of like, I want to do a proper film festival routine.
00:52:04.320 --> 00:52:06.960
I want to get into as many film festivals as I can.
00:52:07.199 --> 00:52:09.599
I want the, I want to get like kind of the recognition.
00:52:09.760 --> 00:52:24.239
I deserve the recognition that this film is that gets validity from Sundance, from um Tribeca Film Festival, from Rain Dance, from all these kind of really big film festivals, from TIFF, from all these really big film festivals.
00:52:24.480 --> 00:52:31.039
And when I was applying the film festivals, I got a bunch of rejections, like so many different rejections from film festivals.
00:52:31.119 --> 00:52:34.000
They tell you not to take a personal, but I always take a rejection personal.
00:52:34.320 --> 00:52:36.639
I'm always just like, well, fuck you until the end of times.
00:52:36.800 --> 00:52:40.639
Um that's not really how I should, that's not how you should actually go about rejection.
00:52:40.880 --> 00:52:44.079
Um in any case, I was getting a bunch of rejections.
00:52:44.159 --> 00:52:46.159
I was really feeling really bad about it.
00:52:46.480 --> 00:52:49.360
And I think I was just like, you know what?
00:52:49.440 --> 00:52:54.880
I just want to have a screening for um kind of a private screening with community members.
00:52:55.039 --> 00:53:00.000
And I showed it to a Dodie, which is a national organization for black gay men.
00:53:00.079 --> 00:53:01.280
It's been around since 1986.
00:53:01.360 --> 00:53:02.960
We're celebrating our 40th anniversary.
00:53:03.119 --> 00:53:06.159
I'm also co-chair for the retreat that we're doing here in Philadelphia.
00:53:06.239 --> 00:53:11.360
That's another kind of community job that takes a lot of, takes a lot from my own practice.
00:53:11.599 --> 00:53:16.719
Um and I just, and they also really help with the oral histories that appear within the film.
00:53:17.039 --> 00:53:24.639
Um, I, after getting a bunch of rejections, I just decided I just wanted to get a community screening with Adotie.
00:53:24.960 --> 00:53:33.039
Um and that was really beautiful, and it kind of really put in the focus of like, well, who am I making this film for?
00:53:33.119 --> 00:53:35.760
And like, who do I actually need validation from?
00:53:36.400 --> 00:53:40.000
And um, and then a Dotie doesn't notice the thing.
00:53:40.079 --> 00:53:47.599
The Adotie doesn't notice like the technical things that you know a film festival committee is going to pick up on.
00:53:47.760 --> 00:53:53.760
Um, a Dothi isn't gonna be like, this this film is too long, it's not gonna fit within a short film program block.
00:53:53.920 --> 00:54:01.920
Adotie isn't gonna recognize, like, oh, the colors are slightly washed out, you know, are they not gonna notice, like, oh, this wasn't in focus, so this should be framed correctly.
00:54:02.159 --> 00:54:03.440
Adotie was really receptive.
00:54:03.599 --> 00:54:09.360
It was like, oh, like I really like, you know, I saw the places that you were putting on screen, I really appreciated it.
00:54:09.440 --> 00:54:13.360
And like I really connected to the stories that you were telling because it reminded me of my own story.
00:54:13.440 --> 00:54:19.440
And for me, that validation was more important than any kind of film festival kind of um screening.
00:54:19.679 --> 00:54:30.639
Um and not just that film, but I had a screening with, I won't get into it, but I've had several kind of moments like that where the it's not been a film festival screening, it's been like a community screening on Zoom.
00:54:30.800 --> 00:54:45.599
It's been like a um, it's been like a screening in a coffee shop, or it's been like, and so like I guess the answer for distribution is um you should have, and I'll also say I I never let go of the the goal.
00:54:45.679 --> 00:55:00.239
And you I don't think you should be discouraged about having a goal to be validated by a film festival or systems of institutions that you that um that create a type of hierarchy in terms of what is good art.
00:55:00.800 --> 00:55:09.280
I don't think it's negative or a sellout approach to really think about, oh, I want my work to be seen in a certain space.
00:55:09.519 --> 00:55:11.119
I have been working in art.
00:55:11.280 --> 00:55:26.000
I have been working, I went to get a grad, I went to Cranbrook, got a grad degree, have so much student loan debt that I'm just like, how dare I not actually think that my work deserves to be within the Whitney, but deserves to be in MoMA, deserves to be in a certain space.
00:55:26.159 --> 00:55:37.679
But I will also say that one thing with talking walls is that it has also taught me that what I need internally is the validation from not from those spaces, but from my own community.
00:55:37.840 --> 00:55:43.519
And those are what kind of fuel me up every time I get a rejection from those institutions.
00:55:44.000 --> 00:55:45.360
Um yeah.
00:55:45.920 --> 00:55:49.039
And so I was also the distribution.
00:55:49.199 --> 00:55:56.159
The last thing I'll say about distribution is that it distribution is really on whatever terms that you want the work to be seen.
00:55:56.320 --> 00:56:02.079
If you want the work to be seen in a bodega, if there's and it's really off of the basis of what is your budget like?
00:56:02.239 --> 00:56:15.360
And so, like, if you don't really have any money to apply to film festivals, film festivals, or if you don't really have the funding to rent out a theater space and invite your friends to it, then what are other ways that you can get your film seen?
00:56:15.760 --> 00:56:33.599
Um as in like, and then also if it doesn't need to be in that city, it is about like, hey, emailing, like there's any city that you go to has a, and if we're talking directly about film, any city that you go to has a media nonprofit screening.
00:56:33.679 --> 00:56:35.119
They do independent screenings.
00:56:35.199 --> 00:56:37.119
Every city has something like that.
00:56:37.440 --> 00:56:45.599
I'll also, I forgot to give a shout out to Color of Congress, who did a screening tour um with Talking Walls.
00:56:45.920 --> 00:56:53.599
Um and it was also a part of a short block program about joint resistance, particularly around joint resilience around LGBT Coupest Films.
00:56:54.000 --> 00:56:58.639
But that whole tour was around kind of like underground, not underground.
00:56:58.719 --> 00:56:59.519
I don't want to say underground.
00:56:59.599 --> 00:57:06.239
I feel like that might be like a pejorative term, but it was really about centered around like local kind of independent media sources.
00:57:06.320 --> 00:57:07.920
And those are the screenings that held.
00:57:08.079 --> 00:57:12.559
And like you never know who shows up in that room, and and and it might be 10 people, it might be five people.
00:57:12.719 --> 00:57:16.639
And I actually, and I'll say this not related to distribution, but not related.
00:57:16.719 --> 00:57:22.239
I love to go to the screenings of my film because it's always a different reaction.
00:57:22.559 --> 00:57:25.119
The audience, the always, the audience reaction is always different.
00:57:25.679 --> 00:57:28.800
What they laugh at, what they gravitate towards, it's always different.
00:57:29.119 --> 00:57:31.840
So I'll just that's all that's it.
00:57:32.320 --> 00:57:36.480
That was listen, all your responses are so rich and rangeful.
00:57:36.719 --> 00:57:37.280
Thank you.
00:57:37.440 --> 00:57:46.400
And also very grounded and a lot of like direct information for people to like take out and be like, okay, I didn't try that before, I didn't think about it that way.
00:57:46.559 --> 00:57:47.599
So thank you so much.
00:57:47.760 --> 00:58:08.239
And I think that you know, holding the desire to get into these spaces that shoot, you got the student loan debt, the work is good enough, the heart of it is good enough, is very real, while also you know, valuing the spaces that like other queer folk can see your movie and be like, damn, you know, this just changed something in me.
00:58:08.400 --> 00:58:16.159
That was like, listen, I was I was getting teary because yeah, some people don't, and like this is the this is the thing, right?
00:58:16.239 --> 00:58:24.400
And I've I've been holding my tongue on this, but a lot of the artists that make it into those spaces, one, we don't actually realize that artists have PR teams.
00:58:24.639 --> 00:58:31.440
Like they have someone that can send out that press release, they have someone that can draft up a press release on their work and send it out to the different places.
00:58:31.599 --> 00:58:44.400
Um, and then also like a lot of those artists that are in those spaces lead boring lives, where like I was talking about, like their whole world is art and their whole world is being in circles around art, they don't travel outside of that community.
00:58:44.639 --> 00:58:46.159
Um, but I'll leave that there.
00:58:47.119 --> 00:58:47.599
Oof.
00:58:47.679 --> 00:58:50.000
Yeah, that's a that's an important part too, though.
00:58:50.079 --> 00:59:08.000
You know, like the the the cage being an interesting person, yeah, you know, like there's there's no other um additional exploration, and it's just the topic becomes a commodity, you know, and that's it.
00:59:08.239 --> 00:59:10.639
So um I just want to give you guys a heads up.
00:59:10.719 --> 00:59:19.519
I have like a few more questions for Marcellus, but if you guys have questions for Marcellus, please drop them in the chat or raise your hand if you want to cam up, mic up.
00:59:19.920 --> 00:59:23.519
Um, and yeah, so I'll give you guys a few minutes to figure that out.
00:59:23.760 --> 00:59:33.360
And as you guys do, Marcellus, if you can sit down with someone who's just starting out and wants to build an independent film career, what would you tell them?
00:59:33.599 --> 00:59:38.000
What do they need to know that you wish you'd known a little bit earlier?
00:59:38.960 --> 00:59:47.199
Um a few things, but for independent films specifically, is for me was learning how to be a collaborator.
00:59:47.599 --> 01:00:00.400
Um film is such a collaborative practice, and being real about where you lack skills and um and for me, and also being real with like what you don't want to learn.
01:00:00.639 --> 01:00:10.719
Um I mentioned this after my first kind of independent film project, I just realized that like I'm not good at holding a camera, but I also do not want to learn F-stops.
01:00:10.800 --> 01:00:17.280
I don't want to learn like low lighting systems, I don't want to learn like what lens to use and what environment.
01:00:17.519 --> 01:00:20.079
I just I have no I have no sense of that.
01:00:20.159 --> 01:00:21.760
And it just bores me.
01:00:21.920 --> 01:00:23.599
But I do know that it's really important.
01:00:23.679 --> 01:00:32.000
And what is really crucial to what makes my film really beautiful is Rashad Momar, who was my co-collabor on the project, but was also the director of photography.
01:00:32.159 --> 01:00:37.679
And so the second time around, when I got a grant, um, I was like, I know I don't want to do this.
01:00:37.920 --> 01:00:48.480
And I know that I would like to work with someone that is aligned with what I want to do and is has it comes from the same background, but can add the thing that's missing to that will make this shine.
01:00:48.559 --> 01:00:50.079
And that's what Rashad brought.
01:00:50.239 --> 01:01:09.280
Um, so I would say that that's the first thing is just like film is so collaborative and just being comfortable with that and real, and then oftentimes, and I come from a, and this is also the other thing, the beauty is like I didn't come from a film, and this is part of this alternative creative practices.
01:01:09.599 --> 01:01:13.519
I didn't come from a film world where it's like that's what they teach you in film school.
01:01:13.599 --> 01:01:31.679
They teach you about collaborative practices, um, but they also teach you about, they have like, I feel like when I talk to film people, they have a very rigid sense of this is a producer, this is a director, this is the editor, this is the, and I think coming from an art world, it's like those things kind of collapse in on themselves.
01:01:31.840 --> 01:01:44.960
And like, you know, people told me, like, oh, you're a producer, you're a director for this film, and like I have producer, director, and editor, but I'm just for me, I'm just collaborating and like I just know that what I want to pull in people in for certain things.
01:01:45.119 --> 01:01:57.119
But that doesn't mean that I also might not actually want to help out with because Rashad moved to California towards like the tail end of the project, where I had to still pick up some of the um the video work.
01:01:57.280 --> 01:02:12.000
But instead of me being like, I need to find a new DP, I was like, well, what can I do within my own skill range that can um add on to the film without take decreasing, I guess, the director of photography's vision.
01:02:12.159 --> 01:02:19.119
So if you see my film, a lot of the flower movements are a lot of the there's there's like experimental uh shots within the film.
01:02:19.199 --> 01:02:23.440
Those are me because acting as the as a DP because we're shot on it.
01:02:23.840 --> 01:02:34.480
The other things that I'll say I would tell someone is, and this is for artists in general, is um learning how to write well.
01:02:34.800 --> 01:03:02.559
Um I think learning how to write about you, about passionately, like learning how to learning how to make someone cry through a letter about what your practice is about, who you are, is so foundational to getting grant funding, to getting support for any opportunity for getting into grad school, for anything.
01:03:02.800 --> 01:03:09.920
Writing has always been um a way that I can get into places that I just never thought that I would.
01:03:10.079 --> 01:03:12.320
Um and that, and people have even told me that.
01:03:19.599 --> 01:03:22.559
But when I read your letter, like that was when, you know, da-da-da.
01:03:22.800 --> 01:03:24.159
So I would say writing.
01:03:24.400 --> 01:03:29.920
Um and I had mentioned something earlier too that I just switched.
01:03:30.000 --> 01:03:40.159
Oh, and and I would also say try to pursue it full-time if you can, because anytime you get, or if you can't pursue it full-time, get a part-time job and just figure it out from there.
01:03:40.320 --> 01:03:47.920
Because if you get a full-time job, working creatively on a full-time job is so difficult, particularly as you get older.
01:03:48.079 --> 01:03:53.760
Um, because you can't stay up until midnight, one, two o'clock, and then wake up in the morning and just go go do the thing.
01:03:53.920 --> 01:04:02.800
Um, so I would say try to get a part-time job if you really can, if you can't do it independently, but do not get a full-time job because then it's really hard.
01:04:02.880 --> 01:04:05.199
Because when every time you leave a full-time job, you just want to sleep.
01:04:05.280 --> 01:04:07.599
And then you also and then you want to create on top of that.
01:04:07.760 --> 01:04:09.119
It's not gonna be great.
01:04:09.280 --> 01:04:15.360
Um, and then the last thing that I would really say is really important is to be personable.
01:04:16.159 --> 01:04:21.199
Um be somebody, be somebody that someone likes, like that's memorable.
01:04:21.679 --> 01:04:30.000
Don't like just be all like be authentic, but just be someone that someone likes because that you never know what impression that makes on somebody.
01:04:30.159 --> 01:04:33.599
Um, where they're just like, you really helped me out with this screening.
01:04:33.679 --> 01:04:38.000
I know this, like, I know this is your full-time job, but like I'm gonna recommend you for this grant.
01:04:38.239 --> 01:04:40.800
Um, like just be someone that people like.
01:04:43.760 --> 01:04:47.280
Like I said earlier, you are people, because I couldn't have said it better myself.
01:04:47.440 --> 01:04:57.440
I think that first one, as far as um, I forget the exact words that you used, but essentially, filmmaking is a team sport.
01:04:58.159 --> 01:04:58.400
Yes.
01:04:58.880 --> 01:05:04.239
And going to an underfunded arts program at an HBCU, you don't really understand that.
01:05:04.320 --> 01:05:05.360
And you're so right.
01:05:05.519 --> 01:05:09.840
People are so like, I'm a director or I'm an editor or I'm a producer.
01:05:10.000 --> 01:05:16.639
But during my arts to work um apprenticeship, that was the number one thing that stuck with me.
01:05:16.800 --> 01:05:19.679
Is like, I suck at this.
01:05:21.119 --> 01:05:22.480
I have the vision.
01:05:23.679 --> 01:05:28.639
I don't, I'm okay, we got a red, we got two FS, whatever's, I'm alright, I'm right, I'm right, I'm right.
01:05:28.800 --> 01:05:30.480
I just want you guys to stand here.
01:05:32.159 --> 01:05:32.480
Right?
01:05:32.559 --> 01:05:37.599
And then writing well, I I I totally cannot understate that enough.
01:05:37.760 --> 01:05:47.199
I think even in my own like work and in my own personal work, writing well is what has gotten me to this, to this point, right?
01:05:47.519 --> 01:05:49.519
Just going crazy on Substack.
01:05:49.599 --> 01:05:51.280
Like, I don't know, this is just what I'm thinking, y'all.
01:05:51.679 --> 01:06:01.360
And then that's what kind of gets me to the and then um all of the film work that I do, the film history that I'm Have comes into play.
01:06:01.440 --> 01:06:10.000
And I think that people are way too rigid about their vision for themselves, that they don't allow themselves to experience other avenues.
01:06:10.079 --> 01:06:16.159
And we are in a literary, uh literacy crisis, in a media literacy crisis as well.
01:06:16.400 --> 01:06:19.679
So that piece is going to be increasingly important.
01:06:20.159 --> 01:06:26.000
And then also the the other advice that you gave as far as having a part-time.
01:06:26.480 --> 01:06:30.079
I think one of the reasons that have that's kept me in Tucson so long.
01:06:30.159 --> 01:06:32.079
I'm moving to Atlanta in like a month or two.
01:06:32.159 --> 01:06:32.639
So yeah.
01:06:32.880 --> 01:06:40.480
But what's kept me here so long is I live in a two-bedroom apartment, view of the mountains, washer and dryer included.
01:06:40.559 --> 01:06:46.159
When I first moved in here, pandemic baby, 2020, I was paying$750 a month, right?
01:06:47.039 --> 01:06:47.599
Yes.
01:06:48.159 --> 01:06:52.239
Now I'm right now, it's gone up over the past six years.
01:06:52.400 --> 01:06:54.880
It's it and it's only$9.93.
01:06:55.519 --> 01:06:56.800
Oh, that's that's not bad still.
01:06:57.840 --> 01:07:01.760
Now the trade-off is it's like probably like a like 98 right now.
01:07:04.000 --> 01:07:05.599
The trade-off is that it's hot.
01:07:05.760 --> 01:07:08.239
The trade-off is that there's not a lot of black people.
01:07:08.400 --> 01:07:14.800
The trade-off is that when I want to go outside and like my standards are outside, I'm hoping to plane.
01:07:16.800 --> 01:07:18.880
But I but like I can afford to do that.
01:07:18.960 --> 01:07:20.639
And that was a concession that I made.
01:07:20.800 --> 01:07:22.159
I don't have no family out here.
01:07:22.320 --> 01:07:24.000
I have no family out here, right?
01:07:24.079 --> 01:07:26.559
My dad's often like, how did you, why did you?
01:07:26.639 --> 01:07:28.000
I was just like, I don't know, I gotta hunt.
01:07:28.079 --> 01:07:29.440
I just go to Arizona.
01:07:30.480 --> 01:07:30.880
Do you know?
01:07:31.920 --> 01:07:32.000
Yeah.
01:07:32.719 --> 01:07:37.519
And now I'm moving back, now I'm moving to Atlanta, and I'm like, okay, I got all my ducks in a row.
01:07:37.679 --> 01:07:39.360
I am ready, right?
01:07:39.679 --> 01:07:47.840
And then there was another thing that you said, you so you said, um film is collaborative.
01:07:48.719 --> 01:07:59.039
You said write well, be personable, be personable, and then if you can, don't take a full-time job just yet.
01:07:59.280 --> 01:08:05.760
Make sure you have space for um what your passion projects are and be personable.
01:08:05.840 --> 01:08:06.800
Yeah, don't, yeah.
01:08:06.960 --> 01:08:12.000
Listen, you gotta be willing to change your mind, gotta be willing to get over stuff, get over yourself.
01:08:12.159 --> 01:08:14.639
Like you messed up, it's not the end of the world.
01:08:14.960 --> 01:08:17.840
Yes, yes, be collaborative.
01:08:18.000 --> 01:08:20.399
Yes, be that levity, humor.
01:08:20.479 --> 01:08:22.479
It goes a very, very long way.
01:08:22.800 --> 01:08:27.920
Um, did you guys in that are here have any questions um for Marcellus?
01:08:28.079 --> 01:08:29.920
Because I have like one more that I want to ask.
01:08:30.000 --> 01:08:32.079
As Marcellus, how are we doing on time?
01:08:32.880 --> 01:08:33.760
I'm I'm good.
01:08:33.840 --> 01:08:34.560
Yeah, whatever.
01:08:36.239 --> 01:08:44.319
Um, what's one thing that's not some of the four things you already said that emerging filmmakers worry too much about?
01:08:44.479 --> 01:08:47.359
And what's one thing they don't worry about enough?
01:08:50.640 --> 01:08:56.000
What's one thing that emerging filmmakers worry about, and what's one thing that they don't worry about enough?
01:08:56.239 --> 01:08:59.920
Yeah, worry about too much and not enough.
01:09:02.880 --> 01:09:04.640
That's a good question.
01:09:06.000 --> 01:09:09.199
What's one thing emerging filmmakers worry about too much?
01:09:09.439 --> 01:09:10.560
And let's expand it.
01:09:10.720 --> 01:09:18.239
Not just filmmakers, but like the thing you and I have very it's it's not that simple, right?
01:09:18.319 --> 01:09:25.600
Like filmmakers, just like uh there's some kind of like yeah, I don't know the word.
01:09:27.199 --> 01:09:29.279
And I feel like maybe I'm wrong for this.
01:09:29.359 --> 01:09:34.800
I feel like um filmmakers, but I think art practice in general is focused on selling.
01:09:34.960 --> 01:09:42.319
Like I feel like capital, like selling, selling, like you know, um, selling work.
01:09:42.640 --> 01:09:54.800
Um where it's just like I just and maybe this is because like I've realized or I've made the shift that like my work is rooted within a certain lens of community.
01:09:55.119 --> 01:09:59.359
Um like I'm not going for a gallery show.
01:09:59.520 --> 01:10:21.600
Um I'm also just like it's it's the time of I think we're in a time where I kind of side-eye like white walls and white spaces that are just like work on the walls because like it's like we're dealing with so many other real things in the world right now that like I don't see this is gonna sound.
01:10:22.159 --> 01:10:22.800
Let me stop.
01:10:22.880 --> 01:10:28.000
Let me stop my I it's really hard for me to never mind.
01:10:31.359 --> 01:10:45.920
I I I feel like there's a lot of focus on kind of selling work as a way to support yourself, and I think a lot of people need to give their self brevity to other options of income, like uh of supporting themselves.
01:10:46.479 --> 01:10:55.920
And I think in the past, and this is probably dwindling, but in the past it's like, well, if I'm not gonna, if no one's actually gonna buy my work, then like at least let me get this grant.
01:10:56.159 --> 01:10:59.600
Um and I think that's been great.
01:10:59.680 --> 01:11:03.439
Like a grant um are other different ways of bringing in money.
01:11:03.520 --> 01:11:09.840
There's so many other different ways to support yourself or have a cool project that someone wants to support foundationally.
01:11:10.079 --> 01:11:24.079
Um, and then I also think like, you know, don't think about I think I think what artists do not worry about enough is whether or not they think themselves as a genius, or whether or not they think that their ideas are genius.
01:11:24.319 --> 01:11:39.279
Um, I think a lot of artists should take a self-retrospection of just like um of their own practice and and and whether or not other people can enter into it, or whether or not you just think that you are a brilliant idea that is putting something forward.
01:11:39.359 --> 01:11:51.920
And maybe that's also related to um some of the criticism that I have around um coming out for work that is based off of like a concept or notion or a theory.
01:11:52.079 --> 01:11:57.840
Um, and I'll say this because this is where I was, like, this is where I went to grad school and I thought that all my ideas were great.
01:11:57.920 --> 01:12:01.680
I thought like I would, you know, someone would look at my work and be like, this is genius.
01:12:01.920 --> 01:12:11.279
Um and then I think, you know, it was really through like my first grant application that someone was like, yeah, this is really great and beautiful, but like how is how is the community gonna interact with this?
01:12:11.359 --> 01:12:13.119
You're applying for a community art grant.
01:12:13.359 --> 01:12:26.319
Um, and like I think that first question or perspection really pushed my practice in ways of just like beyond this being smart, like if someone doesn't get it, then like what's the point?
01:12:26.560 --> 01:12:42.399
Um and I think you know, artists, some a lot of artists should probably take a self-respect a really self-look of just like when someone comes across this work, like what are they thinking?
01:12:42.560 --> 01:12:49.119
And is it something that like is it the same thought or is it are we reaching the same place in my mind and someone else is seeing it?
01:12:49.680 --> 01:12:52.399
Yeah, yeah.
01:12:54.319 --> 01:12:55.199
Yeah, right.
01:12:55.279 --> 01:13:18.399
Like, yeah, I think I I kind of quantify the utility of a of an art piece, and this may be like I don't know, my own like cartographer, not really archivist, but I like to call it archivists, archiving, not in the institutional way, but in the embodied way, in the Zora way, right?
01:13:18.640 --> 01:13:36.239
Of like, hmm, if my work isn't impacting someone's worldview, whether they're like, oh, I feel represented, or oh, this invites me to build on my own thoughts or inspires me to, or even just what the fuck was that?
01:13:37.199 --> 01:13:37.600
Right.
01:13:38.239 --> 01:13:39.680
Like that's almost have to be positive.
01:13:39.760 --> 01:13:41.600
It could just be like, uh-huh.
01:13:42.079 --> 01:13:44.319
Um, then like what is it doing, right?
01:13:44.399 --> 01:13:47.279
If it's illegible, then what is the point?
01:13:47.520 --> 01:13:52.000
Um, I think that's a really beautiful, both both sides of the coin of that.
01:13:52.079 --> 01:13:54.399
Um, if your response are really beautiful.
01:13:54.640 --> 01:13:57.760
Um, someone in the comments has a question for you.
01:13:59.600 --> 01:14:03.520
What motivates you to continue creating in the current climate we live in?
01:14:03.680 --> 01:14:08.640
Is it being able to connect with fellow creatives and those who resonate with your work?
01:14:09.600 --> 01:14:13.600
That's a really good question, Leilani, and hopefully I pronounced your name correctly.
01:14:13.840 --> 01:14:40.560
Um honestly, what motives you to create in the current climate is I am not good at um I'm not good at social media being vocal or kind of virtue signaling around like um I protest this, I protest that, like this is really fucked up, like what the administration's doing, like free Palestine, all the things.
01:14:40.720 --> 01:14:58.399
Like I'm not, and I have all of those within my ethos, but like I'm not good at you know being that person to vocalize that in a way, or and then I'm also just not really active within my own community of like, you know, showing up, showing up at a protest.
01:14:58.640 --> 01:15:01.760
Um, and I've had, you know, I've had those experiences where I did.
01:15:02.000 --> 01:15:13.119
And then um, and so like I guess like the question, like someone, someone I think I was like sometimes there's a dinner conversation, they're like, you know, if this was the end of the world, what would your role be?
01:15:13.359 --> 01:15:21.600
Um, like what with what would you as what was your what would be your survival um survival skill to get you through?
01:15:21.840 --> 01:15:28.079
And so, you know, someone's like, yeah, I would create weapons, or someone's like, yeah, I would like be the hunter creating the food.
01:15:28.239 --> 01:15:31.920
And I think I would just be the one that's just like, can we just like document our story?
01:15:32.000 --> 01:15:35.439
So if anything happens to us, then like there is a record that we existed.
01:15:35.680 --> 01:15:37.840
So like that would be what I kind of bring to that.
01:15:37.920 --> 01:15:59.520
And so, like, I think what what motivates me to can continue to create this work in the current client climate is I I feel like my role is I'm not necessarily going to be at the front lines of everything that is really fucked up within the world, but like I'm still through the work that I'm doing is um makes me feel good about um leaving something.
01:15:59.680 --> 01:16:16.560
Um, and I do think that you know, oral history is is a is a particular lens of being radical and being um and uh pushing up against the system, uh, particularly like you know, preserving these these stories that have been kind of left out of a lot of things.
01:16:16.800 --> 01:16:34.159
And then um, and I say definitely it is able to connect with fellow creatives, um, but also it's it's it's a level of like I feel like I've built a really beautiful community of chosen family, friends, and groups that really sustain myself, um, my sustain my energy and my spirit.
01:16:34.319 --> 01:16:45.600
Um, and so like it's creatives, but it's also Dodie, it's also Onyx, it's also um, you know, best friends from college and like that have really supported me and keep me going.
01:16:45.760 --> 01:16:46.399
Yeah.
01:16:47.760 --> 01:16:48.479
Beautiful.
01:16:48.640 --> 01:16:49.279
I love that.
01:16:49.439 --> 01:16:50.239
And I agree.
01:16:50.479 --> 01:17:04.720
I don't think that I think sometimes the the work that we're creating in this now moment, the communities that we're serving, like you name these beautiful organizations that you're serving, also just friendship and family is uh the perfect response to all that's happening in the world, right?
01:17:04.800 --> 01:17:09.119
Like not everyone needs to be at the front lines of being a disruptor, highlighting things.
01:17:09.199 --> 01:17:10.319
We have many people like that.
01:17:10.479 --> 01:17:20.560
We also need to make sure that in our personal lives we are showing up in a way that is counter to the you know psychosis of the machine.
01:17:20.960 --> 01:17:21.600
Yeah, exactly.
01:17:21.840 --> 01:17:23.359
In all of its forms.
01:17:23.600 --> 01:17:27.520
Um, Marcellus, tell us about your upcoming screening.
01:17:28.159 --> 01:17:29.520
Yes, thank you.
01:17:29.680 --> 01:17:37.279
Um, I have an upcoming screening at Scribe Video Censor, which we have discussed in Link, which I worked at, um, who also really helped us support the film.
01:17:37.359 --> 01:17:39.840
So I'm really this is going to be a really special screening.
01:17:40.000 --> 01:17:45.760
Um, this will be the second, actually, technically third, third time it will be showing in Philadelphia.
01:17:45.920 --> 01:17:55.119
It's uh there's a screening June 12th, it's a storybell uh between me and Mootsie Reed, who Mootsie Reed is a really great and beautiful media maker as well.
01:17:55.199 --> 01:17:57.760
Um, kind of dynamic duo, and this is also a friend of mine.
01:17:57.840 --> 01:18:04.000
So if you're in Philadelphia or once you come and visit Philadelphia, I suggest you come during the weekend of June 12th.
01:18:04.159 --> 01:18:07.680
Um, but I will be leaving for Cabo the next day.
01:18:07.760 --> 01:18:12.399
So if you wanted to hang out and do everything, I can't show you Philadelphia that weekend, but I wish I could.
01:18:12.560 --> 01:18:13.199
Yeah.
01:18:13.600 --> 01:18:14.720
Shout out to Cabo.
01:18:14.800 --> 01:18:15.359
Shout out to that.
01:18:15.439 --> 01:18:17.199
This is also happening during Prime Month.
01:18:17.279 --> 01:18:19.279
So once again, congratulations.
01:18:19.439 --> 01:18:20.000
This is awesome.
01:18:20.159 --> 01:18:20.319
Thank you.
01:18:20.640 --> 01:18:20.960
You're gonna go.
01:18:24.640 --> 01:18:25.279
Yes.
01:18:25.520 --> 01:18:27.520
Thank you so much, Marcellus.
01:18:27.680 --> 01:18:32.560
Um, for the folks here and also the folks listening in the future, where can they find you?
01:18:33.199 --> 01:18:38.239
They can find me on um Instagram at Marcy Mercy Marcellus.
01:18:38.399 --> 01:18:46.319
Um, please follow me because my after also what happened after Blackstar, like a two weeks after my account on Facebook and Instagram got banned.
01:18:46.399 --> 01:18:48.720
Um, so I basically had to restart my social media.
01:18:48.800 --> 01:18:52.479
And if anybody knows, social media is kind of like an artist's business card.
01:18:52.720 --> 01:18:59.840
So um you can follow me at Marcy Mercy Marcy.mercy Marcellus on Instagram.
01:19:00.000 --> 01:19:03.760
Um, you can also follow the film on TalkMeWellsproject.com.
01:19:04.079 --> 01:19:06.479
Um and I think that's it.
01:19:06.640 --> 01:19:08.560
I'm not on Facebook at the moment.
01:19:08.960 --> 01:19:10.479
Um, but I'm around.
01:19:10.640 --> 01:19:10.880
Are you?
01:19:11.039 --> 01:19:16.319
And you can also email me directly at studio at William Marcellus.com.
01:19:16.640 --> 01:19:22.319
Um, and then my personal one is um armstrong.wm at gmail.com.
01:19:22.399 --> 01:19:26.640
I'm gonna give y'all my personal and the one that I give to like, you know, I apply to like rants and stuff for.
01:19:26.880 --> 01:19:27.840
So yeah.
01:19:28.560 --> 01:19:30.159
Yes, Marcellus, thank you so much.
01:19:30.399 --> 01:19:37.039
This real talk about money, distribution, what success means outside the gates is exactly what our community needs.
01:19:37.279 --> 01:19:43.279
You guys keep the conversation going in Discord and connect with Marcellus at all the places that he just said.
01:19:43.600 --> 01:19:46.159
Thank you for listening to Arts to Work Conversations.
01:19:46.319 --> 01:19:53.840
This season is all about sustainable creative practice, and every conversation is part of a bigger story about how we support each other as creators.
01:19:54.079 --> 01:19:56.880
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01:19:57.039 --> 01:20:01.039
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01:20:05.760 --> 01:20:10.000
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01:20:10.239 --> 01:20:12.640
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