Her Story
About Joan
I started my journey in 1993 with an organization called Sister to Sister, where I would go throughout the neighborhood writing scripts and organizing women's organizations. For 10 years, I wrote plays for the church and spread those plays throughout New Orleans, Louisiana to youth prisons, shelters, women's shelters, churches, and so on. I was consistently doing that from 1993 until Hurricane Katrina changed everything. In 2005, I moved to Texas and that's where I started doing filming. I sold my first film in 2007, and since then, I've been doing filmmaking ever since. I now run four organizations: Brilliant Women in Film, which is designed specifically for women writers and filmmakers; Wisdom Production, which is the parent company of 28 years and serves as both a production company and a training organization; and the Newby Film Academy, which is my newest adventure where we teach screenwriting and filmmaking. I have several films that are actually streaming now, including Trapped, Beyond the Vials, Walk by Fate, Close to the Home, and Down by the River. I've helped countless filmmakers produce their films, write their films, and get them distributed. I am a showrunner as well, and I'm also an author with 7 or 8 books on Amazon. This year, I'm working on two major productions, including a stage play and a feature film called 37 Weeks. I also serve at a community center where there's an after-school program for kids, teaching arts and crafts, feeding them after school, and providing personalized development, family skills, and education services throughout certain communities in Texas. I host film festivals and have traveled to Las Vegas, Atlanta, New Orleans, and Cleveland, Texas. I fluctuate between filmmaking and stage performances, because stage plays were my first love.
Her Interview
Ten minutes with Joan
01What do you attribute your success to?
I attribute everything to God, first and foremost. As a visionary, if you don't have a higher power or a stronger power that can encourage you and enlighten you and take you out of the world to actually refill, you can't pour out to anybody else. Because when you're a visionary, you pour out so much. If you don't have God to refill you, refine you, and encourage you, and that's what the Word does, then you find yourself depleted. And then now, all the visions that you were intending to do, you can't do them anymore because you have nothing to give. I also attribute my success to my family, who stands behind me and supports me. We're all filmmakers in my family, except my husband. My son is a screenwriter who graduated from New York Film Academy, my other son went to school for 6 years at the Art Institute of Houston, and my youngest son is a graphic designer who gets my flyers together and works for me. Everybody is involved, and that family support is essential to everything I've accomplished.
02What’s the best career advice you’ve ever received?
Build a genuine team that's going to stick with you through thick and thin, not only when it's down on the low side in the season when it's not booming, but that's gonna go with you the long haul. You need trustworthy individuals around you that understand, not only understand the vision, but that's actually going to walk through it with you and know that their vision can possibly be birthed through the vision that you are actually following. If you are a visionary, because a visionary gets vision after vision after vision, make sure when you put your team together that they know the total vision of whatever is to come. I've built several teams over the years, but some individuals would be more or less involved or engaged because either they were too busy doing something else and not focusing, and when you do that, then your team lacks that type of support you really need because they're being pulled from all areas. When you get a solid team, then you are well on your way. Make sure you choose your team wisely, and make sure they're not too busy. If they're too busy, you're gonna get like 30% of their attention, and then you're gonna find yourself carrying the load. You will feel like you're in it by yourself, so you just want to be very careful when you're choosing your team.
03What values are most important to you in your work and personal life?
The passion and purpose is what keeps me going. When the passion is to help and deliver messages that's going to stick, that's actually going to heal somebody, or bring somebody to awareness, or somebody have an aha moment, these are the things that keep me happy in what I'm doing. I know I'm not just doing it for myself, and I'm not doing it for the money, but I'm actually doing it because, first of all, I'm called to do it, and then the second thing, I get joy in doing it because I'm helping someone else. I'm gonna be doing it until I'm called home to glory. My heart is in building the arts community and trying to see if anyone is interested in that community. I pour out so much to help others, and that's what gives me purpose.
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