Today we’d like to introduce you to Andrea Mays.
Hi Andrea, we’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
Well, my story started in Washington DC Hospital Center, but I think we can fast forward a bit. I’m Andreá Mays, I was born in Washington DC, and grew up in the surrounding areas of the “DMV” (DC, Maryland and Virginia). I am an only child and product of a single mother. I am Black, Nigerian, and Irish. Throughout my childhood, I had a fascination with photography and I remember my mom getting me one of those mini pocket cameras and I was obsessed with it ever since. I attended two HBCUs, Morgan State University in Baltimore, Maryland, and Hampton University in Hampton, Virginia. Undergrad at Morgan, I majored in… a tongue twister “Broadcast and Integrated Media with a concentration in TV/Film Production”, in simplest terms I knew I wanted to work in TV or film. While at Morgan, I became the “campus photographer/historian” documenting all of our events, concerts, and all things college life. This is where I created my first company, Take 22 Photography.
Fast forward through all those random jobs I had in college to subsidize my very broke college lifestyle, I landed a job at a non-profit in DC, The Human Rights Campaign. The Human Rights Campaign is an LGBTQ non-profit organization that works to inspire and engage individuals and communities to end discrimination against LGBTQ+ people and realize a world that achieves fundamental fairness and equality for all. There I worked as a producer and editor. For the first time in my life, I was surrounded by equipment that was quite frankly, more expensive than my life. This was my first job where I realized the impact of the work I could do. I’ve created videos for people from Janelle Monae to President (then Vice President) Joe Biden. In my spare time though, I found myself working and doing red-carpet photography for shows like the BET Awards and Black Girls Rock. I was empowered by these experiences, but it also opened my eyes to knowing I wanted more.
I remember in July of 2019, I went into my former bosses office and said “I’m moving to LA and putting in my two weeks now.” He looked at me and said “Congrats! Do you have a job already in place?” Stuttering “No” I replied, not realizing that this was just the beginning of a long journey I had ahead.
I packed up my car and drove 4 days to LA and arrived on September 1, 2019 where I started my journey in a room rental. I didn’t know exactly what I wanted out of LA, but I knew I wanted to write sci-fi and do something in the editing realm (but not be an editor). Those first 2 weeks were tortuous. From losing my whole savings my first week to my car getting repossessed WHILE I was at my first real movie premiere, not even a month into LA. I felt defeated. I had no job and was paying an outrageous amount to just “rent a room”. I was at a crossroads. I had so many friends praising me on moving and living out my dreams, while I spent 20 hours of my day in my very expensive room rental going between crying in bed and crying over my laptop as I applied to jobs. I felt like an imposter, which didn’t help my already intense imposter syndrome I’ve had since college. I wanted to leave. I already felt like a failure and I felt like it wasn’t going to get any better, the problem, as I mentioned before, I lost my whole savings, and my car just got repossessed so I physically COULD NOT EVEN AFFORD TO LEAVE LA. And thank God I didn’t.
By week 2, I got a call for an interview at Lionsgate. I remember getting on the call with the recruiter and he asked me, “how did you apply for this position?” I applied to so many places, that I didn’t even have an answer! I remember just being so happy to get to this stage, I wasn’t going to let this moment slip. Fast forward again, and I got the job. I was now working at Lionsgate/Starz in post-production. Though, at the time of me taking this job, I really had my eyes on being a writer and showrunner. I was in a whole new world for me, and I was excited to finally start my LA life. Then COVID hit, and I was back in my, now studio apartment, working from home and feeling unfulfilled with my Los Angeles experience. My family and friends are praising me for all the cool shows I’m working on, meanwhile, I’m working in the studio, unable to afford food, sleeping on an air mattress and trying to “find the bright side” to all of this. This pandemic did open up the space for me to write more though. I wrote as many scripts as I could. I engulfed myself into classes and books about screenwriting. I was going to leave this pandemic better than I started I said constantly to myself. I even started a “The Writers’ Room” Clubhouse group on the clubhouse app, that now has over 100k members!
In 2021, deep into the pandemic, I received an email of a lifetime Netflix. It has always been my dream to work there but I didn’t apply. The email stated they found me on LinkedIn and thought I’d be great for a post-production job. I instantly thought this HAS to be a scam, why would they want me of all people? There’s that imposter syndrome kicking back in. But hey, why not give it a chance. And that started my journey at Netflix. I began working in post-production for some great shows ranging from Ginny & Georgia to Kevin Hart’s True Story.
I think a big thing for me in this period of my life is understanding that old dreams don’t disappear while you’re experiencing new ones. I love working in post, I love budgets, I love being apart of the finishing touches of a show that so many people will enjoy, but in the back of my mind, I never want to gave up on writing.
Writing is so important to be because growing up I was a HUGE Sci-fi fan! But I also realized very quickly how absent people of color are in the sci-fi space. It’s as if sci-fi writers in the 90s were blatantly saying “Yeah, we don’t believe black people will be alive 3050”. I’ve also had issues with this and always had a passion for wanted to be the change in this genre. So while living my dreams in Post Production, I also wanted to make sure I still spent time writing those sci-fi stories I wish I saw growing up and I hope to see in the future. I love grounded sci-fi, think Black Mirror meets Lovecraft Country and you have Me!
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
In general, the road has never been smooth for me. Being Black, sometimes I feel as though people don’t think our stories are impactful unless we pile on the trauma. And yes, I have loads of trauma, but I believe I can be an impact without having the honorary tear-jerking interview moments. I say this all to say, in order to answer this question, I will get a little vulnerable though.
I was diagnosed with Depression my senior year of high school. At that time, I didn’t know entirely what that meant, I just took it as “cool, you’re sad and this is the medical reasoning behind it”. It wasn’t until college where I had my first big episode that I realized, this is something more than just sadness and I must go and figure out how to manage this to avoid this embarrassment again. After that, I began to get on medication and further educate myself of the chemical imbalance that is depression and not just the emotional state in which I thought it was. I believe going through this period was a pivotal point in me getting myself in a mental place to be able to travel 2000+ miles from home to live in a city in which I knew no one.
During the pandemic though, I still felt like I was “off”. Like, there was something else going on that was more than depression. I was scared to go further into researching because I didn’t want to accept that there was something more going on and scared I’d had to take more medicine, which in itself is a trigger for me. I started therapy and quickly, and I mean within two-three sessions we both realized I may have ADHD. For so long, I spent by life being exhausted. And I mean sleep till 2pm, wake up for 30 mins and go back to sleep until 2pm the next day. I had trouble remembering to eat and no motivation to literally do anything (outside of sleeping). I thought this was all depression, but being on depression medication made me realize that this was deeper than just that.
I also, like probably so many others had a tainted view of what ADHD really is. What it looks like in kids vs. adults can be totally different and what I had was that good ol’ no energy, no concentration, no motivation Adult ADHD.
I remember when my psychiatrist finally put me on the proper medication and day one. I literally told my Therapist “I feel like a functioning adult, I feel like this is what most adults feel like on the daily” I cried tears of joy. I finally felt like I could do everything I wanted to. My job I love, my production company and writing grounded black sci-fi.
Because of this and so many other factors, I became such a huge advocate for mental health and will talk to anyone for hours on end about my journey in hopes it helps them take the steps they need to be what they envision as their best self!
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your business?
Take 22 Productions. Take 22 Productions started off as Take 22 Photography a business I created in college. I founded and restructured Take 22 Production as a production company that is an audience-driven, LA-based production company. This means we give a subscribed audience some of the decision-making in the content we create. Trippy concept, right?! What makes me most proud about my company is that for so long people of color had no opinion or even a say in content for or about us, and I wanted to create a company where I give viewers an inside say as to what we put out. It makes it feel like a collaborative effort. It’s like actually taking the good tweet suggestion to heart and making more people happy with the results.
Our first campaign will be coming out in early 2023, so definitely sign up for more information on the website. Take22productions.com
We’d love to hear about how you think about risk taking?
Outside of the obvious risk of driving 2000+ miles from DC to LA, I believe in taking major risks for major rewards (or at the least a good story). I believe every choice I’ve made up until this point was a risk. From choosing the college I chose to up and quitting my job and moving to LA. I believe life is not worthwhile unless you take risks and dive into the uncomfortable. I like to say I’m always “Driving in the dark” meaning I’m constantly moving but not really always sure what I’m moving towards. And as scary as it usually is, and as much as I always think I’ve made the wrong choice, I end up ultimately being right where I need to be at the perfect time every time, whether I realize it in the moment or not.
Contact Info:
- Website: take22productions.com
- Instagram: www.instagram.com/ill_bambina
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andreamays/
Image Credits
Take 22 Photography
