Piper Wisdom

I would contribute my success to my work ethic, which has been developing my whole life. Activities and things that I participated in when I was younger really set the foundation. I played piano, I used to do cheer and dance - very different disciplines and activities that I feel like really set the tone for my character and my work ethic. They really taught me how to push through anything, really, to get the product or get the end result that I want.

One of the best things or career advice I've been given is don't be too cool to waste opportunities. Basically, just don't think that you are too good to learn from any job or position or opportunity that may come your way. And of course, that doesn't mean lowering yourself, but just knowing that everyone is still a student, no matter where you are, really, in your career. We always have so much to learn, so it's just important to use your network and take the opportunities that come your way, because you never know who's gonna be there, who's listening, where that might lead you. You don't want to be too cool and present yourself as above anything.

I would definitely say to do everything until you find out what exactly you want to do, if you don't know, and then once you find out exactly what you want to do, write that down as many times as you can, print it out, make it big, put it on your board, tell it to yourself every day, every morning. Just as a reminder to yourself of where you want to be, what your goals are, your inspirations, because having that reminder will help you wake up every morning, it will help you push through the day when you're having a rough time getting something done. There's gonna be a lot of points, I feel like, in your career, especially as a woman in any male-dominated industry, where you're gonna have a bad day and think to yourself, what am I doing here? So I think it's important to write down whatever your purpose is early on, so you can keep reminding yourself, okay, yeah, this is what I'm doing. That's what I'm here for.

I would say the biggest challenges right now that we're facing is just, honestly, a lack of opportunity, unfortunately, with some politics getting involved, and productions, a lot of productions moving overseas. We're seeing less and less work for these industries in the United States. And opportunities that were already scarce for people of color, for women, for people in marginalized groups, we're seeing less and less representation, unfortunately. It's really just for everyone, not just us, but it's especially gonna hit us harder, of course. I think that the page is turning and we're definitely gonna go back to a wave of independent everything, because the top companies right now are outsourcing, and there is not a lot of work happening right here, at least for the film industry, not so much music, of course, here in the United States. So I would say that's the biggest adversity that we're facing right now.

I would definitely say honesty. I think I just feel like that is so important in storytelling, and also in real life, just being real, being genuine. I really like to be true to whoever I'm telling the story about, whatever group is represented in the stories that I'm telling. I try to really remain true to their experiences and the things that they go through. Yeah, the truth is one of the most important things, both in my personal and professional life.