When you think back to the earliest version of yourself as a maker, what moment or memory surfaces first?

I remember writing a lot of books as a child. They were all on loose leaf sheets of paper (before computers). I’d draw all the pictures myself. Staple all the pages together to bind it like a book. Sometimes I would let my friends read them and most of them I just kept to myself. I was always looking for a way to entertain myself as an only child so I had a very wide imagination and I was always writing stories. My first one was called, “Picture Day,” and it was about a young kid who was trying to find the perfect outfit to take his school pictures.

What’s a small detail from your upbringing that lives quietly inside your work now?

Music. Growing up, most of the radio hits were songs from popular movie soundtracks. My mom used to have all these different movie soundtrack CDs in her CD book. So I’ve always associated music with film, and been adamant about having thoughtful, intentional soundscapes, original music, and local music in our films.

What feelings tend to start your creative process — curiosity, tension, nostalgia, something else entirely?

In my creative writing process, I would say yearning is the feeling that tends to drive my process, or inspire me to start writing. Characters yearning to be understood, yearning for love. Yearning to be seen or heard. Yearning for something they can’t have. That’s usually what’s at the heart of every story I start to write.

What does peace look or feel like for you when you’re deep in your practice?

Stillness. Quiet. That’s when I can think and practice freely. And there’s nothing to distract me.

When an idea first appears, what happens between that spark and the moment you turn it into something tangible?

For us as writers and directors, the ideas live in our minds and in our conversations, sometimes, for months before we start to shape it into something tangible. It’s a lot of late night chats, long walks talking through the characters, freewriting and playing things out. Then, at some point, you hit a creative wall just talking about it and writing about it – that’s when we know we have to write it out and start to make it a finished script.

Do you have a personal ritual that helps you cross that bridge from thought to creation?

Freewriting is that ritual for us. We put on a 30 minute, sometimes 45 minute timer, and we just start to write. Sometimes there’s a scene we feel pulled to write or it’s a character’s internal monologue. It’s the thing that gets us into the writing process. For so long the idea is precious and you feel all this pressure around just diving into the creation phase – it’s intimidating sometimes. But the freewriting gives us the freedom to start without those intimidating feelings. It doesn’t matter if we don’t use what’s on the page, it just gets you over that hump of starting to write something and take it from out of your mind, onto the page.

Is there a magazine, book, or printed object that opened your eyes to a different way of seeing?

The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison. Before that book, I was reading for school assignments or reading for enjoyment. But when I read The Bluest Eye I realized the power of language and how it can make you feel something. It just made me think about myself in the world differently. I can’t really explain it but I felt changed after that book.

What does printed media — as a format — give you that digital spaces can’t?

Printed media gives you the feeling that you’re present in the world. There are so many things happening at once in the digital space, but when you have a book in your hand it’s just you and the print. It feels more intentional – choosing a space to read it, flipping the pages, feeling the texture of the pages – it’s also a more sensory experience – and it doesn’t overstimulate you. Sometimes on the screen words just feel jumbled up and the screen is just pulsing too brightly to relax. Printed media feels calming and peaceful.

What part of your inner world feels the most present in your work today — and what part still feels private?

I’ve been doing a lot of healing work through my artistic practices lately, so a lot of personal things have been surfacing in my work – in this era. But something that still feels private is my more imaginative side, my more playful and whimsical side is still a little buried. The part of me that wants to experiment and try things and just have fun – it still feels private. That, too, feels personal, so maybe I’ll get around to making that side more present in my work soon.