#BEYOUROWN FOLLOW UP WITH JOY CHERIEL BROWN

Third Person Omniscient Productions (TPOP) mission is to produce powerful, meaningful, thought-provoking movies, television shows, and plays that shed light on the meaning of life. TPOP’s productions are entertaining and insightful and make people think about the world differently.

Joy Cheriel Brown is an accomplished screenwriter, with an MFA in creative writing from National University and a bachelor’s degree from Howard University, where she studied film and English and graduated summa cum laude. She has written several feature-length screenplays and received numerous accolades.

Joy is the founder of Third Person Omniscient Productions, a production company whose mission it is to produce quality movies, plays, and television shows that enlighten audiences about the human condition and shed light on the meaning of life. Her first feature film, Love’s Duty, is currently in development by her production company.

She has served as a screenwriting mentor for the DC Shorts Filmmaking Mentor Series and a panelist for the screenwriting panel at the Prince George’s Arts and Humanities Council’s Festival of Literary Arts.  She is also the author of “The Secret of Life Through Screenwriting: How To Use The Law of Attraction to Structure Your Screenplay, Create Characters, and Find Meaning in Your Script,” which is available on Amazon, and her short film, N.O.S, was recently acquired by ShortsTV and is also available on Amazon Prime, and in 2019, she produced her stage play, Stuck, for the Washington, DC Capital Fringe Festival.

Welcome back Joy! Can you talk us through the last 6 months of progression since we last spoke? 

Well, I produced a stage play I wrote called “Stuck” for the Capital Fringe Festival in Washington, DC this past summer, and it received a 4-star review. I recently won Playwright of the Year for ACHI Magazine, and I’m in the process of publishing my first book with Balboa Press.

Has your typical day changed at all?

I had actually taken a break from producing once we had finished the play, and I wrote a book. Initially, I was going to jump right into producing my first feature film or write a new screenplay, but I had already outlined my first book in 2018, and it seemed like a good time to finish that. Once I finished the book, I actually did do a few things for the film. I found a lawyer to work with investors and I finalised some decisions like cutting the budget for the feature in half and finalising the decision of where we would film. I love what I do, and I feel so driven and compelled to do it, so it’s hard to just truly stop. Lol.

Have you since expanded or reached any new milestones that you set out to achieve?

Yes. I wrote a book. Something I always had the desire to do but wasn’t sure if I could. I had written my first screenplay when I was 10, but every time I had tried to write a book, I couldn’t get through it. Turns out I was writing the wrong thing by trying to write fiction at the time. My current book is nonfiction and it’s about writing screenplays. I’m thinking that writing for Script Magazine and Stage32 over the past year has been helpful with that.

What is your current business philosophy?

I read a book called Spirit Means Business by Alan Cohen during my downtime, and it reaffirms my belief that spirit should lead in business instead of ego, which means that I reject beliefs like competition and that we live in a dog eat dog world. I believe in cooperation, honesty, integrity.

I believe that as long as I stay in alignment with the Source of everything, which some people like to call God, the right people, events, and circumstances will always show up on my path to give me what I need to accomplish my goals and intentions, without me having to struggle. I don’t believe in struggle. When you’re struggling, it’s because you’re out of alignment and not going with the flow. Life should flow effortlessly, and when it doesn’t, it’s time to sit back and reevaluate.

Is your business plan still reflective of your business today or has it altered as you have grown?

I’m still pretty much on track with my business plan. The goal was to do three shorts and then a feature. I say that I’m pretty much on track because I didn’t know that there would be a stage play thrown in there when I started my company in 2012. I knew that I would have a production company way back in high school, but I never knew that I would also write stage plays and books in addition to screenplays and teleplays.

I’ve also added more future projects as the years have gone by, including a Broadway musical someday that I’m pretty excited about, and over the summer I also got a new idea for a TV series that came to me in a dream. So our content has definitely grown, but at the same time, that was always the plan. I just didn’t know when and in what order some of these other things would manifest outside of the three shorts and the first feature.

Have you encountered any challenges or faced any business building carries since we last spoke?

I will start raising money for my feature film in 2020 and I anticipate that it will be fun. When I have needed to produce a project in the past, including self-Publishing my book, I didn’t always know where the money would come from, but the money always came or was provided for me in some way, and usually, it turned out to be unexpected ways that felt kind of miraculous.

A good way to overcome business challenges is to set powerful intentions. And according to the law of attraction, which I have been learning how to master more and moreover the past 7 years since I started my company (I always marvel at the perfect timing of the universe that I learned the law of attraction the same year I started my company), nothing that you want can be allowed into your experience unless you feel good (because you vibrate at a higher frequency when you feel good) and are grateful (more comes to you when you’re in a state of gratitude).

One key piece of advice for starting a business in today’s world?

Answer: Don’t compare your progress or results to other people. Focus on what it is that you have to give to the world. Because business is simply recognising a need and filling it. Build your business to serve others and not to get rich and everything else will fall into place, including financial abundance. I guess that’s kinda more than one piece of advice.

How are you continuing to redefine success?

I have to separate what the ego thinks of as success and what true success actually is. The ego looks at success only in terms of material value and recognition. But to me, true success is making a difference in the lives of others by making their lives better or easier in some way. Contributing to making the lives of others happier, and I think I am doing that one project at a time. Our mission statement includes enlightening audiences and helping to raise the collective consciousness.

Are you seeking any new professional mentorship or guidance for 2020?

Not strategically, but I know that the right mentors and teachers will show up on my path. I have one person in mind who wrote a book that I read a few weeks ago called “A Guide for Lightworkers by Archangel Michael” by Saratoga Ocean. That book was really a game-changer for me, and I’m hoping to be able to pick her brain and get some guidance on how I can use my writing to be more of a lightworker, and there has already been one very cool synchronicity that connects her and me.

So I believe that I will be able to get some guidance from her, and if I don’t, I will know that what I need will come to me at some other time or in some other way. Help is always available when we need it. Our spirit guides work day and night to help us accomplish our purpose.

Finally, what can we expect from in the lead up to 2020 and what is your main focus?

My main focus in 2020 is producing my screenplay ‘Love’s Duty,’ with my production company Third Person Omniscient Productions, and promoting my book and short film— my short, N.O.S. was acquired by a sales and acquisitions company earlier this year, and it is about mental illness so I also hope to have some speaking gigs on mental health in 2020. I spoke at the Maryland NAMI (National Alliance of Mental Illness) Conference the weekend before last. I live with Schizoaffective Disorder, bipolar type so I am always advocating for mental health whenever I can.