Life & Work with Lillian Elliott of MD and LA

Today we’d like to introduce you to Lillian Elliott.

Hi Lillian, we’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
I have always loved stories.  Ever since I was a kid, my go-to place to find comfort was in books, music and movies.  I felt less alone reading/listening to others going through the same emotional struggles I did, whether they were real people or fictional characters.  Whenever I thought about what I wanted to do with my life, the answer was a given.  I wanted to give other people that same sense of peace, that same escape from loneliness.  So I decided to be a writer.

I write across genres and mediums.  Throughout all my work I strive to maintain an honest and authentic examination of people and our flaws.  I love writing fantasy stories and scripts, but I also love writing raw, autobiographical music drawing from some of my own dark experiences. One thing that has particularly shaped my life and my art has been my experience with depression.  I have dealt with severe, persistent depression for a little over a decade now and only in the past two years have I started to find some relief through therapy and medication.  A lot of my life I lived without wanting to go on.  Art was always my sanctuary.  Both my own work and that of others reminded me that there are beautiful things, wonderful people and incredible experiences worth sticking around for.  A lot of the music I’m getting ready to release is very depressing because I wrote it a few years back, when I was really struggling with my mental health.  It’s important to me to start there and show how things felt at rock bottom, so that when I later release songs that are happier it’s clear that I had to work hard to get there.

I’ve been making up stories for as long as I can remember.  I have countless journals filled with stories I wrote down as a kid, and my laptop’s storage is nearly full with all the stuff I’ve typed up as an adult.  As for music, I started learning piano when I was five and was honestly terrible at it.  I did not like to practice.  I quit after a couple years.  Then, at eight years old, I picked up cello and adored it.  I got back into piano then and started writing little songs for my brother to play.  I gave them to him as birthday gifts, like the great little sister I am.  In middle and high school I started writing more poetry and then, when I graduated high school, I started recording all the little melodies and lyrics in my head into voice notes.  In college, I finally learned how to use a DAW and play basic guitar and started actually finishing the snippets from my drafts. I also got into film in college, rather coincidentally as it was a major I picked very casually but turned out to love.  Film combines my love of writing stories with my love for visual and auditory art, so it’s a great medium for me to explore.  It also gave me a chance to get into designing and making costumes, something I’ve always wanted to do more of.

I just released a documentary about my friend NASTIIA, a pop singer and classical pianist from Russia.  It’s up on my YouTube if you want to see!  I’m editing a film about a tv crew that gets trapped in a pocket dimension and working on releasing my first single, sink into myself, soon.  I’m spending some time exploring my experience with depression through music, which has helped me sort through a lot of my negative feelings and bad thinking habits, contributing to the path to recovery I’ve been on the past couple years.  Of course, meds and therapy also helped.  It’s fun to have both my chaotic fantasy projects and my more realistic, grounded projects that center on my actual experiences.  I love being able to work on a wide range of creative endeavors.

I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
No.  I doubt anyone says yes.  We all have our issues.  I already mentioned I struggle with depression, and that plus my ADHD makes it very hard to find the motivation to get work done and then focus on it long enough to complete it.  But I strive to overcome my mental health issues with pure willpower and some help from antidepressants.

Another struggle for me has been finding the money to sponsor my creative projects.  My parents are very generous but not particularly wealthy, so they’ve been kind enough to sponsor what they can, buying me a camera and letting me film in their house, but making art is expensive and they have bills to pay.  So, I work full-time at an elementary school, helping out with the Special Ed classes.  It’s exhausting but I love it because the kids are amazing.  And I get a little bit of money to spend on production and equipment.  But coming home from an eight-hour work day running around chasing kids, it’s hard to find the energy to work on my creative projects.  It’s a good thing I love that part of my life too much to give it up.

I’m still struggling to build a fanbase as an independent artist without industry connections.  I’m grateful for outlets like VoyageLA that cover up and coming artists and give us a chance to be seen by a wider audience.  A lot of being an artist is advertising yourself, and while I love creating fun things, I always feel a bit awkward doing self-promotion.  But I want people to see my art, so I do a lot of things I am uncomfortable with.

Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
I primarily works on short indie films and music.  In film I usually write, direct, produce, and design costumes.  For music, I write songs and sing.  I also write poetry and I’m drafting a novel, but that’s a project that’ll take a long time to come to fruition.  I work on every aspect of my creative projects, from writing to art direction to performing to filming to editing.  I have an incredible team of collaborators but I’m very hands on in working with them.  I have a very specific vision and I love being able to bring it to life, so I’m willing to do a lot of the work myself to make sure it turns out how I imagined.  I’m mostly known for making low budget short films, but I’m hoping that soon I’ll be known as a singer-songwriter as well.

My first short film, Every Loss A Hurricane, premiered at Reel Independent Film Extravaganza in 2024 and showed at five other film festivals, earning an honorable mention from Hollywood New Directors.  My first short play, Prop Procural, premiered at the Act One One Act Festival in Queens and won the audience choice awards in the first two rounds, earning a spot in the finals.  I’m very grateful for the chance to show my work to a wider audience and hope to continue sharing my work at festivals.

Alright, so to wrap up, is there anything else you’d like to share with us?
My first single, sink into myself, will be coming out in November.  Please follow me on Instagram and Youtube @lillian.a.e to keep up with my work.

Contact Info:

• Website: lillianae.com
• Instagram: instagram.com/lillian.a.e
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lillian-elliott-799271201/
• Youtube: youtube.com/@lillian.a.e

Image Credits
Profile Photo – Julia Lee ELAH BTS – Miguel Alfaro Other Photos – Catherine Elliott ELAH Poster – Photo by Lillian Elliott, Graphic Design by Karenna Foley L&F Poster – Photos by Lillian Elliott, Graphic Design by Inemesit Udo-Akang