Directing
Directing
My next journey is to dive deeper into longform storytelling and directing. I’ve been working on a few screenplays and am planning to shoot my first short film, Beauty Heist, in 2024.
For now, here is a collection of my past directing works.
The Mask Series
“The Mask” is a 5-part discussion series on the experience of black youth during the COVID-19 pandemic. Our goal was to create a safe and reflective space for conversation, learning, and closure.
To inform and share knowledge, we brought in a range of local experts, including Black historians, wellness experts, medical clinicians, and holistic healers. We also took to the streets to get opinions on the pandemic and vaccinations from the public.
Directed/Creative Direction/Design: Leeya Rose Jackson
We Wear The Mask PSA
This is a PSA I directed and art directed for Mask Up MN in 2020. It's inspired by the Paul Lawrence Dunbar Poem, "We Wear the Mask". I felt it important to highlight our Black Minneapolis community- the beauty and the reality in the wake of the George Floyd BLM uprisings. George Floyd square is featured prominently intentionally. Black people in Mpls suffered disproportionally from Covid-19 , so it was important to show the mask as a form of resistance to the inequities. The campaign runners were Raeisha Williams, Chantyl Allen and Nekima Levy Armstrong. Its message and music is helping get more people in communities disproportionately impacted by the virus to wear a mask. I did all of the art direction, design, and directed the PSA commercial for this 2020 campaign.
DP: MMYYKK
Music by Rick Kinchen
Poet : Joe Davis
Cabin Broads
A short experimental video of 5 friends, including myself venturing around a winter cabin. I shot everything and edited it in the same week, “premiering it” for my friends at the end of the week.
Don’t Discount My Life PSA/Campaign
Shot in 2017 for a campaign PSA aiming to raise awareness of predatory discounting with tobacco in primarily Black/Brown low-income neighborhoods.
DP: Collin Goodspeed
Heritage Tea | Gratitude
I am the standing Creative Director of Heritage Tea & Beverages, designing packaging, branding, and art directing all of the product photography. For the Fall 2021 Holiday season, we shot a run & gun video in my home of Black women in communion, enjoying each other’s time. I gave them women light direction, letting them just naturally connect and capturing as many genuine moments as I could. I also wrote the narration, voiced by Heritage’s owner Raeisha Williams.
In Sunlight Music Video
My first official co-directing experience was for a friend’s band, Fox + Coyote’s In Sunlight. The song is about processing the past relationship and learning how to find the bright side of things after it ends. I had a vision of a video that starts very somber and stark, feeling as if it’s going in a depressing direction before having a whimsical, light-filled turn.
Co-Director/DP: Maxwell Collyard
Nola Squad
Another fun experimental short video of my visit to New Orleans with my friends at the beginning of 2020. Little did we know, everything in the world would change in just a few short months.
STILLS *
STILLS *
After the Storm
I co-wrote a short experimental, vulnerable film with my little sister, AJ, an editor, and fellow filmmaker. It’s centered around the aftermath of our childhood sexual abuse.