A Quote by Aja Naomi King
When the doors to television were opened to me, that was quite a surprise. It's been such a gift that there was so much TV and independent film happening in New York that I could be a part of. There was something to satiate my desire to be artistic and creative, especially when it wasn't in the way I originally thought it was going to be.
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To try something longer, I entered a half-hour radio drama contest with the national public broadcaster, CBC. To my surprise, I won. And that opened doors in film and television, because that broadcaster was looking to cultivate new Canadian talent, especially women who could write.
Doors opened for me because of who I am. But the downside is, there is way way too much expectation from me, much more than there would have been if I were from outside the film industry.
When I lived in New York, there wasn't as much TV or film around. I got asked to do a couple of indie films, just based on me being from The Smashing Pumpkins and A Perfect Circle. I did a couple of indie movies from Japan and one from Canada, and I thought it was an exciting, fun thing to do. I had a great time doing it, it was just that, in New York, there really wasn't as much. My studio in New York closed, so I moved out to L.A. and just started looking into composing as another thing to do, as a musician. I like it a lot. It's fun and it's a different way of thinking about music.
I got into television criticism because I thought it would be easier than film criticism. Film, you had to know 100 years of history, and TV you only had to know 40 when I started. And I thought, "Well, that's going to be so much easier." But film stayed pretty much the same. And television has changed so many times that my head hurts. So I made the wrong call there.
I left film because I felt that photography was my art. It was something I could do on my own, whereas film was so collaborative. I thought as a photographer I could make something that was artistic and that was mine, and I liked that. And it wasn't until I got back into film and I have very small crews and I could do very tiny filmmaking that wasn't 100 people that I still felt that I was making something artistic as a filmmaker. So, you know, I'm an artist, and whether it's photography or film, I want my voice to be there and I think my voice is very strong in this film.
It's about being open to what comes your way. I came to New York and saw 'Spelling Bee.' I said to myself, 'That's the greatest show ever, and I can't believe I'm not a part of it.' I felt the only way I'm going to get to be a part of something that good is to live in New York. So I moved to New York and ended up in 'Spelling Bee.'
Part of the reason I thought that I might do a series is, my dad has pretty much been on the same road to work for years and years. And it's like, "Could I do something like that? Am I so independent that I can't punch the clock at the same place?" So part of it was a kind of exercise. "Can I be responsible in this way?" And lo and behold, I could. Luckily. It'd be bad if I couldn't.
When I was a little kid, all I wanted to do was to escape what I thought was the country and get to a city. Probably film and television had influenced me so much, I really thought the key to happiness was living a very artificial life in a penthouse in New York with martini glasses.
I'm drawn to write about upstate New York in the way in which a dreamer might have recurring dreams. My childhood and girlhood were spent in upstate New York, in the country north of Buffalo and West of Rochester. So this part of New York state is very familiar to me and, with its economic difficulties, has become emblematic of much of American life.
I have quite a bit of experience reporting on corporate behavior, both doing it with independent operations in early in my career, in the underground press, to magazines like 'Rolling Stone,' to regional newspapers and television, and television news programs, to papers like the 'New York Times' and public television.
A lot of the reason I left New York, in addition to being so broke, was that I just felt I was becoming provincial in that way that only New Yorkers are. My points of reference were really insular. They were insular in that fantastic New York way, but they didn't go much beyond that. I didn't have any sense of class and geography, because the economy of New York is so specific. So I definitely had access and exposure to a huge variety of people that I wouldn't have had if I'd stayed in New York - much more so in Nebraska even than in L.A.
When we started Nowhere, maybe the fashion industry recognized something was happening, but they just thought, Oh, those kids . . . whatever. They didn't know what was actually going on with us. Now we are those people in a sense - the current establishment. So I hope there's something happening that is new and independent that we know nothing about.
I think L.A. has one of the most innovative and forward-thinking jazz scenes in the world. New York definitely has the volume - there's more music happening in New York than anywhere else. But to me, L.A. - it's kind of a gift and a curse.
I saw part of The Singing Detective on TV in New York. I said, Something is going on here.
Well, I definitely have an artistic side to me as well. I write, I act, I draw. With that artistic mind I have, a lot of doors have opened for me. I can try to pursue, like - if it's something using my writing skills, maybe a book. Or maybe if it's my drawing skills, some clothing designs.
I have been a fan of movies from a very young age, and somehow, the magic of that - every single time I hear something or read something that could be made into a wonderful film or something somebody is asking me to be a part of - that connects. It just makes me feel like I'm going to be part of something magical again.
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