stemming from my focus on race. I wanted to go to West Africa and be on set with filmmakers there—and to Kenya and to Dubai and to India. And think about blackness in all these different places. When I first started shooting, I didn’t hear at all; I was so concerned with composition. Little by little, I’ve become more and more quiet; I listen more and I realize how much more of the story is in the ear than through the eye. That’s been an evolution for me.
Initially, my instincts certainly weren’t bad. Especially in relation to people, they were pretty decent. But for a long time, I was moving too fast. I wasn’t thinking about how to recognize a scene in the middle of a moment. All those things I’ve learned through the back and forth of working and watching other people’s films, and those films that are made with the footage I shoot. It’s surprising sometimes [laughs].