We were lucky to catch up with Darryll C. Scott recently and have shared our conversation below.
Darryll , thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. What do you think Corporate America gets wrong in your industry? Any stories or anecdotes that illustrate why this matters?
What corporate does wrong in my industry is they act like art and business don’t mix. The industry is called show business but it should be business show because if there is no business there is no show. So I feel like sometimes they take advantage of the art side. Like you can also be a artist that gets paid for your art. Me myself I can walk that line of putting out great art and getting paid for my art. You can still be a pure artist and still get paid for your work. The more the balance between art and business will help corporate fix the gap between the two. A lot corporations are inflicted with the thought that you can only do one thing as an artist. Instead of putting you in a box, they should let you live and thrive creatively; but also trust you in business aspects that still allow you to be innovative, like marketing. Therorteicslly, I can walk and chew gum at the same time.
As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?
I am a film and television producer., that specializes in putting POC in front of the camera, behind it and in the seats. I have now been in this industry for over 10 years, I have done my 10,000 hours and now coming to take the industry over. I’m becoming a voice for the voiceless, and teaching others how to do the same. This industry is not pretty, it’s uncomfortable, but you have to find comfort in the uncomfortable. As a boss your job is to untie knots all day. Conceptually everyone wants to be independent or say but do they want the responsibility that comes along with it?
What sets me apart is I am willing and able to embrace all the hard work that comes along with the independent life, I am hard worker and have performed every job in this industry from PA to CEO; and succeeded despite many people’s expectations. You have to have confidence in all your decisions good or bad, and you have to be fearless. That is why I like Boxing, there are always so many different variables no matter how hard you train, but your training is what gets you into the ring and that training also makes you prepared for anything that can happen in that ring.
Like just looking at the growth over the past years and now actually seeing the fruits of my labor come to the big screen is extremely exciting. I just want to continue to make great art.
We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?
One of the biggest lessons I had to unlearn was “Failure is the opposite of success.”
Confidence and success is built on failure. Have you every seen a James Bond movie where it doesn’t look like he’s losing at some point. You can’t be a champ unless you look like your going lose and then you win. The pain that comes along with being independent you have to embrace it.
Winning is the ultimate gamble on yourself. We are all flawed but by having ultimate confidence in yourself you don’t hide from your flaws, my flaws work for me. I have been taught business is about taking chances and never doubting the outcome. Even if you can’t control the situation, they don’t control you. You can’t win if you can’t gamble on yourself and you can’t gamble if you don’t believe you can win.
Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?
One of the biggest risk and or challenges I find in my industry is to have the creative mind to change a characters race. There has been numerous times that I have had to bet on my gut on reading a script and it’s written for a white male or women. Rather than it being written for a male or women. So that the casting playground is fair by getting who is best for the role. I understand people write what they know but also what makes a story universal is the humanity in the characters.
So there was one time that I received a script and it was written specifically for a white middle aged woman. With no rhyme or reason and against everyone’s short sighted vision I said this should be a person of color because we have never seen it from that lens. So against the odds I took it to someone who loved the script and it flip the mindset of the people around me. But also gave me to confidence to do it again and again. Then the focus started to be to just find good projects rather than to have it fit in a specific box. Because if you can find the humanity in a character the rest is just culture, which you can add in as flavor. I like to use the analogy of food. We all are eating chicken but how that chicken is prepared and seasoned is the difference between regardless of what background you are if it’s good or not.
Contact Info:
- Instagram: @darryllcscott
- Twitter: @darryllcscott
Image Credits
Photo credit: Luc-Richard ‘L.R.’ Elie