We recently connected with Queen Norris and have shared our conversation below.

Queen, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today When did you first know you wanted to pursue a creative/artistic path professionally?

I’ve known my entire life that I wanted to tell stories. At 4 I was writing and creating books out of construction and notebook paper. I wrote out my first movie idea when I was about 9. It was 2 pages of a very detailed, beginning, middle, and end script but in story format. I didn’t know what a script was back then.

It wasn’t till my 8th grade year that I discovered my love for cameras and figured out that I can tell my stories and bring them to life. That’s when my career path changed from author to filmmaker.

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 always say that I’ve been in this business since I was 14 years old. I’ve been working and fighting for that long to be seen and heard. No one wants to hear anything you’re talking about when you’re a little black girl and no one especially wants to hear anything you’re talking about when you’re a grown black woman.

My journey sets me apart from everyone else. My vision and experiences and the way I see the world is very different than most. I started at Howard University back in 03, couldn’t afford it, left, joined the army, did 12 years there, and went back to film school at Howard before transferring to Full Sail.

I was 20 years old leading convoys in Iraq, writing scripts between bombings. A year and a half after I got back, I was doing the same thing in Afghanistan. I grew up poor with a disabled single mother in Brooklyn in the heart of the crack epidemic. All of those things allowed me to see worlds most will never know about or experience, and it allows me to add those to my scripts and movies and have them be genuine and authentic.

What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?

The biggest lesson I had to unlearn was waiting on those ducks to get in a row. I learned very slowly that I was wasting so much time waiting on my time to come. Waiting to have this and waiting to have that before continuing. As a creative, you have to create your time and run with what you have, and that changes with every single project.

You cannot keep waiting on things to be in order or ducks to get in rows because it never happens. You have to just scoop all those ducks up and get across the street, then figure out how to line them up later. Perfection is the curse of creativity. It’s never perfect, ever. You’ll see flaws in everything you do but others will only see dope work.

I wish I knew this 15 years earlier, I would be in a much bigger and better position in my 20s. Please do not wait on the perfect time or the perfect situation or the perfect person to come along to get things started or get things done. Perfection is a lie in this business.

For you, what’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative?

The best part of being a filmmaker is the fear I get when Im starting a project. It sounds crazy but I love it, because it lets me know that I still care to be here. I still have that passion I had as a kid. My grown woman heart flutters just as much as my 4 year old heart did when I created my first little makeshift book.

Then when it’s released, that fear pumps all over again. It’s anxiety, until I start getting feedback and people are falling in love with my work. It’s a feeling you can’t explain when fear equates to happiness. This is my money has never motivated me, passion has always been the driving force behind me.

Contact Info:

• Website: QiiFilms.com
• Instagram: @Queen.of.qii
• Facebook: @Qii_Films
• Youtube: YouTube.com/QiiFilms