Today we’d like to introduce you to Destiny Owens, Mfa
Hi Destiny, can you start by introducing yourself? We’d love to learn more about how you got to where you are today?
I am a Rocky Mount, NC native who relocated to Los Angeles after attaining my MFA in Film and Electronic Media from American University in 2018. I was in their three year MFA program but decided I wanted to graduate a year early and I pushed my way through making my thesis documentary film series on my own and with the help of a friend and classmate, Becca Castaneda, who edited it for me. It was not easy but I have no regrets because the life I am living now made it all worth it. I have been a creative my entire life starting first as a “camera op” for my elementary school’s morning show as early as the 3rd grade and continuing to be behind a camera long after as a photographer. I also started as a musician on the piano in 3rd grade, taking lessons in classical music, and from the 6th grade and up through college I played the Alto-Saxophone in marching and concert band. My education prior to AU was at the illustrious North Carolina Central University where I earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in History and another Bachelor of Arts degree in Mass Communication. My HBCU gave me a solid foundation personally and professionally that further enhanced the education my mom and grandmothers ensured my siblings and I had outside of our formal education. We were educated through travel and experiencing various parts of the world that allowed us to learn about the history and culture of others. I am someone who was surrounded by storytelling beginning as a small child as I spent time with my great grandma Georgia, who along with my great great grandfather George, was a former sharecropper in rural Nash County, NC. My grandma Georgia had so many rich stories to share about her life and the lives of my family members who were with us and who have since become ancestors along with her. I knew early on in life that I wanted to be a filmmaker and always said to my mom and siblings when we were going to the movies that I would figure out how they were made one day and my name would be in the credits. My current reality has been a dream come true in various ways. Watching movies and going to the theater to do so goes back through my family line to my great grandparents again, who attended segregated movies, sitting up in the balcony as white people sat on the floor to watch movies. History and sharing and learning about people’s lives has been something that is near and dear to me ever since I can remember and I sought to do that in life for every school and college project I could think of and after school via documentary work. I formed my own small production company while in undergrad from 2012-16 but officially made it into an LLC in April 2018. Storytelling and Social Justice work are two things that have always been hand in hand on my filmmaking journey and I feel it will continue to be. My true love and focus is storytelling as a means of expression, knowledge, and activism in all forms; written, visually, musically, physically, etc. I love being a vehicle to spread awareness about who Black people are individually and collectively and where we come from historically. There is power in all of it and I think the world should be honored to hear, share in, and or witness our stories. I am a filmmaker, educator, and creative and I have shared all this to say, this dream was not born in a classroom and does not serve as just a job for me. Storytelling is my calling and I am grateful to be able to not only use it for work but also to educate the next generations of storytellers as an Adjunct Professor teaching courses focused in history, culture, film, and TV.
I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
When I moved to LA in 2018, I only personally knew one other person which was my great friend, Tevin Giddens who went to AU with me, and I had networked with a few other alums of my graduate school program a few months before moving out here, so with knowing no one and not having work in place before I moved, there were many challenges. When initially moving here, I lived in Airbnbs funded by my extremely supportive mom who is not rich but has always seen my dreams as attainable, and what little money I had saved from being a TA in grad school and working at the National Park Service Office of Public Health in Washington, DC as an intern initially but then staying on for the entirety of my time at AU. I decided soon after graduation that I was going to bet on myself and move to LA from DC and it was scary because nothing was certain and some of the people I thought I knew and trusted the most were casting doubt on my decision. Some of the very same people and even those who I had considered mentors as I navigated undergrad had specifically casted doubt on my decision to attain an MFA in Film as they saw me being a historian or an educator only. Little did they know, I saw myself as those things too and so much more, and my plan was to achieve all of it in my own way. I understand that it is unconventional to be interested in multiple fields and actually working in them simultaneously but I have never been the type of person to back down from a challenge. For months after I moved to LA in late July 2018, I could not find my way into the industry. I was knocking on doors, trying the old fashioned way of taking my resume into TV networks, and trying to join groups on Facebook that hired Production Assistants any positions related to filmmaking and production. I remember walking into the CW Network building in Burbank while on the phone with my mom, betting on myself again, hoping that someone would be willing to talk to me. The receptionist barely wanted to look at me it seemed and was not interested in helping me at all. She was extremely dismissive but the situation only made me more determined. I am the type of person who is fueled by all the aforementioned things versus it creating fear, anxiety, and doubt in myself. I reconnected with an alum of my program who had lived out here and who I met through AU’s LA Intensive program that had hand-picked and brought my friend Tevin and I along with other students from AU out to LA to meet and network with alums who were already in LA “living the dream” a few months before I moved. During that trip various alums who worked in the industry stated that we needed to be out here on the ground to get work and that statement had played into my overall decision to move to LA. The alum, Mychal Guyton, who ironically helped me land my first job in the industry worked for Ava Duvernay and I called him soon after I got here and explained that I was here on the ground like they said we should be and I was looking for work. He did not have any leads for months but I kept in touch with him and tried talking to other alums who quite frankly were unhelpful and blew me off as a newbie they were not interested in helping. Months continued to pass and I did not have a job at all and my mom was not going to be able to continue helping me to stay in LA and I had also ran out of any money I had. Just when I thought I might need to leave and go back home, in September 2018 I landed a job working for an education company online as a Hiring Manager/Talent Specialist where I vetted, interviewed, and hired substitute teachers to go into what they called underserved communities to teach due to teacher shortages. I was hired to find teachers in LA but worked in multiple regions virtually to include Los Angeles, Lancaster, Philadelphia and New Jersey. It was tiring work where I sat at my laptop computer all day making back to back interview phone calls and initially I was not even making a livable wage for LA and my mom was still having to help me with food and gas. I hated it because though I have THE MOST SUPPORTIVE MOM IN THE WORLD, I wanted to be able to take care of myself on my own. So, one day I got the courage to be transparent with my boss who also happened to be the CEO of the education company about how she was helping me and I was struggling to survive and needed a salary increase. I did it scared with sweaty hands, a lump in my throat, and tears in my eyes but I did it. The salary increase was granted and that is the job that kept me in LA that I worked for almost two years until I was laid off during the pandemic. Without work again, I contemplated moving back home to NC or back to DC where I would be closer to family and be able to easily find work. The only good part this time was that I did have a severance package and unemployment to sustain me for a while. One day in September of 2020, a call came from the alum Mychal and he shared a producer was in need of an assistant. He did not tell me who or any details and to be honest, I was just so excited for the chance to possibly get my foot in the door that I did not care. It turned out to be for a producer on Oprah Winfrey’s production team who were working on her WW (formerly Weight Watcher’s) app content and commercials. Needless to say, I was shocked that I would be working on the woman’s team who my mom and grandmothers regularly watched on TV growing up after school and whose career and life story I felt both inspired by and in awe of. I was hired for the gig as an assistant to a producer and quickly worked my way to an Associate Producer on the team. I poured my all into that position, where I was learning all about health and wellness and interviewing people about their journeys with their physical, mental, and emotional health. I even got to be a producer who booked people for Oprah’s virtual WW health and wellness events, speaking regularly to people who had personal challenges and suffered loss as a result of the pandemic and were in turn awarded a giveaway to a resort once the world opened back up. The work was truly special meaningful, and fulfilling and I felt people finally knew I was worthy of the work I was clawing to get into when first moving to LA. Even though I got laid off from that position in 2022, due to restructuring at the company, while simultaneously working as a Post Production Assistant at New Line Cinema on the film House Party (2023), I was so grateful to have been a part of such an amazing and supportive team and such important work. One of the things that stuck with me on that AU LA Intensive trip before I moved here was an alum stating that it is not whether you will make it or not once moving to LA, he said those who made it were the ones who outlasted the quitters. When I say that statement stuck with me, IT STUCK WITH ME, and it continues to as I grow and thrive in my career in both the entertainment industry and in collegiate education. I will always make it because I will never quit on myself or the plans God has for me and my life. Pivots will never equal failure.
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
I currently work at HBO/Warner Bros. Discovery on the studio side as the Assistant to the SVP of Visual Effects. At this job, I met my current boss, Janet Muswell-Hamilton, in VFX who I was not initially working for here, but she helped to peak my interest in VFX through her enthusiasm during presentations in our Post Production department meetings and seeing the confidence and knowledge in her former assistant and coordinator. Prior to working at HBO my speciality was in independent documentary work and then Post Production. As mentioned, I worked for New Line Cinema from 2021-22 as a Post PA on the film, House Party (2023), and then for Netflix as a Post PA on the film, Unfrosted (2024). My world opened up when I worked in post with those two great teams who mentored and truly taught me the entire post process, allowing me to become familiar with the softwares, sit in as they cut the films down with the directors and to just be a sponge any time it made sense. They never made me feel like a rookie and were always there to pour all of their knowledge into me. A special shout out to both teams for all they did for me as a newbie and the confidence they instilled in me as a creative overall. I am forever grateful for them. Though it seems insane that I was working on House Party while simultaneously working at WW (formerly known as Weight Watchers) as an Associate Producer virtually, I literally needed both jobs to survive. Some would call that double dipping but I called it surviving because WW was paying me a salary that kept my rent and bills paid while PA-ing was truly not paying much at all but was in alignment with my dreams. I was also working for an online education company as an Academic Coach for a Film History course at Youngstown State University and had been since September of 2020 because living in LA is no joke when it comes to the cost of living, and I was determined to stay here and to take care of myself without my mom’s help. I still work as an Academic Coach for the same course all these years later. Prior to moving to LA my focus and speciality was independent photography, profile interviews, historical research, and producing social justice documentary films. The films are something that I started with my late friend Kenneth Campbell who I met in undergrad at NCCU and who with so many others, I lost in April of this year. He was a driving force behind a lot of the confidence I had in myself as a creative and he continues to be. I am currently working on an independent documentary series that I am dedicating to him, our friendship, and all he helped me to accomplish and believe before departing from this side. He was a son, brother, and true friend. Professionally, he was a filmmaker and a professor as we both planned as young adults at NCCU. I still feel him with me, cheering me on and I am grateful. The ultimate goal that I am working towards is becoming a Producer in Film and TV working on powerful and meaningful stories that make an impact but also those that entertain. I think the things that set me apart from others is my willingness to show up as my authentic self in all spaces, to adapt to any environment I am in, to stand up for myself and others even when it is uncomfortable to and easier to stay silent, and lastly my ambition, resilience, and strength in the face of many No(s) and challenges. I truly believe that I can accomplish anything that I put my mind to and work ethic behind and I think my life reflects that. I am most proud of my growth as a person spiritually, mentally, and emotionally. God has seen me through dark battles of domestic violence, depression, and anxiety, all of which with therapy, family, and friends, I have been able to grow from and overcome. There is no blueprint for what I have been able to accomplish and I am proud of not giving up or giving in but instead blossoming into who I knew I was created to be all along.
What matters most to you? Why?
The impact I have on others, the spaces I journey through, and the world overall matters most to me because no matter the titles, accolades, and material things we can earn and gain here, I think it matters most how we make people feel. I think something I learned through the challenges of navigating the industry without knowing people initially or having nepotism and privilege is there has to be selfless people in place who want to see others as great as them an even greater. I always said when people were unwilling to help me at the beginning of my journey that I would be the opposite when I was in any position to help anyone and I have kept that promise. It sounds cliche but it is truly a part of who my mom Toña, Grandma Lois, and Great, Great Grandma Georgia raised me to be through example by the ways they have lived in their own lives. Life is truly about your experiences and most importantly the people you share those experiences with. Life is short and fleeting so I want my time spent to be valuable and to contribute to the greater good of others in every part of my life. There is enough space and opportunity for us all to be great and I want to be a part of that as opposed to being elitist and unhelpful just because I have now made it onto the other side of a door that once did not even have a knob I could open to get into. It is an honor and blessing to live this life and it is something I will never take for granted. Thanks for reading my story and I hope it inspires you to go after the thing that others may feel is impossible and unreasonable but that makes your soul feel aligned and your heart truly happy!
Contact Info:
- Website: http://www.ddoproductions.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thedestinydowens
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Des.D.Owens
- Other: https://www.tiktok.com/@ambitiousddo
Image Credits
Visual Effects Society 22nd Annual VES Awards Show
