Today we’d like to introduce you to Amanda Layne Miller.
Alright, so thank you so much for sharing your story and insight with our readers. To kick things off, can you tell us a bit about how you got started?
As a kid, I always serial rewatched everything–from Barbie movies to DCOMs (that’s Disney Channel Original Movies). I would obsessively watch the behind-the-scenes for High School Musical, and I always desperately wanted to be part of the process. Back then, I wanted to be onscreen as a triple threat: singer-dancer-actress. But I was just as enraptured by Zac Efron as I was with the HSM franchise’s director and choreographer Kenny Ortega. He effortlessly hit every single dance move the actors did, AND he brought the whole thing to life behind the camera. At 10, I was too young to recognize which part of filmmaking excited me, I was just happy to take it all in.
Fast forward to 6th grade, the year I got a digital camera for Christmas. I started documenting every. Single. Thing. My middle school era is thoroughly documented–at school, football games, dances, the movies, my playroom–I have pictures and videos of all of it. So at the end of the year, when my history teacher taught us how to use Windows Movie Maker to edit our end-of-the-year video project, I immediately became obsessed with editing. You’re telling me I can rearrange my dumb little pictures and videos to make WHATEVER I want? TO MUSIC? Sold. That summer I started making music videos and vlogs featuring me and my friends and uploading them to YouTube. I got a decent following, made some YouTube friends, but most importantly: I was having a lot of fun coming up with video ideas, bossing my friends around with choreography, and teaching myself how to use new editing softwares. And I was good at it.
My YouTube days coincided with watching Nightmare Before Christmas and Sweeney Todd for the first time. After watching a few more Tim Burton movies (read: every single movie. I have a fangirl’s obsessive personality), I realized that I could tell that the same person was behind all these movies. There was a cohesive tone, theme, and overall ~vibe~ to them. And again, I dove into the behind-the-scenes. And this time I knew for sure which part of the process I was intrigued by. I watched Kenny Ortega do it; and I had already been doing it myself with my own little YouTube videos. Directing. It was the first time I really considered what that word meant. And now that I knew that it was a possibility as a career, I didn’t want to do anything else. I haven’t really since then.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
I went to an all-girls, predominantly white, Christian private school in the deep south for 12 years (read that again: 12 years). My role models were Hannah Montana, Sharpay Evans, and whatever new Disney Channel white girl of the week there was. The popular girls at my school were–can anyone guess–blonde, straight, and white. I’m none of these things. So it was a journey of learning my place in this racist society (not a good one), unlearning the rules that dictated that place, and ultimately doing whatever the f*ck I wanted on my own terms with my own voice. I went to USC for film school, another PWI. I felt really small there, like what if I had just been a big fish in a small pond? What if I didn’t actually deserve to be there? The first thing they said to us in the film school was, “Most of you probably want to be writer/directors. That’s not going to happen for all of you. So don’t be afraid to explore different options, you know, editing, sound, production design, etc.” And that really scared me and only made my imposter syndrome worse. So then it took another few years to tell myself: You can write and direct. And then another few years to tell myself: You can write and direct COMEDY. I didn’t see a lot of people in comedy like me, and I didn’t think I could do what like, Seth Rogen or Will Ferrell were doing. People like Issa Rae, Robin Thede, and Naomi Ekperigin have really changed my life entirely. Now I finally believe in myself enough to write and direct magically comedic things and truly get back to my That’s So Raven roots.
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
I’m a writer and director of comedy, fantasy, sci-fi and a mix of those genres. A firm believer that fantasy is just an extension of reality, I infuse fantasy and Afrofuturism into even my most straightforward projects. Whether that’s dramedy with magical realism or comedy mixed with genre, I love things that toe the line between the surreal and the real. The first pilot I wrote ALL GIRLS is autobiographical about my own middle school experience–basically, a friendless black 6th grader with the confidence of a Disney Channel pop princess attempts to outdo the popular girls by building her own rival clique, but she ultimately learns that “fitting in” doesn’t work the same for ALL girls—especially a black girl in a system that was never built for her.
I just wrote, directed, and acted in a short film called THE DAY I DIDN’T MEET ONE DIRECTION (out now on YouTube), which follows my sister Amber and I on the day of One Direction’s Take Me Home tour stop in Nashville during the summer of 2013, as we try to track down the band before the concert, based on our true story. We flew to Nashville, shot in the same places, and wore the same exact clothes we were wearing that day (plus straight hair wigs–we have natural hair now), 25 and 23 playing 17 and 15. It’s the first thing I’ve directed in a while, and I’m really proud of myself, Amber, and my mom who’s also playing herself in it. We’ve already gotten responses from 1D and 5SOS fans who had a similar tour day in 2013 and even fans of other things; my mom’s friend who grew up in France waited for her favorite actor outside Cannes for two entire weeks when she was a teenager. Fandom is such a unique and specific but also universal experience unlike anything else, and I really wanted to capture those emotions and that headspace. We premiered the film at the Lyric Hyperion to a packed house.
These two projects were really important for me to get out, but I’m excited to create less directly autobiographical stuff. I have a comedy/sci-fi project set 100 years in the future, about a toxic friendship between two 120-year-olds. I have a sci-fi dark comedy about a cult whose belief in this mystical psychedelic planet is actually 100% legit. I just want to make weird, funny, and painfully human stuff with my friends.
We’d love to hear about any fond memories you have from when you were growing up?
Any school musical. My first role was an orphan in Oliver in 2nd grade, and I did musical theater up through high school–Into the Woods, Peter Pan, Sweeney Todd, Wizard of Oz… I can still remember the smell of our theater, the backstage area, the dressing rooms, and I really miss it sometimes.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.amandalaynemiller.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/amandalaynemiller/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/amandalaynemill
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/c/AmandaLayneMiller
Image Credits:
J’Taime Weaver Amanda Layne Miller
