Student Spotlight: Interview with Morgan Powell
Tuesday, October 11, 2022
Christelle: Let’s start with you telling me about yourself.
Morgan: My name is Morgan B. Powell. I am a black, queer, gender expansive person. Although I am a person outside of the jobs I do, my passion or why I think I was sent here is to be an all around storyteller. My medium is visual media so that includes photography and film but I like to also work with a bunch of different artistic disciplines. What I enjoy most about filmmaking is that it allows me to pull in experts from other disciplines. So I might have a vision for how a whole project should look but I’m not the best lighting person or illustrator so I’m going to harp on where I’m good at and then share the vision with everyone else so that we can accomplish the same goals.
Christelle: Who is the most inspirational person to you?
Morgan: Zora Neale Hurston. She is my North Star. She is the greatest storyteller, in my opinion, that has ever lived. She is able to convey the human experience especially as a black person coming from the American south. There are so many intersections that she gets so crisp and clear. And she’s accessible. She is who I want to be.
Christelle: Tell me about some motivations in life. What gets you out of bed?
Morgan: My motivations are to really align with my highest self. To try to make the world a better place as much as is in my capacity so if that’s making people feel better about themselves or being able to leave a legacy that adds on to history, then I’m doing that. I’m a bottom up person. I want all of us to live in a lateral, even, equitable society. I feel like there’s a place for all of us to exist in a world where we are exercising our strengths to help each other. So my motivation for getting up is working towards that in the ways that I can. I want to promote storytelling and experience or create or add on to the tools for survival and liberation that get us to a place that gets us to a more collective society. We have a deep need for caring for each that is void and that is what I try to live out in my life everyday. How can I be of service to others?
Christelle: What inspired you to come to The New School (TNS)?
Morgan: I grew up in TNS. My mom has been working here probably my entire life. I went to K-12 at Friends Seminary on 16th & 3rd so I always knew I would attend TNS at some point in my life. Since I grew up here I desperately needed to get out of NYC so it didn’t quite fit for undergrad but it was perfect for grad school because it was a place I was familiar with. It was an expansive program that allowed me to be flexible and match the flexibility of my artistic practice.
Christelle: At what point did you know you wanted to work in the media field?
Morgan: I was a writer as a child; writing a lot of short stories and poems and knew that some type of storytelling was in my future since back then. However, I kind of lost my way as I progressed through secondary school due to outside influences and the idea that you should be a doctor or lawyer or something that didn’t fit into my life. I also didn’t know how artists made money so when I went to undergrad at Spelman, I tried to do the straight and narrow route by studying International Studies. I think I thought I was going to be a diplomat which is ridiculous but I really was doing it because I wanted to travel and want to know more people and cultures and understand things outside of just my world that felt monolithic. Traveling abroad helped me find my way back to storytelling by connecting with fine arts, different communities, and people who were using found materials to make different artistic mediums. I then switched from International Studies to Anthropology which allowed me to explore the more cultural and sociological aspects of storytelling. At that point, my parents were like we still don’t know how you are going to make money from this but sure. So I interned at the fine arts museum on my campus and I thought I could be a curator, which was something my parents recognized. When I left undergrad, I did start working in the nonprofit world and seamlessly transitioned into the museum world. I was working in development and special projects and special events at the Park Avenue Armory and Studio Museum in Harlem… And then I got sick of it. Because, although I love art, I wasn’t making my own. I love supporting artists but I felt a deep void with not being able to produce my own work so at that point I abandoned that career path and decided to go back to visual storytelling. I always loved movies so I’m not sure why I didn’t connect the two. That’s when I decided to get into this program at TNS.
Christelle: Tell me about “Party On” and your work on VICE.
Morgan: A lot of my storytelling is to uplift and platform marginalized voices and experiences. I try to think of who is on the margins of the margins and a lot of my storytelling is routed in black liberation as well so I always wanted to make some type of document on how to travel safely as black, queer, and trans people. Traveling and getting to know each other and creating a global community and seeing how all of us get down worldwide is such an integral part of our joy and freedom and how we express ourselves and how we take up space. So my co-producer, Brent and I pitched this idea to VICE. We mapped 6 different cities in the US and colonies of the US to travel to and the focus was to connect with other black, queer, or trans communities to find spaces of joy and liberation and to also highlight any black, queer, or trans artist that we felt didn’t have enough spotlight.
Christelle: Tell me about your work on the series, The Come Up now streaming on Hulu and Freeform. And tell me about the process from beginning to end and the premise of the show.
Morgan: The Come Up is a docu-series that centers around six young and creative NYC Gen Z kids that are allowing us to document their maps to success however they define it. They have a deeply different approach to being their best selves that is so admirable and has expanded even my own approach to life, my journey, and destiny because their definitions of success is so fluid and flexible and allow for every possible thing to come along and learn from which is allowed me to be less rigid and pursue anything. I was contacted about the project through the previous documentary work I had done with black, queer and transpeople creating a subsection of nightlife in NYC. And I guess through my connection with that community, it was asked of me to come on as another producer to help document 3 of the cast members who also related to that community.
We began the process of shooting and doing preliminary interviews with those cast members in 2021 and they were selected by the network before I came on. That process was basically getting to know them in their daily lives. From that point, I started pitching to my executive producers what their daily lives were like and what I think the story could be. We clicked very quickly because of those shared affinities and experiences. One of the cast members is a socialite in the black queer and trans rave scene so that looked like me having 14 hours days but it was amazing because I love spending time with her. We had 80 shoot days budgeted but we shot way past that. There’s tons of footage that wasn’t used because we only had 8 episodes and a 23 minute show. I wore a lot of hats. I learned so much about large scale documentary making. I learned what it’s like to make documentaries for a conglomerate. Usually the work I do is so independent and tight knit with people I know and are comfortable working with already but now I have to be prepared to learn how to work with 20+ people crews everyday for 6 months. It was intense.
Christelle: Did you learn about documentary and filmmaking at TNS or did you have prior experience?
Morgan: Some. When I came to TNS I wanted to be a narrative filmmaker but I didn’t see that as an option so I did classes here and there within the Media Studies program and kind of made my own lesson plan. There’s only so much you can learn in the classroom. I learned by doing so I incorporated both. One of the really incredible classes I took was Creative Screenwriting. I’m forgetting my professor’s name but she really helped me believe in myself as a narrative writer and that’s when I knew I could do this. I had a professor for Writing and Directing: Script to Screen that taught me some incredible stuff about the whole filmmaking process. That class was amazing. I honestly think it should be 2 parts. It was just so dense. There aren’t really too many filmmaking classes in this concentration so it felt so textbook and hard to see what things would look like until I started to actually do it. I was hired to do a music video, hired to produce a documentary, etc and started to learn more and understand what I learned at TNS more by doing. When doing these things, I was very honest with my team at first; that I had amazing ideas and learned certain things in the classroom but did not have a lot of experience. I was transparent but also assured them that they would like it with confidence and it all worked out.
Christelle: What do you think motivated the creators to even do this show?
Morgan: I think people are always invested in what young creatives are doing in NYC and how they are making it. This place attracts everyone worldwide because there is this idea that if you can make it here you can make it anywhere. There is this hustler mentality which is beautiful but also damning because it does not recognize people’s humanities and I think that is what is different about The Come Up is that you see much more about people’s lives; there lived experiences and not just what they do for work because you’re more than what you do for work. So you do see people grinding and hustling but also a part of their dream and what is beautiful about this generation is that they will not sacrifice their personal lives just for this traditional vision of what work is. They are very much like I’m living for myself and that’s the only way I’m going to be happy. I think that’s why The Come Up was needed. It’s a new spin on something old. We have seen stories about New Yorkers grinding but we don’t always see the humanizing aspects of it.
Christelle: What do you want viewers to take away from the show?
Morgan: I want viewers to take away that, in the words of Audre Lorde, “You have to define yourself for yourself because no one else is living your life but you”. You have to believe in yourself because if you don’t, no one else will and you are your own best advocate. You have to tell people what you need in both the personal and professional world and be able to express exactly what your goals are.
Christelle: What do you look for when signing on for a project? Do you say no to things or are you just taking anything for now for the experience?
Morgan: I have said no to things which sucks as a freelancer because you’re not sure when the next opportunity is coming but I have such a strict why which dials back to the stories I tell about the people within the margins of the margins. If it’s not liberating to a marginalized group of people then I’m not interested and if it doesn’t respect me and my vision as a filmmaker then I’m not interested. People can and will easily say, ‘Well you did this so you can easily do that but I’m thinking about my actual goals and set of visions so if that can’t be respected, I can give suggestions for alternative people. Saying no is hard but I realize that it’s the best thing for me and my career. I want to be known for doing a certain thing and the only way I can do that is by being selective and authentic to my vision.
Christelle: Can you tell me about difficulties you face not just in your career but while navigating school?
Morgan: Money! It’s always money. It’s constantly money. Being an artist is terrible because often there is no money. It’s part of the no thing because people think you have to sacrifice your values and morals just to get money and sometimes you do; you have to be flexible but I resent it every time. It’s never perfect what I say yes to but I try to keep the vision. It’s hard sometimes. Specifically in filmmaking. They don’t tell you how to make money from it. In one class, I think it was the Script To Screen, I thought there was a formula: it’s this and that and then this and then here’s where the money comes. But now that I’m in it, I realize it’s not like that at all. There’s so many steps until the money is actually in your account and even when it is in your account that is just for one role and not counting residuals or whatever else is involved. There’s still all this legal stuff. Being an artist is like being an entrepreneur. It’s hard to teach that. I’m not money minded. I’m all about fulfilling goals but I know I need money so it gets hard.
In addition to that there’s limited mentorship. In the arts, many people appear collaborative but people are more competitive. Many people I’ve admired, I’ve reached out to for advice and the responses are cold. People feel if they help you then what are you doing for them or they feel like you’re coming for their spot even though we may offer different things. Why not share what you know? The money, becoming a business, some people not being warm or wanting to learn from one another are some of the difficulties I faced. I did have a mentor here though that was incredible, Michelle Materre. I miss her so much.
Christelle: Not surprised you would say that. She was amazing.
Morgan: Amazing. I get very emotional every time I think about the potential relationship that could have been. I never even took any of her classes. But during the quarantine, I had a professor who mentioned I should talk to her ASAP even before the next semester when I was supposed to take her class because they felt that Michelle could help me get this script I had off the ground and could help me be this slasher artist that I wanted to be (writer/producer/director). So I reached out to her and she immediately invited me to this program she had outside of TNS called Creatively Speaking. She asked me what my skills were and told me that she would help me figure out how to be a part of the team. I joined as an intern and then eventually got a virtual producing job so I ended taking a leave from classes the next semester and then never ended up taking the class with Michelle before her unfortunate passing. However, I learned so much from her during the quarantine while producing virtually and with a documentary project I assisted with that she was trying to get off the ground. A couple of other interns and I were helping her apply for grants which was very exciting because I found that she had similar documentary interest as me in that she wanted to explore her lineage and what it meant to be a black person across the transatlantic slave trade; a diaspora baby. I was just so fascinated with her. She would love to hear about the projects I had so I told her about a feature that I think is going to take me 5 years to write and how I think Rob Morgan would be incredible for it. And she was like, “Oh Rob is my really good friend. We can connect when we are all in person again”. I was like “What?!?”. She was just the ideal mentor. Even when I was living with my partner in Philly during quarantine, she offered me a place to stay in NYC. She was just so generous. I’ve been looking for that type of mentorship again because she was such a gift. If I could impact people like that in the future, my life will be set.
Christelle: So what’s next? Do you have any projects lined up?
Morgan: I filmed a short over the summer. I turned my Cuba: IFP, my study abroad experience into a filmmaking opportunity because that’s who I am. We went with the incredible Gabriel Vignoli and I’m in post production with that. Me and my team are doing our best to make this come to life and hopefully I can submit it across festivals when 2023 begins because I really see that as a jumping off point of defining who I am as a director and narrative storyteller and it’s a short so it will be used a proof of concept for larger projects. I hope that if it does well in the festival season that I could have it turned into a docu-series or a docu-feature that I can pitch to different networks, angel investors, individual investors, etc. I am trying to hit the ground running as a professional filmmaking entrepreneur in 2023. I have a couple documentaries that I produce now with the DP I brought to Cuba with me. I’m producing his directorial work and he filmed my directorial work. So he just went back to Cuba to add to that doc. That will be a long term project that we will probably be filming for about 4 or 5 years because that project is about the skate culture in Cuba and how people are using skateboarding to get out of the country and find success for themselves in other countries; to liberate themselves. Another doc I’m working on is based in Atlanta which I’m starting to shoot at the end of this month. It’s about black queer gender expansiveness in the south and how movement informs gender identity.
Christelle: What advice would you give your media studies peers as someone getting ready to graduate?
Morgan:
- Talk to each other and lean on each other. One of the things I did the first year is ask classmates what they were up to and if we can help each other.
- Go out and try things. You don’t have to be hired by someone to start doing things that start building and expanding your craft. Learn what your style is and learn what you ideally want to be known for by trying things out.
- Take meaningful classes. One of the best classes I had was Cinema Project Workshop which I wish I knew existed in my first year in grad school. I took it during the quarantine for one of my classes and we got to work with Mannes and MFA Theater students. There were actors that either came with scripts or we created scripts together and we all became a crew. We really got to test our abilities to make short films which I didn’t even know was possible in media studies. It’s a class for MFA students but they reach out to media studies to see if they can help which is great. I don’t know how current students will learn about that because I’m not sure that it’s still running but if students see it, they should definitely take it.
- Everyone needs to take a class with Gabriel Vignoli no matter what program you are in. Outside of Michelle, he is definitely a professor who changed my life. He doesn’t do film at all but he’s a sociologist. He understands the human experience in a beautiful way. And he also is so very supportive. There was a point where my project was falling apart and we had like a four hour conversation on next steps. Getting his guidance to help pivot my work to where it needs to be was incredible.
Christelle: Tell me something about yourself that is not on your resume.
Morgan: I’m going to hate this answer but sometimes I’ll be inspired by something that is not related to what I’m doing. I watch a lot of Real Housewives but I approach it like an anthropologist. I’ll observe the culture and see how gender, race, and class are teaming up in certain ways and see what is being implicated under the surface in addition to the fighting and terrible communication. It actually helps me sharpen my skills in some ways. It’s thought provoking. The media that I take in doesn’t always have to be this high art whatever. I will watch everything. At the end of the day, all I want is to be a better human everyday and even if things don’t sit well with me at first, there’s something you can pull from it. No, I don’t wanna see women fighting all the time. Seems very anti-feminist but the more I watch I see hints of feminism in certain things. It’s just that this aspect of this person’s life is impacting them in a certain way which is why they are behaving this way and it’s so much more understanding when you watch it like that. In short, what I mean is your intake should be diverse and more than the world you exist in.
Christelle: Where can people follow you?
Morgan: My Instagram is Morgan.BP, my Twitter is TroyTheBoyy, and my website www.MorganBPowell.com