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DANIELLE SOLOMON - Pork, Beans & Big Dreams · Eating While Broke

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Hey, guys, welcome to another episode of Eating While Broke.
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: I'm your host, Colleen Witt, and today we have very
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: special guests. Creative producer screenwriter Danielle Solomon's in the building.
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: Hey hey, and most of you guys know her from
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: Hey Boo that you now. You can watch that on
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: teacock and toob Yeah, and a very well known show
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: on Bound called Mind.
• 0:24
  Speaker 2: Joe Business, Mind Your Business.
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: Yeah, Mind your Business, which is a hit show on Bounce.
• 0:30
  Speaker 2: Yep.
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: So before we get into tea on everything screenwriting and
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: creative production wise, let's get into what you were eating
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: long before the accolades.
• 0:40
  Speaker 2: So this is pork and beans and cheese. I considered
• 0:44
  Speaker 2: this a Daniel's delicacy. That's my grandmother's family. I don't
• 0:47
  Speaker 2: really know people that like couldbine pork and beans with
• 0:50
  Speaker 2: scheddar cheese. Like I would go out to places because
• 0:53
  Speaker 2: we usually eat this for breakfast, and I would go
• 0:55
  Speaker 2: out to places and I look at the menu, I'm like,
• 0:56
  Speaker 2: where's the pork and beans and cheese. I think it's
• 0:58
  Speaker 2: just my family that does this.
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: Definitely, I didn't even know that. I didn't even know
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: that was a breakfast thing.
• 1:05
  Speaker 2: But yeah, we used to eat this for breakfast. Sometimes
• 1:07
  Speaker 2: we would have like other things like eggs, grets, but
• 1:09
  Speaker 2: sometimes it'll be just that bacon in a.
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: Biscuit, bacon and a biscuit. Porkan beans. Now I was
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: talking best before the carat started rolling, So go ahead
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: and tell everybody the difference between pork and beans and
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: baked beans.
• 1:22
  Speaker 2: So porking beans, it's not it doesn't have that like
• 1:25
  Speaker 2: sweet taste like the baked beans, the butsh or whatever
• 1:28
  Speaker 2: I can, so, yeah, it doesn't have that sweet taste.
• 1:31
  Speaker 2: But it's a tomato sauce. So yeah, I feel like
• 1:35
  Speaker 2: that's the big.
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: Yeah, let's go to Brokeville. And so when we got
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: the dish with ingredients, I said pork and beans. And
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: then I was like, okay, do baked beans come with
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: hot dogs? And then I said, where is she talking
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: about pork and beans? And then lo and behold, there
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: is a can in the world that says pork and beans.
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: And so now we are the proud owners and recipients
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: of a dish that I can honestly say, I don't think.
• 2:25
  Speaker 2: I've ever heard. Yeah, I think it's just my family
• 2:28
  Speaker 2: that does this because every time I go out I'm
• 2:30
  Speaker 2: from Virginia, but my family is from North Carolina, and
• 2:34
  Speaker 2: I feel like we're the only ones that does this
• 2:37
  Speaker 2: for breakfast.
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: None of your friends did it.
• 2:40
  Speaker 2: No, That's why I'm like, I don't think it's like
• 2:43
  Speaker 2: a known thing.
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: And then she's dropping the cheese, so her your dish
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: is essentially like three dollars. Yep, it could feed at
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: least three to four people. And she's the most expensive dish.
• 2:56
  Speaker 2: Yep.
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: The expensive ingredient in it.
• 2:58
  Speaker 2: I see. And it's protein, so you got to be.
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: And it's protein. Oh are you trying to say that
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: this dish is considered healthy?
• 3:08
  Speaker 2: I love that optimisticness. The protein counts for something, So yeah,
• 3:12
  Speaker 2: we're gonna turn this up.
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: So either this is a family tradition or you guys
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: were really struggling at some point and you guys did not.
• 3:19
  Speaker 2: My grandmother got it from her mom, and her mom
• 3:22
  Speaker 2: had ten kids, so maybe, yeah.
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: Oh this is your grandma. You said your grandma's mom
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: was struggling. She passed the tradition on, which is a
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: beautiful tradition. I'm just in a joking move, but I
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: love this dish because I love to say the broke
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: with the dish, the better the story. Yeah, but in
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: your case, this is a household Now.
• 3:43
  Speaker 2: We thought this was like something like it was up
• 3:45
  Speaker 2: there with grits.
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: Wow. What was the last time you had this?
• 3:49
  Speaker 2: Probably when I was back home in Virginia. I think
• 3:53
  Speaker 2: my grandma made some or my mom made it. Yeah,
• 3:56
  Speaker 2: I usually have it when I'm back home.
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: So you'd be like, like, yo, you guys got the
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: pork and bees ready. No, I'm genuinely carrious you like, yo, Yeah.
• 4:08
  Speaker 2: You need this with some eggs. If I want like
• 4:10
  Speaker 2: a big breath fix, I get this with some eggs.
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: Eggs on the side, are in it?
• 4:14
  Speaker 2: Eggs on the side, Yeah, Bacon, biscuits or toes or
• 4:20
  Speaker 2: sausage and then maybe some grits. It just depends.
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: Okay, take me back to before the last home visit,
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: way back, and I don't want to talk smack about this,
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: because guys, I totally respect these dishes. I'm just in
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: a very playful mood right now. We was all eating
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: this cheese bless our stomachs because we were sweet. Jared
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: and I we was chomping right.
• 4:42
  Speaker 2: Yeah. After this, you might yeah get a good cleaner.
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: Yeah, So go ahead, tell me what was going on
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: way back, way back, not recent home visits.
• 4:54
  Speaker 2: Way back in Virginia. I was a product of a
• 4:57
  Speaker 2: single my disk, so we just spent a lot of
• 4:59
  Speaker 2: time at my house. We used to live there practically
• 5:02
  Speaker 2: for most of my life. So it used to be
• 5:05
  Speaker 2: six of us at a time in a two bedroom,
• 5:07
  Speaker 2: one bedroom house.
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: Wait, how many kids?
• 5:10
  Speaker 2: Just me and my brother? And so its me and
• 5:11
  Speaker 2: my brother, my mom, my uncle, and my grandparents. Okay,
• 5:15
  Speaker 2: all in one house. Oh yeah, you all lived together
• 5:19
  Speaker 2: for the most of my adolacing years. We all stayed
• 5:22
  Speaker 2: in the same house in new Port News.
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: Okay, yeah, your mom was working a lot of jobs or.
• 5:27
  Speaker 2: I think got the most. She probably worked like three jobs,
• 5:29
  Speaker 2: which is probably where I get it from.
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: Okay, yeah, yeah, okay, two parent household? Where was pops
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: to two parent household?
• 5:40
  Speaker 2: I don't know where he was at, but I ain't
• 5:42
  Speaker 2: gonna say he wasn't, Like at one point we were
• 5:45
  Speaker 2: living together, but I really we really didn't have a
• 5:48
  Speaker 2: relationship with him. So he was around, he was in
• 5:50
  Speaker 2: the area, but we ain't see him.
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: Guys didn't see him at all, really, but y'all knew
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: who he was.
• 5:58
  Speaker 2: Yeah, we knew who he was, Yeah, you knew who
• 6:00
  Speaker 2: we were and that was that.
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: Did your mom ever speak on it?
• 6:04
  Speaker 2: She's trying not to like really talk bad like down
• 6:07
  Speaker 2: on him. Even my grandma, like they never try to
• 6:09
  Speaker 2: talk down on him. Like we knew what it was like.
• 6:12
  Speaker 2: They ain't have to say nothing because it was actions
• 6:14
  Speaker 2: speak out than words.
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: Yeah, did you ever have a longing for him or anything?
• 6:18
  Speaker 3: You know what?
• 6:18
  Speaker 2: I grew up in a house where even though we
• 6:20
  Speaker 2: ain't have much, it was felt like I didn't really
• 6:22
  Speaker 2: miss as much. And then I grew up in like
• 6:24
  Speaker 2: an area where a lot of people like had some
• 6:26
  Speaker 2: come from some wilar situation. So it was like, that's
• 6:29
  Speaker 2: it is what it is. It wasn't until I got
• 6:32
  Speaker 2: older then I'm like, oh, okay, when I seen other people,
• 6:34
  Speaker 2: they had their two parent households, different things like that. Okay,
• 6:37
  Speaker 2: I did miss out on something, but when I was
• 6:39
  Speaker 2: growing up, I really it wasn't really like something at
• 6:41
  Speaker 2: the top of my mind for real.
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: Okay, Yeah, that's good to know.
• 6:46
  Speaker 3: So you growing up with a family full of love
• 6:49
  Speaker 3: in pork and beans, and somewhere along the journey you
• 6:54
  Speaker 3: aspired to be on the other side of the television
• 6:58
  Speaker 3: but what sparked that inspiration.
• 7:00
  Speaker 2: So my uncle he used to have this huge collection
• 7:04
  Speaker 2: of DVDs in the living room, mostly like black Cinema,
• 7:07
  Speaker 2: like the Spike Lee Best Man, all that different type
• 7:10
  Speaker 2: of stuff, and that was like my I would consider
• 7:13
  Speaker 2: my intro to like cinema. And I didn't know at
• 7:18
  Speaker 2: the time that I wanted to get into film and TV.
• 7:20
  Speaker 2: I knew I wanted to do something like in the
• 7:22
  Speaker 2: arts and in that world because I used to draw
• 7:24
  Speaker 2: a lot and different things of that nature. But that
• 7:28
  Speaker 2: was like my early film school because I watched all
• 7:30
  Speaker 2: the films that you could think of. Some of the
• 7:31
  Speaker 2: films I probably ain't had no business watching, like Players
• 7:34
  Speaker 2: Club all that type of stuff, ice Cube movies, and
• 7:37
  Speaker 2: yet I was like my early introduction to like film
• 7:39
  Speaker 2: and different things of that nature. And we also used
• 7:42
  Speaker 2: to watch like upn all the sitcoms back in the day.
• 7:45
  Speaker 2: I used to go back and watch ninety six comms
• 7:47
  Speaker 2: with him and my mom and different things that would
• 7:50
  Speaker 2: come on television.
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: Would you say that it wasn't just like what you're watching,
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: but the good vives of what it was doing to
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: your family, like a family pass hour.
• 7:59
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it brought us together, like all get in the
• 8:02
  Speaker 2: living room like on weeknights and watch like The Parkers
• 8:05
  Speaker 2: or One on one and different things of that nature.
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: So, yeah, at what point do you start to say
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: I like this enough to pursue it or even think
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: it's a viable option.
• 8:16
  Speaker 2: So in middle school I went to this It had
• 8:20
  Speaker 2: this art slash communications program, and then we had like
• 8:24
  Speaker 2: our own studio where we used to do like the
• 8:26
  Speaker 2: morning announcement and we used to do like different shows.
• 8:29
  Speaker 2: And it was an actual class too. So I feel
• 8:31
  Speaker 2: like that class, out of all of my classes, I
• 8:33
  Speaker 2: really like, and like we used to do a lot
• 8:36
  Speaker 2: of different things in there, and I'm like, this is
• 8:39
  Speaker 2: what I want to do. I ain't really care about
• 8:40
  Speaker 2: going to math or other things. I wanted to do this.
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: Did you start sharing these feelings with your family.
• 8:48
  Speaker 2: Yes, And they were pretty much just go for whatever
• 8:52
  Speaker 2: you want to do. It wasn't like discouraging, oh no,
• 8:54
  Speaker 2: you need to do this, like Yeah, they were pretty
• 8:56
  Speaker 2: much get you a job. Yeah.
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: But did they make you lean towards college.
• 9:02
  Speaker 2: Yes. It was either college or the military because it
• 9:05
  Speaker 2: was a big like military in Virginia, and I chose
• 9:09
  Speaker 2: college because I was not going to the military.
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: Was any of your family members in the military.
• 9:13
  Speaker 2: A lot of people.
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: Not your mom though, No, not my mom. Okay, So,
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: by the way, this is looking very gooey and good.
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: Is that what it's supposed to look like? It looks
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: pretty good.
• 9:24
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think we got It's not as quite as
• 9:25
  Speaker 2: my grandma's, but we got a good consistency going. And
• 9:28
  Speaker 2: I think crackers.
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: I feel like this would go go with some saltine.
• 9:32
  Speaker 2: Oh, we used to just eat us for breakfast.
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: It looks good.
• 9:36
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: I can see the cheese and the tomato sauce going
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: well together.
• 9:40
  Speaker 2: Yeah. I think it's about dying.
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: Look at you, I think grandma.
• 9:46
  Speaker 2: Hold on, let me check, because I don't want you
• 9:49
  Speaker 2: to get no big chunk of cheese.
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: I don't mind it. I was eating chunks before. I
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: had fifteen chunks in my cup and you need a bowl. Yeah,
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: go ahead. So you decide, Hey, I'm going to pursue this.
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: I'm going to go to college because military seems probably possible.
• 10:09
  Speaker 2: Dance absolutely not. I was not going to the military.
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: That's good. And so you go into college and then
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: what are you majoring in college?
• 10:20
  Speaker 2: In high school I did a lot of reporting sideline
• 10:23
  Speaker 2: reporting and different things of that nature. So oh, let
• 10:25
  Speaker 2: me go to journalism route. So I'm major. My concentration
• 10:29
  Speaker 2: was journalism, but my major on my degree it says
• 10:32
  Speaker 2: degree in Media Journalism and Film because we took all
• 10:35
  Speaker 2: different types of classes.
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: Okay, at what point during this are you like, Okay,
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: where did you go to school? You said, Howard? Howard,
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: So I will come on, fill up a chair. We're
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: going to do a taste test on this. Chairs, let's
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: try this together.
• 10:53
  Speaker 2: I don't want to burn my mouth.
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: You're right, and it's not really baked being ish, but
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: there is a little sweetness to it.
• 11:01
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a little bit, not a lot.
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: I'm trying to see if I could taste the cheese,
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: but I feel like I can't, but I could feel
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: the texture of cheese. Am I tripping?
• 11:11
  Speaker 2: Nope?
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: For all y'all at home, I highly do not recommend this.
• 11:16
  Speaker 2: This. This is a three and a half and not
• 11:20
  Speaker 2: a three and a half.
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: We'll say, if you are starving and you need a
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: filling meal.
• 11:25
  Speaker 2: Oh, it's gonna fill you up.
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's like a cheese after taste and you need
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: this all the time growing up.
• 11:33
  Speaker 2: It's not terrible but on all the eating while broke.
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: This is.
• 11:42
  Speaker 2: This is broke broke eating while I broke broke.
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: What I like about this is the first time we've
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: had it. And I almost hooked you up with baked beans.
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: I promise you if you go in the back kitchen,
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: there's a can of baked beans.
• 11:54
  Speaker 2: Thank god. Some part of me was like, no, where
• 11:57
  Speaker 2: is the port going for baked beans? I need an oven.
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: This is a one and donners. But I love that
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: you came with this dish because it's unique and it's broke.
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: We've had guests that come on and they have somehow
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: they've tallied up one hundred dollars grocery bill, and I'm like, yeah,
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: I think you missed the mission.
• 12:14
  Speaker 2: Oh no, yeah, no, Like I said, it was six
• 12:17
  Speaker 2: of us in the house.
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: We have to make it work.
• 12:19
  Speaker 2: So you decide to major in.
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: Media film broadcast journalism yep, and from there you graduate.
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: What's your next play?
• 12:31
  Speaker 2: Senior year? No, I would let me get it back, Okay,
• 12:35
  Speaker 2: I would go back to maybe like junior or senior year,
• 12:38
  Speaker 2: maybe sophomore year. Oh, it's all a blur. But I
• 12:42
  Speaker 2: decided I didn't want to do journalism anymore. But it
• 12:45
  Speaker 2: was too late in my matriculation to change my major.
• 12:48
  Speaker 2: So I started taking playwriting classes and the Fine Art
• 12:52
  Speaker 2: School and screenwriting. I took that later my senior year,
• 12:55
  Speaker 2: and I was like, you know what, I just want
• 12:56
  Speaker 2: to get into the entertainment side and that the news.
• 12:59
  Speaker 2: So like I would skip classes to go pa on
• 13:02
  Speaker 2: different television specials in Dcy. Okay, Yeah, I would just
• 13:06
  Speaker 2: try to like find different things to do intern and
• 13:09
  Speaker 2: that kind of got me into wanting to do more
• 13:12
  Speaker 2: of the entertainment side. So like my senior year, I
• 13:15
  Speaker 2: just got it. I was trying to get into this
• 13:17
  Speaker 2: program called HBCU to LA where you like get an
• 13:20
  Speaker 2: internship and they provide housing and you like work with
• 13:23
  Speaker 2: either Disney or Like I had interview with Disney owned
• 13:26
  Speaker 2: BT didn't get not one internship from them, And so
• 13:29
  Speaker 2: then I was like, I think I was sick. One
• 13:32
  Speaker 2: day in my dorm and I was just scanning through
• 13:33
  Speaker 2: the channels because we didn't have cables, so I would
• 13:35
  Speaker 2: just scan through the channels trying to find something to watch,
• 13:38
  Speaker 2: and I came across the Bounce okay, and I was like, Okay,
• 13:41
  Speaker 2: what's this. They remind me like of the early two
• 13:43
  Speaker 2: thousands upn type of vibe. I looked them up and
• 13:46
  Speaker 2: so I just sent the email to a random general
• 13:50
  Speaker 2: bounce email and HR responded and it was like, Hey,
• 13:53
  Speaker 2: you want to come to Atlanta for a interview.
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: I was like, what kind of email did you send them?
• 13:57
  Speaker 2: I was just basically saying, hey, I just came across network,
• 14:00
  Speaker 2: just saying all the things that I'd done and what
• 14:02
  Speaker 2: I was interested in, and it was like, Okay, you
• 14:04
  Speaker 2: want to come down to Atlanta for an interview? Because
• 14:06
  Speaker 2: they had an internship program, so they had like different
• 14:08
  Speaker 2: college students a part of their internship program. I was
• 14:11
  Speaker 2: like sure, and I was like, oh shoot, I'm gonna
• 14:13
  Speaker 2: get to Atlanta. So I just used my work study
• 14:16
  Speaker 2: money and brought a flight and flew down there for
• 14:18
  Speaker 2: a day.
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: Did you tell your family about this? Yeah? Okay.
• 14:21
  Speaker 2: I flew down there for a day and did the interview,
• 14:24
  Speaker 2: and then when I came back, they said I got it.
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: And then were you like, oh my god, how am
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: I gonna live over there?
• 14:30
  Speaker 2: Yep?
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: So what'd you do?
• 14:32
  Speaker 2: I took all the money that my family and family
• 14:35
  Speaker 2: friends gave me from graduation. I think my granddaddy and
• 14:38
  Speaker 2: my uncle James gave me some extra money on the.
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: Side shut out to them.
• 14:42
  Speaker 2: Yeah, they got me a train ticket because I couldn't
• 14:45
  Speaker 2: afford a flight, so they got me Amtrak train ticket
• 14:47
  Speaker 2: from DC to Atlanta.
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: But how are you gonna survive in Atlanta?
• 14:52
  Speaker 2: So I was able to find a place that kind
• 14:56
  Speaker 2: of fell through. So I wasn't homeless. I was of
• 14:59
  Speaker 2: a home, and so I knew somebody down there and
• 15:01
  Speaker 2: it was like, Hey, just come stay with me and
• 15:03
  Speaker 2: we're gonna figure it out. So I want to stay
• 15:05
  Speaker 2: with them. They had a friend that was staying in
• 15:06
  Speaker 2: like this off off campus student housing and she was like, yeah,
• 15:10
  Speaker 2: just pretend like you're meet for the summer and you'll
• 15:12
  Speaker 2: be fine. So that's how I pretend like I was
• 15:14
  Speaker 2: her for the summer, and I stayed at her off
• 15:16
  Speaker 2: campus housing.
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: Oh there was a term you used in that you
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: said you weren't homeless, but you wasn't.
• 15:22
  Speaker 2: I was of a home, so yeah, so I just
• 15:25
  Speaker 2: slept on a couch And that's hilarious. I love that.
• 15:28
  Speaker 2: I love that.
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: I just wanted to Yeah.
• 15:30
  Speaker 2: I wasn't on the street, but I was in somebody
• 15:32
  Speaker 2: else's home.
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: There wasn't OK and they looked out that he didn't
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: have to break her off anything. She just looked out, No,
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: she just said, look, I ain't trying to stay here.
• 15:40
  Speaker 2: You can pay me. I think it was like seven
• 15:41
  Speaker 2: hundred a month and I was only there for two months.
• 15:44
  Speaker 2: So I just gave her like the money so I
• 15:46
  Speaker 2: could stay in her and her a little sweet that
• 15:49
  Speaker 2: she had. They had like kitchen and the living room
• 15:50
  Speaker 2: and everything, and I think she only had one other
• 15:53
  Speaker 2: roommate on the other side. I think the other two
• 15:54
  Speaker 2: were like gone for the summer.
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: Oh so it was a sweet look. Yeah, so for
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: two months, what happens once the two months are.
• 16:01
  Speaker 2: Up though, So the two months was up, the internship
• 16:05
  Speaker 2: was up. But I did have a conversation with Sorry,
• 16:08
  Speaker 2: I did have a conversation with my direct report, like
• 16:11
  Speaker 2: the boss I was working for, about wanting to come
• 16:13
  Speaker 2: back if they had any opportunity, So I would say maybe.
• 16:18
  Speaker 2: Around September, I came back to Atlanta as a temp
• 16:22
  Speaker 2: for the department. It was the original programming department, and
• 16:26
  Speaker 2: that temporary position was only posed to last until February.
• 16:29
  Speaker 2: Before February could come, they offered me a full time position.
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: Oh no, So then you're officially in Atlanta, yep, and
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: your family's singing praises and everything. You are excited yep.
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: So then what happens from there?
• 16:42
  Speaker 2: Just grinding, trying to learn everything. And one thing that
• 16:46
  Speaker 2: my boss at the time stress was I get to
• 16:50
  Speaker 2: know every department head, everybody that work in the department.
• 16:53
  Speaker 2: So I spent most of my internship trying to learn
• 16:55
  Speaker 2: the different departments and how they work with our department,
• 16:57
  Speaker 2: not just staying isolated. So it was a lot of
• 17:00
  Speaker 2: that and just working on different shows. At the time,
• 17:05
  Speaker 2: they didn't have a big post production department, so I
• 17:08
  Speaker 2: was helping out with posts. I was reading scripts and
• 17:11
  Speaker 2: different things, and yeah, just grinding it out, getting up early,
• 17:15
  Speaker 2: catching the bus, then catching the trains so I can
• 17:18
  Speaker 2: get to bucket.
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: So at what point does mine your business come into play?
• 17:22
  Speaker 2: So maya business come in twenty twenty two? Yeah, twenty
• 17:27
  Speaker 2: twenty two. It happened before Hayboo, or it happened after
• 17:30
  Speaker 2: Hayboo after.
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: That's what I'm saying. But mind your businesses would bounce right, Okay,
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: So I don't want to skip over, Okay, then go
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: hey Boo first.
• 17:37
  Speaker 2: Okay, I go hay booth while I'm in Atlanta. I
• 17:39
  Speaker 2: really didn't know a lot of people there, so I
• 17:42
  Speaker 2: mainly just like in my free time, right try working
• 17:44
  Speaker 2: on my craft in different things. And then I was
• 17:47
  Speaker 2: applying to all of these fellowships Disney, NBC like they
• 17:50
  Speaker 2: all had these fellowships, and then the smaller fellowships, and
• 17:53
  Speaker 2: then I came across.
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: What's a fellowship.
• 17:55
  Speaker 2: So a fellowship is basically they take a group of writers,
• 17:59
  Speaker 2: they bring them in. You do it from workshops. Sometimes
• 18:01
  Speaker 2: it's paid, and you just get immersed into the whole
• 18:05
  Speaker 2: right inside of that level. And then after the fellowship
• 18:09
  Speaker 2: you should have something like already finished or you're developing something,
• 18:14
  Speaker 2: or you can use whatever you worked on as a
• 18:16
  Speaker 2: sample to get staff on like a show. So that
• 18:18
  Speaker 2: was like what I really wanted to do, instead of
• 18:20
  Speaker 2: going like the writer's PA route and going to writers Assistant,
• 18:24
  Speaker 2: I wanted to get into a fellowship. So I just
• 18:26
  Speaker 2: kept applying, got rejected every year by all of them,
• 18:30
  Speaker 2: and then I started applying to like smaller ones, and
• 18:33
  Speaker 2: then I came across Heartbeat. I applied one year, I
• 18:36
  Speaker 2: didn't get it, and that was I think that was
• 18:38
  Speaker 2: the first year. And then the second year, I almost
• 18:40
  Speaker 2: forgot about applying it to it until a coworker told
• 18:44
  Speaker 2: me like, hey, are you gonna apply to this Heartbeat Fellowship?
• 18:47
  Speaker 2: I was like, oh yeah, and I put it off
• 18:48
  Speaker 2: and then it was like, up, the deadline's here. So
• 18:50
  Speaker 2: I heard up and rolled a skip and that's what
• 18:53
  Speaker 2: I submitted.
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: And then they accepted it and you did you want?
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: How did it work?
• 18:59
  Speaker 2: So basic? They narrowed it down to people that they
• 19:02
  Speaker 2: wanted to interview. So I did an interview with one
• 19:05
  Speaker 2: of the co founders of the program, Candice, and also
• 19:08
  Speaker 2: the program manager, which was Jennifer at the time, and
• 19:12
  Speaker 2: so we did an interview and then after that kind
• 19:14
  Speaker 2: of was just waiting to see and then I remember
• 19:17
  Speaker 2: it was like before my birthday or either on my birthday,
• 19:21
  Speaker 2: Jennifer had called me. She was like, hey, so what
• 19:24
  Speaker 2: is your schedule looking like for this? Then? And the
• 19:26
  Speaker 2: third I'm like, why would she be in that? And
• 19:29
  Speaker 2: so then I think, like the day before my birthday
• 19:31
  Speaker 2: I found out I got the fellowship?
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: Nice, yep, how long was the fellowship?
• 19:36
  Speaker 2: The fellowship was for a year, but the writers strike
• 19:40
  Speaker 2: cut that year little short.
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: So yeah, okay, so then what happens from there, Britt,
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: is this when you start to think about Habu?
• 19:50
  Speaker 2: So Habu was with the Fellowship.
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: Oh, Habu was what you submitted?
• 19:53
  Speaker 2: Yeah, Habu was what I submitted, and it just after that,
• 19:57
  Speaker 2: it probably went like through a couple of rounds of
• 19:59
  Speaker 2: notes with them and then the director logan and yeah,
• 20:03
  Speaker 2: after that they went to shooting it. So I came
• 20:05
  Speaker 2: out here for that shoot. I was flying back and
• 20:08
  Speaker 2: forth a lot from Atlanta to la from my job
• 20:11
  Speaker 2: and then for Haybow different things that they wanted to
• 20:14
  Speaker 2: do with the Fellowship. And once Habu was shot, I
• 20:17
  Speaker 2: was working on the show at Bounce called Accurate Age.
• 20:20
  Speaker 2: We were on set and me and one of my
• 20:24
  Speaker 2: coworkers we were talking about, Okay, we got Accurate Age,
• 20:28
  Speaker 2: but what else are we going to be working on.
• 20:30
  Speaker 2: What's going to be like the Companion show to this?
• 20:32
  Speaker 2: What other programming? And so we was like, okay, let's
• 20:35
  Speaker 2: start brainstorming and thinking of a show to go with
• 20:38
  Speaker 2: this or to like air after this. So we had
• 20:40
  Speaker 2: something in the bank.
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: And this wasn't something This wasn't a part of your job,
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: right this is so I was on the.
• 20:46
  Speaker 2: Development team and we Accurate Age was developed in house,
• 20:51
  Speaker 2: So do develop ideas in house and just outsource to
• 20:54
  Speaker 2: a production company bring it to life. So it was
• 20:57
  Speaker 2: a part of my job, but like really taking this
• 20:59
  Speaker 2: INITIATI was but my pay grade. Like but we was like, hey,
• 21:02
  Speaker 2: we need something to do because like, yeah we need
• 21:05
  Speaker 2: a job. Yeah, we need to show reps. And then
• 21:08
  Speaker 2: just going back to getting no different departments like they
• 21:11
  Speaker 2: were saying like like the older sitcoms are performing well,
• 21:14
  Speaker 2: like on the streaming platforms and on our fast channels,
• 21:17
  Speaker 2: Like it would be nice if we could get something
• 21:19
  Speaker 2: of that same wheelhouse. So we put our brains together
• 21:23
  Speaker 2: and that's how we came up. It was called Family
• 21:26
  Speaker 2: Affair before it became maya business. Yeah, and then you
• 21:30
  Speaker 2: pitch it yeah, So we pitched it too. I made
• 21:33
  Speaker 2: sure all the team was on the call. Wasn't like
• 21:35
  Speaker 2: a certain intervie. I was like, I want the whole
• 21:36
  Speaker 2: original team on a call, and I need I to
• 21:39
  Speaker 2: pull people to the south. I need you to pack
• 21:41
  Speaker 2: me up on it. And so we pitched it to them.
• 21:43
  Speaker 2: They loved it, and so our next step was to
• 21:47
  Speaker 2: find a writer to write the pilot episode. And if
• 21:49
  Speaker 2: the pilot episode, like the script was good enough. Then
• 21:52
  Speaker 2: they were green lighted.
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: And when they greenlighted, what does that mean, Like you
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: sold your first show? Yeah, it basically mean you were
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: going to series, Like, yeah, what was that ex experience
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: like for you? So when they did greenlight it, I
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: was no longer at Bounce. I left Bounce to go
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: to Fuse because I was now out here living in
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: LA and at the time, I was just a senior
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: coordinator at Bounce, but the money that I was making
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: was more so affordable for Atlanta in that LA and
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: then there were a whole bunch of layoff talks. So
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: I was like, I need to find another way to
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: make more money, and this is not it. So I
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: left Bounce to go to Fuse, and I also left
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: to really go ham on my writing. And then that's
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: when the strikes happened. But you were also doing the
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: Heartbeat Fellowship.
• 22:37
  Speaker 2: Yeah, the Heartbeat Fellowship Sundance that all happened.
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: Yeah, So you got a lot of overlap, a lot
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: of overlaps. When you leave, they still have the rights
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: to buy mind your business.
• 22:48
  Speaker 2: Yes, So when you work for a network and you
• 22:51
  Speaker 2: pitch ideas internally.
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: They own the idea. Yeah, Womb Womb like, I can't there.
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: They own it because you pitched it while you were
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: an employee. Yeah, so if you would have left and
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: then pitched it, then I would own it. So they
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: own it.
• 23:13
  Speaker 2: But that's the whole point. I feel like that's the
• 23:15
  Speaker 2: reason why they really wanted to do the show, because
• 23:18
  Speaker 2: they're like, Okay, we got this internal idea that we
• 23:20
  Speaker 2: can hold on to and we can take out and license,
• 23:23
  Speaker 2: like don't but it ended up being a top show
• 23:25
  Speaker 2: for them. Yep.
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: So you knowing that, is there a part of you
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: that thinks also that maybe you walking in some of
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: the talks or the rhetoric that was going on, could
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: have because if you would have stayed as an employee,
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: what would you have gotten after pitching that show? Nothing?
• 23:40
  Speaker 2: Nothing but working long hours on the show and still
• 23:45
  Speaker 2: making my salary. That's crazy.
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't know if that should be allowed for real.
• 23:51
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's like two far. I know certain networks they
• 23:54
  Speaker 2: may break you off a little something extra if you
• 23:57
  Speaker 2: it's just.
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: Gave them like more than what they invested in you, basically, Yeah,
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: and you're cool with that. Earth how do you feel? So?
• 24:04
  Speaker 2: I was a little salty because it was like I
• 24:07
  Speaker 2: was supposed to. When I left the company. We had
• 24:10
  Speaker 2: conversations before, Hey, you can come back as a consultant.
• 24:14
  Speaker 2: This is your show that you created and that didn't
• 24:17
  Speaker 2: happen because of budget cuts and the strike.
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: But it's also one of their top performing shows. Yeah, yes,
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: be super salty. Yeah, so I just look at it
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: like this way. If I can create that show, I
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: can do another one. So I'm past it now. Yeah,
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: But like at the time, I was very Yeah, I'm
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: still trying to get past it, but it.
• 24:37
  Speaker 2: Was very salty. But I just that's messed up, man.
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I would be complaining for at least six months.
• 24:42
  Speaker 2: And then it was this whole thing about my created
• 24:45
  Speaker 2: by credit. I'm like, in my employee agreement it said
• 24:47
  Speaker 2: like any idea y'all own. It didn't say nothing about
• 24:50
  Speaker 2: me not getting my proper credit.
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: Did they give it to you?
• 24:53
  Speaker 2: Yes, they had to give it to me because one
• 24:55
  Speaker 2: of the executives that was there when I was there
• 24:57
  Speaker 2: at the time, he made sure when we signed the
• 24:59
  Speaker 2: writer onto write the pilot, he said, hey, all three
• 25:02
  Speaker 2: of these ladies are getting created by credit. Put that
• 25:05
  Speaker 2: in an agreement.
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: The other two ladies there still.
• 25:08
  Speaker 2: One is there the other one was like a contract
• 25:11
  Speaker 2: work for hire, so she wasn't a full time employee
• 25:13
  Speaker 2: with the y'all just giving up your gold. Okay, got it,
• 25:16
  Speaker 2: she wasn't, So she was just hired on to be
• 25:18
  Speaker 2: the writer and work on the show and be executive
• 25:20
  Speaker 2: producer and all of that.
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: So we'll shout out to him for fighting for y'all.
• 25:24
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so I appreciate JJ for doing that because if
• 25:27
  Speaker 2: that wasn't there, they probably would have found some way
• 25:29
  Speaker 2: to not give us our credit.
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so then you're over at Fused having that Fuseland.
• 25:35
  Speaker 2: So Fuse was unscripted, which was I did unscripted that Bounce,
• 25:39
  Speaker 2: but Fuse was like a different type of unscripted. So
• 25:43
  Speaker 2: I'm glad I did get that experience and work on
• 25:46
  Speaker 2: different shows, and one of them was Big Freedom Means Business,
• 25:49
  Speaker 2: sex sales. We had a sports yeah, we had a
• 25:52
  Speaker 2: lovely Yeah. We had a sports show called Like a Girl.
• 25:55
  Speaker 2: That was cool to see come because we like revamped
• 25:58
  Speaker 2: the show while I was there, So that was cool
• 26:00
  Speaker 2: to see that come to. And Fruistion and and yeah,
• 26:02
  Speaker 2: it was a different type of shows they branded content.
• 26:05
  Speaker 2: That was my first time experience with working that in
• 26:08
  Speaker 2: depth with branded content. We was exploring different content.
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: But you say branded content, what does that mean?
• 26:13
  Speaker 2: So let's say Times best company, I want to say
• 26:18
  Speaker 2: it out loud decided they want to sponsor on this
• 26:21
  Speaker 2: segment of me cooking. Yeah, the porky means and cheese.
• 26:24
  Speaker 2: That would be branded branded content.
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: Damn, go fuse.
• 26:27
  Speaker 2: I wanted to get.
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: I wanted to get eating while brokenfused at one point,
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: I don't think they wanted us, but yeah, they have
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: some good content. That said, they got sex Cells, which
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: is pretty good and that's a top show for them, right.
• 26:38
  Speaker 2: And I used to watch like the uncut versions before
• 26:40
  Speaker 2: they had the edit it for so yeah, it's very
• 26:44
  Speaker 2: but it was very interesting too, Like I think it's
• 26:46
  Speaker 2: a good concept.
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: Yeah, great, shout out to the Weeezy. I love her,
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: super cool chick. So your affuse, what's the next play?
• 26:57
  Speaker 2: I was still trying to pursue my write in, but
• 26:59
  Speaker 2: it was it's hard being like post strikes and a
• 27:02
  Speaker 2: lot of shows not renewing and like different opportunities and
• 27:07
  Speaker 2: then the whole like representation having issues with them. Hey
• 27:11
  Speaker 2: can you give me some rooms? Cause like I was
• 27:13
  Speaker 2: like using my network to get meetings and trying to
• 27:17
  Speaker 2: get my stuff read, and so I was like, Okay,
• 27:20
  Speaker 2: maybe I could just write the full length film of
• 27:24
  Speaker 2: hay Boo and try to get back into Heartbeat. So
• 27:28
  Speaker 2: I started like ID eight and what I wanted the
• 27:31
  Speaker 2: full length version of Heyboo to look like, and start writing.
• 27:34
  Speaker 2: And so now I have a shopping agreement where Heartbeat
• 27:38
  Speaker 2: time is winding down, but I'm trying to get it
• 27:40
  Speaker 2: somewhere at some studio streamer whoever wants to take it on.
• 27:45
  Speaker 2: But yeah, that was like my thing of trying to
• 27:47
  Speaker 2: get hay Boo, trying to update some of my other
• 27:51
  Speaker 2: scripts so when those meetings do come in, I could
• 27:53
  Speaker 2: be prepared.
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: So how do you get it? At Peacock and two B.
• 27:57
  Speaker 2: Peacock and Twoby was all through Heartbeat. That's what their
• 28:01
  Speaker 2: whole arrangement as far as like distributing the films and
• 28:05
  Speaker 2: that stuff. So we wasn't really involving that part. It
• 28:07
  Speaker 2: just said, oh, it's gonna be on Peacock. And then
• 28:09
  Speaker 2: one day I was at home and I was on
• 28:11
  Speaker 2: Toby and I saw it on to I was like,
• 28:12
  Speaker 2: oh it's on Toby.
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: Too, Oh wow, yes, And then what do those checks
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: look like from that standpoint.
• 28:19
  Speaker 2: I only got paid once by a heartbeat, and that
• 28:22
  Speaker 2: was for the script.
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: Then it was a fellowship.
• 28:25
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it was like a stipend.
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: But they don't own it, right, they own Heybi, this sucks,
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: but this is the I love that you're sharing this
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: because I think that we all think, Okay, we created something,
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: we land this big deal and there's this huge payout
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: or whatever. But this definitely has to be like the
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: most roller coaster of emotions ever. Yes, but it's also
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: confidence boosting because you're obviously a creator that's able to
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: sell amazing content that's getting picked up. The question is
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: how do you demand your worth? On the other side,
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: you just gotta be what's the word that I can
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: use for you just gotta be on it. You gotta
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: make sure your representation is on it. Did you have
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: representation on both of these accounts?
• 29:11
  Speaker 2: No? I got hay boo and did my business all
• 29:14
  Speaker 2: by myself. I didn't get representation.
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: So after the fact, well, hey boo, you did after
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: the fact too. That's interesting.
• 29:24
  Speaker 2: Yeah, So I say this representation is good to have,
• 29:28
  Speaker 2: but it's more so knowing people Like if I wasn't
• 29:32
  Speaker 2: working within the network, I probably wouldn't have been able
• 29:34
  Speaker 2: to get a pitched the show in twenty twenty two,
• 29:37
  Speaker 2: and by I want to say, twenty twenty four is
• 29:40
  Speaker 2: Aaron on television. And that's because we were working at
• 29:43
  Speaker 2: the network and trying to push it through and I
• 29:45
  Speaker 2: was on my boss like, hey, do we got disapproved legal?
• 29:48
  Speaker 2: So I feel like I had an advantage when I
• 29:50
  Speaker 2: was at the network to able to get stuff like
• 29:52
  Speaker 2: green lay because that wasn't the first show that I
• 29:55
  Speaker 2: pitched and got like a green light. The other one
• 29:57
  Speaker 2: I pitched was a game show, but it died in
• 29:59
  Speaker 2: like upfront, so I was familiar with how the process work.
• 30:03
  Speaker 2: But with this one, like I had the other departments
• 30:05
  Speaker 2: backing me up. I felt like that was my advantage.
• 30:08
  Speaker 2: And yeah, I didn't really need representation because I was
• 30:11
  Speaker 2: already in the system.
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: But do you think that was a plus or negative?
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: Because on one end, it's a plus because it got
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: your stuff pushed further and you know what they're looking
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: for on both sides of the camera now, right, so
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: you can consider yourself like a double threat, triple threat, right.
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: But on the downside, there's a little bit of for
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: lack of better word, it just seems like a little
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: bit of a dog eat dog because yeah, because of
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: the affiliation of the network.
• 30:36
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so it's, uh, you gotta you win some and
• 30:39
  Speaker 2: you lose some. So you just got to take into
• 30:41
  Speaker 2: accounts like, hey, you need to get a credit, but
• 30:43
  Speaker 2: how are you gonna go about getting that credit? You
• 30:45
  Speaker 2: get that credit, that'll take you up a notch. So
• 30:47
  Speaker 2: when you do go out on your own, at least
• 30:50
  Speaker 2: you have something versus than having nothing.
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so I wasn't trying to cut you off.
• 30:57
  Speaker 2: Oh no, go ahead.
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: What would you say, is your next play after everything you've.
• 31:03
  Speaker 2: Learned, after everything I learned? My next play? I'm sorry, y'all.
• 31:09
  Speaker 2: I'm not used to doing interviews. It's been a minute.
• 31:12
  Speaker 2: My next play is, I'm looking at how these content
• 31:16
  Speaker 2: creators are getting on TikTok and YouTube shorts and stuff
• 31:20
  Speaker 2: and just posting not random stuff, but it's not a
• 31:23
  Speaker 2: big budget production, and they're getting the brand deals and
• 31:27
  Speaker 2: they're getting the views and they're building their audience. So
• 31:29
  Speaker 2: I feel like my next direction, as far as going
• 31:32
  Speaker 2: to indie route, I'm looking more so into content creation
• 31:35
  Speaker 2: and creating stuff for social because I know that's where
• 31:38
  Speaker 2: the younger people are older people are on it. If
• 31:41
  Speaker 2: you put it on Facebook, you know they're gonna eat
• 31:43
  Speaker 2: it up. So that's like my next route. That way
• 31:46
  Speaker 2: I can develop my own IP and own it so
• 31:50
  Speaker 2: when somebody do see it, I ain't want to pick
• 31:52
  Speaker 2: it up. It's be like a similar situation with Isa
• 31:54
  Speaker 2: Ray and Opera Black Girl and stuff like that.
• 31:57
  Speaker 1: Or but now during the Ray era, I don't know
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: if the algorithms were as algorithm as now, because like
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: sometimes we could post and we'll have a good six
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: months and then we'll have a six months of what
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: is wrong? Yeah, And I don't think it's the content.
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: I think it's more so the algorithm. Yeah, if you
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: changing them around.
• 32:15
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you could say that. You also say it's oversaturated.
• 32:19
  Speaker 2: But I also feel like if you do have something
• 32:21
  Speaker 2: that you want to put out there now, it's the
• 32:24
  Speaker 2: time to just put it out there versus waiting and
• 32:26
  Speaker 2: then if somebody do come along and they're like, oh,
• 32:28
  Speaker 2: we want this, and you sign your rights away from
• 32:32
  Speaker 2: it because you don't really have much leverage in the game,
• 32:34
  Speaker 2: versus building your own audience and going to indie route.
• 32:38
  Speaker 2: That's what it's looking more like now, given with the
• 32:40
  Speaker 2: state of the industry.
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so you're still doing screenwriting though.
• 32:45
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm still right. I'm still trying to push hey
• 32:47
  Speaker 2: Boo out there.
• 32:49
  Speaker 1: But I don't understand if they own it, why would
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: you still want to push it.
• 32:53
  Speaker 2: Because we do have a shopping agreement between each other,
• 32:56
  Speaker 2: so I can't take it out. I have permission to
• 32:58
  Speaker 2: take it out to pitch to different streamers and studios. Yeah,
• 33:02
  Speaker 2: so that's what my main thing is, trying to get
• 33:05
  Speaker 2: it made it to a full length film. That way,
• 33:07
  Speaker 2: it's another credit under my belt, money, all that type.
• 33:11
  Speaker 1: Of stuff, And so you can take it out right
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: from the Yeah.
• 33:14
  Speaker 2: I could take it out now that I'm under the agreement,
• 33:17
  Speaker 2: but like, once the agreement is up, then we have
• 33:19
  Speaker 2: to go back to the table, like, hey, we need
• 33:20
  Speaker 2: a little bit more time so we can get it somewhere.
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: Wow. Wow, that's a lot of pressure. Do you have
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: friends that pitch you on you looking over their pictures
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: a lot?
• 33:30
  Speaker 2: Yeah?
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: How does that feel?
• 33:33
  Speaker 2: It feels good that they trust me to look over
• 33:36
  Speaker 2: the stuff. I don't try to be too hard on
• 33:38
  Speaker 2: them because I know like how it feels to be
• 33:41
  Speaker 2: on the other side and be a creative and you
• 33:43
  Speaker 2: sensitive about your art. So I try to be as
• 33:46
  Speaker 2: nice about it, but also tell them like, hey, this's
• 33:49
  Speaker 2: not gonna work, or you may want to go back
• 33:51
  Speaker 2: and look at this. But they do come to me
• 33:53
  Speaker 2: a lot with different pictures or ideas they think I
• 33:55
  Speaker 2: should do.
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: You're open to all of that. What advice do you
• 33:58
  Speaker 1: give to people now, knowing everything that you learned about
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: the industry.
• 34:02
  Speaker 3: And get close with this mic friend?
• 34:05
  Speaker 2: Pick up your phone and shoot something. Wow, Just pick
• 34:10
  Speaker 2: up your phone and shoot something, and you never know
• 34:13
  Speaker 2: what it can become. You might not even post it,
• 34:15
  Speaker 2: but just getting it out there, putting it out there,
• 34:18
  Speaker 2: getting it out your head and something that you can
• 34:20
  Speaker 2: see visually. I feel like it helped. Like I just
• 34:23
  Speaker 2: go back to the moment where I was at sun
• 34:25
  Speaker 2: Dance in the theater and my name pop up written
• 34:27
  Speaker 2: by Danielle Solomon. I'm like, oh, wow, it's out there.
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 34:31
  Speaker 2: So like even if nobody else see it, or you
• 34:33
  Speaker 2: show it to your family or like, just pick up
• 34:36
  Speaker 2: your phone and shoot something and don't have to be
• 34:39
  Speaker 2: too much. It could just be like a short or
• 34:42
  Speaker 2: it could be like a little skit that you call
• 34:44
  Speaker 2: or you don't post. It's just getting that practice in
• 34:47
  Speaker 2: and just building something if you get in the habit
• 34:50
  Speaker 2: of doing that, Because it's good to just write and
• 34:52
  Speaker 2: watch TV and study it, but it's also good to
• 34:55
  Speaker 2: actually like film something.
• 34:58
  Speaker 1: Yes, And in regards to like joining the bigger companies
• 35:02
  Speaker 1: like Heartbeat, Bounce, FEUs and all of that, what do
• 35:05
  Speaker 1: you feel knowing what you know now?
• 35:07
  Speaker 2: Like joining it as a Yeah, it wouldn't be my
• 35:12
  Speaker 2: first stop. My first thought would be trying to build
• 35:16
  Speaker 2: my own audience. That way I can leverage myself more
• 35:20
  Speaker 2: when I go.
• 35:20
  Speaker 1: To You think getting out bigger audience is more important
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: than getting the credits. This is a random at this
• 35:32
  Speaker 1: point in the game for me. Yes, wow, Yeah, that's
• 35:36
  Speaker 1: a big statement. Yeah, I agree. I feel like everything's
• 35:39
  Speaker 1: going to social media route. But there are theories that
• 35:41
  Speaker 1: they're saying like that social media may and which I'll
• 35:46
  Speaker 1: be honest, like the day social media dies would probably
• 35:49
  Speaker 1: be one of the happiest days of my life because
• 35:53
  Speaker 1: everything is around it. It's like we're but it's also
• 35:57
  Speaker 1: very controlled by the who's a who. I heard that
• 36:00
  Speaker 1: when Trump got elected everyone ended up following him. I
• 36:03
  Speaker 1: don't know if my I don't think I ended up
• 36:05
  Speaker 1: like they said that if you went on your feed,
• 36:07
  Speaker 1: you'd see that you follow him. Now, I was just like,
• 36:10
  Speaker 1: how can we trust something that's so like listening in
• 36:14
  Speaker 1: Like you say, cat food around your phone, yet cat
• 36:17
  Speaker 1: food and like you have say you're following ten thousand
• 36:21
  Speaker 1: or two thousand friends, you're only seeing like ten of
• 36:23
  Speaker 1: your friends stuff.
• 36:25
  Speaker 2: Yeah. I was reading something about Tyler Perry and his
• 36:29
  Speaker 2: early days and how he had like an email list.
• 36:31
  Speaker 2: I feel like social media is a good start, but
• 36:33
  Speaker 2: it's not like a stop. Like you try to figure
• 36:35
  Speaker 2: out how you can stay connected with your audience beyond that,
• 36:39
  Speaker 2: maybe you do a live show or something, or if
• 36:42
  Speaker 2: you in the comedy, do a little improv type of thing.
• 36:45
  Speaker 2: But I feel like social media is a good start,
• 36:48
  Speaker 2: but it shouldn't be the stop. Yeah.
• 36:51
  Speaker 1: I tell a lot of people when I do a
• 36:54
  Speaker 1: lot of event marketing, and I tell people all the
• 36:56
  Speaker 1: time social is cute, but at the end of the day,
• 36:59
  Speaker 1: you want cell phone numbers and email addresses because however
• 37:04
  Speaker 1: that person uses that social you cannot control the ogurith
• 37:07
  Speaker 1: can't control the output. Which you do need to know
• 37:09
  Speaker 1: is that anytime you sell a ticket or promote something,
• 37:12
  Speaker 1: that person needs to see that impression six to eight
• 37:14
  Speaker 1: times or to making a purchase, or prior to adjusting
• 37:17
  Speaker 1: their schedules. You gotta figure out every way possible to
• 37:20
  Speaker 1: catch those email addresses and phone numbers, because the real
• 37:23
  Speaker 1: power lies in having that direct contact to phone.
• 37:26
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and a good example of that with Maya Business.
• 37:29
  Speaker 2: It didn't really have a big marketing push compared it
• 37:32
  Speaker 2: to the other shows and mounts, and I noticed that.
• 37:35
  Speaker 2: So I was like, So, me and Danielle Dominique, the
• 37:38
  Speaker 2: other co creator of the show, we was like, Okay,
• 37:40
  Speaker 2: we need to drop this in our group chets. We
• 37:42
  Speaker 2: need to tell our family members and different people to
• 37:44
  Speaker 2: watch it because they're not really pushing it out there,
• 37:48
  Speaker 2: and like you said, people need to see it at
• 37:49
  Speaker 2: least six to eight times. So our family was posting
• 37:52
  Speaker 2: in our alumni groups, and she was in a sorority.
• 37:54
  Speaker 2: Her sorority was posting it and supporting it. And that's
• 37:57
  Speaker 2: how I was able to become the higher original premiere
• 38:01
  Speaker 2: ever and Bounce history was word of mouth and telling
• 38:04
  Speaker 2: people versus them putting together this whole marketing plan because
• 38:07
  Speaker 2: it didn't get the huge marketing rollout that it should
• 38:10
  Speaker 2: have gotten.
• 38:11
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, agreed. Why I've learned so much from you.
• 38:16
  Speaker 1: Thank you so much for cooking for us. I respectfully
• 38:20
  Speaker 1: know it was like making mad jokes about your dish,
• 38:23
  Speaker 1: but I feel like it was like a wealth of
• 38:25
  Speaker 1: knowledge and full transparency on a super rocky road that
• 38:29
  Speaker 1: I can only imagine has been like really emotional. Yeah,
• 38:33
  Speaker 1: I think because I feel like I would have twitched
• 38:36
  Speaker 1: a couple of times.
• 38:37
  Speaker 2: A lot of people would have crashed out by now,
• 38:38
  Speaker 2: gave up. But it's what else Mama gonna do if
• 38:41
  Speaker 2: I don't do this.
• 38:42
  Speaker 1: So are you getting emotional?
• 38:43
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I little bit why.
• 38:47
  Speaker 1: I'm just curious.
• 38:48
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's just been I'm sorry, it's just been a
• 38:51
  Speaker 2: long it's been a heart. It doesn't seem like it's
• 38:54
  Speaker 2: been a long journey, but it's been a long journey,
• 38:56
  Speaker 2: and it's been really hard just trying to, you know,
• 38:59
  Speaker 2: stay and stay on the right track. Because it's easily
• 39:03
  Speaker 2: it's easy to get discourage, it's easy to get feel
• 39:06
  Speaker 2: like you're never gonna achieve anything. And I feel like
• 39:11
  Speaker 2: because I was able to at least get something done,
• 39:13
  Speaker 2: it's given me the motivation to keep going. Okay, I
• 39:16
  Speaker 2: was able to do this when I was in this position,
• 39:19
  Speaker 2: I know I can do more now.
• 39:20
  Speaker 1: So what are the things that make you doubt yourself?
• 39:24
  Speaker 1: Because I completely completely empathize with at least you have
• 39:28
  Speaker 1: these markers saying I took an idea and I'd proven
• 39:32
  Speaker 1: that I was able to land it and other people
• 39:35
  Speaker 1: were able to profit. What was the thing that makes
• 39:37
  Speaker 1: you feel like you constantly have to tell yourself to
• 39:39
  Speaker 1: try again or not give up or not pivot.
• 39:43
  Speaker 2: I honestly feel like it's just it's not me. But
• 39:47
  Speaker 2: then like I know I can do it. I can
• 39:49
  Speaker 2: see it in my head, like I know, Okay, this
• 39:51
  Speaker 2: could be real. It's just things that's out of my
• 39:54
  Speaker 2: control that I can't control that kind of makes me
• 39:57
  Speaker 2: doubt myself. I'm like, dang, because they're not high in
• 40:00
  Speaker 2: this show got canceled, this is show I wanted to
• 40:02
  Speaker 2: write on, and things like that discouraged me and make
• 40:05
  Speaker 2: me doubt, Okay, why am I doing this? But then
• 40:08
  Speaker 2: it's like I always remind myself, what else will I
• 40:11
  Speaker 2: am I willing to do if I'm not doing this
• 40:14
  Speaker 2: that will make me content, that will not have me
• 40:17
  Speaker 2: living in regret.
• 40:18
  Speaker 1: And what's the answer. Nothing?
• 40:20
  Speaker 2: Nothing. So it's like I had no choice but to
• 40:23
  Speaker 2: do what I'm doing, try to keep going in pursuing.
• 40:26
  Speaker 1: It, and then how do you manage your finances through
• 40:29
  Speaker 1: that whole process.
• 40:31
  Speaker 2: I gotta work sometimes, I gotta work jobs that's not
• 40:35
  Speaker 2: as oh I'm on set. No, I'm actually doing customer
• 40:38
  Speaker 2: service work.
• 40:39
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 40:40
  Speaker 2: Yeah, And you know it's jobs that you ideally don't
• 40:43
  Speaker 2: want to do and you never know what This industry
• 40:46
  Speaker 2: is very unpredictable. I got laid off at FUSE in January,
• 40:49
  Speaker 2: so I've been just trying to hustle to try to
• 40:51
  Speaker 2: keep up so I can stay here because I don't
• 40:54
  Speaker 2: want to leave here and not accomplish what I set
• 40:56
  Speaker 2: out to do here before I go back home. So
• 40:58
  Speaker 2: I was like, I have to find ways to make money.
• 41:01
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and I think that's the reality of it all.
• 41:05
  Speaker 1: I personally hold on like three jobs, right, Yeah. I
• 41:09
  Speaker 1: tell people like only in La you meet people that
• 41:12
  Speaker 1: work a forty hours job, get off uber and then
• 41:16
  Speaker 1: they side side house so it's babysitting, and that is
• 41:19
  Speaker 1: the normal here.
• 41:20
  Speaker 2: Yeah. That was being when I was confused. I was
• 41:22
  Speaker 2: working full time and then I was working part time
• 41:24
  Speaker 2: because it was like, let me pay this stuff off,
• 41:26
  Speaker 2: like to do the loans that way I can take
• 41:28
  Speaker 2: out another loan so I could do the short film
• 41:30
  Speaker 2: or do anohing, a little animated something, some type of
• 41:33
  Speaker 2: product of my own. So that was like my whole thing.
• 41:35
  Speaker 2: I was like working to get stuff paid off so
• 41:38
  Speaker 2: I can take out not the loan and dude.
• 41:40
  Speaker 1: Sorry, Yeah, I think that God left these accolades at
• 41:47
  Speaker 1: the right time for you to know like you're heading power.
• 41:51
  Speaker 1: It has to be that God. Hey, I know this
• 41:54
  Speaker 1: road looks rocky as hell, but don't forget you had
• 41:57
  Speaker 1: this and you brought it to life. I think the
• 41:59
  Speaker 1: creators the greatest thing someone could ever do is be
• 42:02
  Speaker 1: like the imitation of God. Have a vision for something
• 42:05
  Speaker 1: and create it and give it life like something that
• 42:08
  Speaker 1: no one thought to exist. Or you were just like
• 42:11
  Speaker 1: bringing an idea to life, as to me is like beautiful.
• 42:14
  Speaker 1: But who else see you? Thank you, Thank you for
• 42:17
  Speaker 1: the vulnerability.
• 42:18
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm never.
• 42:22
  Speaker 1: Eats and cheese for breakfast, please Lord, Please, No, I
• 42:27
  Speaker 1: take that back, because you you say something like that,
• 42:30
  Speaker 1: you're gonna end up eating it.
• 42:31
  Speaker 2: So no, I'll take it back. Take it back. It's
• 42:35
  Speaker 2: not my favorite dish.
• 42:37
  Speaker 1: But like I say on this show, the broke of
• 42:39
  Speaker 1: the dish the better. The story in this story was
• 42:41
  Speaker 1: truly amazing and inspiring, and I love that you're vulnerabile
• 42:45
  Speaker 1: about it. Where can everybody keep up with Danielle Solomon?
• 42:49
  Speaker 1: And I want to say support, hey boo. I don't
• 42:52
  Speaker 1: know if we should be support to mind our business?
• 42:54
  Speaker 2: Should we? Y'all can watch it if I want to
• 42:57
  Speaker 2: watch the first season, I recommend.
• 42:59
  Speaker 1: The first season.
• 43:00
  Speaker 2: I'm only hating because I feel some type of way. Yeah,
• 43:04
  Speaker 2: everybody do, but yeah, definitely support the first season. I'm
• 43:08
  Speaker 2: not gonna tell people not to watch it because it's
• 43:11
  Speaker 2: black people behind the camera, black people in front of
• 43:13
  Speaker 2: the cameras. Don't want to take away from what they're doing.
• 43:15
  Speaker 2: Just black. No Bounces was never owned by black people,
• 43:20
  Speaker 2: but so we just capitalizing all them. Yeah, but I
• 43:24
  Speaker 2: would say support them a chance because we don't have
• 43:28
  Speaker 2: that many shows, and the shows we do have are
• 43:30
  Speaker 2: being canceled left and right. Okay, support Yeah, I would
• 43:34
  Speaker 2: say still support it, but mainly hey boo, because I'm
• 43:37
  Speaker 2: still trying to get the full in version. Yeah, so
• 43:40
  Speaker 2: you can watch that on to be in Peacock.
• 43:43
  Speaker 1: And every time, like Kevin Harr would be like, yo,
• 43:45
  Speaker 1: hey boo.
• 43:48
  Speaker 2: Hit up Kevin. Yeah, so he can get on his
• 43:50
  Speaker 2: people be like, yeah, let's get this somewhere.
• 43:52
  Speaker 1: Let's get it somewhere. Thank you so much for your
• 43:54
  Speaker 1: time and feeding me baked beans, baked beans, and she
• 43:59
  Speaker 1: and pease and like I said, y'all, this is a
• 44:02
  Speaker 1: great feeling dish.
• 44:05
  Speaker 2: It's not good when it's cold.
• 44:06
  Speaker 1: It's not it's fairly good. It's fairly good when it's warm.
• 44:10
  Speaker 1: Thank you so much for your time. I really appreciate you,
• 44:12
  Speaker 1: and you guys better go out there and follow at
• 44:15
  Speaker 1: Danielle Solomon.
• 44:18
  Speaker 2: Is that?
• 44:18
  Speaker 1: How is that?
• 44:19
  Speaker 2: Instagram? Is Danielle Michelle TV TikTok Danielle Michelle writes, I
• 44:24
  Speaker 2: know it's all over the place, but yeah, TikTok and
• 44:26
  Speaker 2: Instagram for.
• 44:27
  Speaker 1: Sure, daniel Michelle TV.
• 44:30
  Speaker 2: Instagram, and then Danielle Michelle writes, TikTok.
• 44:33
  Speaker 1: Okay you heard it here first.
• 44:35
  Speaker 2: Peace out, y'all. Peace