Satya is very good at extracting the maximum value from my time and making sure I look at all the important things. He’s very thoughtful, good at working with people, working through problems in a calm sort of way.

My assistant, Mike Dunn, helps me with that.

The people that already do it, Lourdes Dooley, Aaron Mulliss, Nick Bearshaw, Claire Kreigenfeld and all of their amazing support team, and of course the amazing Alex Longstaff who has to deal with my childish antics on an hourly basis.

But when you say to someone, “I don't understand this and I'm asking your advice because you're better at it than me,” by doing that and involving people and making the film truly a collaborative process, you get much better results. You get a better film and you get happier people and get an atmosphere on the set that is truly creative.

It requires me to be in prayer and meditation daily, or else I will literally spiral out. It’s something that I put at the forefront of my life.

I’m leaving these things behind so that in 2076 someone can say, “Oh, wow. OK, so this is what they were dealing with,” and maybe they can draw some sort of parallel to whatever is happening in their reality right now, the conditions that they face right now, as much as I can draw a parallel from what Fred Hampton was talking about to what I’m experiencing now.

It’s really a kind of roadmap or a record. It’s breadcrumbs in the forest. It’s like the hieroglyphic on the wall. It’s me attempting to code some sort of roadmap that helps us think and act our way out of these conditions.

When I start a project, it’s a kind of investigation and curiosity at the beginning. I’m basically culling materials. I’m gathering. A lot of the work takes on a collage aesthetic. So I am thinking through an idea and then gathering all of the supporting documents. In some ways it’s essayistic. I’m attempting to put forth an idea or a thesis. There are assertions that are being made, and what can I use visually, whether it is 16 millimeter film from the past or things that I shoot myself, whether it’s interview that I go out and get, whether it’s me painting on film and creating some sort of abstraction that alludes to or gestures towards the assertion. It’s playtime at the beginning. It’s almost like a very active brainstorming that requires me to go out and find materials as well as make notes, as well as look at footage as well as read. It’s investigative curiosity at the beginning, this phase of questioning and garnering. And at the end it’s instinctual. It’s a sweet spot. There have been times where I’ve gone out and presented something thinking that it’s done and then brought it back. I’ve gotten audience reactions, brought it back, turned it up a little bit, and then it was done. Sometimes my finishing process requires me to see it with a large group of people.

So I’m listening, I’m watching, and I’m also reading while I’m making.

I work on other things. There's usually more than one project brewing. I also write. I also listen to talks; I love listening to black feminist thinkers or listening to people read their poetry. What I try to do is fill my arsenal. I'll put this shit down or I'll pick something else up. Like some days, I just take whole days where I "play," and that's where I'll only do production stuff.