Film Courage: When did you start thinking about a career outside of dance?
Courtney Miller, Filmmaker/Producer/Author/Editor: Here's the funny thing, I got married when I was
20 years old. I had a son and I was married at 20. I actually retired as a dancer
when I was 24. I stopped dancing but I put all my time into doing choreography
and then I got a regular nine-to-five job. The regular nine-to-five job and the reason
why I stopped dancing is because as a dancer you cannot control when rehearsals will be.
You can't control the days of rehearsal, the hours of rehearsal. As a choreographer I could so I can
still have a regular nine-to-five job and then work my rehearsals around my nine-to-five job
that's why I only did that and again I had a wife, I had a son, I needed to have a steady income,
benefits, health insurance, that kind of stuff. That's why I got a regular nine-to-five job
so I never left dancing but I was already thinking about a life after dance because
of this regular nine-to-five job now I went from a dancer to a choreographer to working in
corporate America and then I quit my corporate America job. This was after my kids were grown
when my youngest turned 18, I'm okay well my kids are grown. That part's done
if I never got married, if I never had any kids, what would I be doing? Now
I said I would be directing so that's when I decided to quit. I was working
for the City of San Juan Capistrano, a really good paying job working for a city, benefits,
pension, the whole shebang. Quit that job, lost my girlfriend after I quit that job. She's like
“What are you doing?” I'm going go to this small community college here and learn how to write, how
to direct. I want to be director. What? She's like “We're in our 40’s, we can't really.” I can't have
that am I okay well that's fine so she left and so I went ahead and enrolled to a community college
in South Orange County California and I was there for about a year and a half I wasn't there to get
a degree I was there because I wanted to learn how to write how to direct just give me the basics I
could take it from there and then when I was there I did a a short film and that's what got me my rep
my it's it's called REPAIRations!, it's a musical and that's what got me my managers. So I've had
maybe about four or five different careers over the over over a lifespan and did pretty well
with all of them and I was I got what I needed from each of them and I've learned so much from
different people different backgrounds and I think it helps me with my writing and it helps me with
my directing and why not still work for the city of San Juan Capistrano and then take night classes
or weekends yeah because the film classes that I had were not at that time they were not at times
that were convenient for those who were going who had a regular nine-to-five these I mean these are
we look at community college typically these are kids who just finished high school so these
are 18 year olds and so they're not necessarily looking at the fact that they that you may have a
nine-to-five with heavy responsibility so it's it was it was either that or don't go to school so I
decided that I wanted to do that I had some money saved up so I lived on the savings and towards the
end it got pretty tough my car got repossessed I mean it was it was tough at the very end
but I was so close to finishing it and I was doing this thesis project so
that got done so no I couldn't I couldn't do both at the same time I did do other audience
jobs I Ubered, I worked as a PA which is a camera assistant. I did a lot of other jobs while I was
still in school to make money so it wasn't I was just sitting on my on my savings but I had a BMW
at the time. I had a pretty expensive house. I was living in Irvine it was it those areas aren't
cheap because again I was making a lot of money at the time working for the city so yeah it towards
the end it hurt really bad in regards to money losing my girlfriend in the whole shebang but
and even that first year it was tough first year and a half I would say was tough because again I
did a lot of auditing jobs in the entertainment business because again that's where I wanted to
be but you're not making a lot of money with some of these some of the grunt work stuff that you do
in fact for a good year I was an editor I edited a lot of music not music videos I did a lot of
videos for YouTube influencers people six, seven million followers for makeup tutorials and other
kind of weird quirky little things because I could work from home and I can write so that's what I
did I did that for about a year a year and a half and making 300 per video when I would do probably
around five videos a week of editing so 1500 bucks I was doing my best to kind of keep things
going and stuff and and I got I finally got the opportunity to write and direct a Christmas movie
do you remember the day you gave your resignation at your corporate job or your date time yeah I
remember that day and they were very surprised because for them to come out of nowhere because
I never really had spoken to anybody there and told them what I had planned on doing
and they were surprised and they were shocked and they're okay what's why they said well because I'm
gonna go back to school to to write and direct and they were what yeah again you have the security of
the pension the whole shebang and yeah those are all fantastic things but I know me and the issue
I was going to have is this I was never going to reach my full potential if I still had one foot in
the corporate world because I knew that if things got tough for me I would always just be able to
fall back into that so I know I needed to jump in with both feet and almost starve myself to to push
myself to be there the best that I can be in in regards to writing and directing and taking the
classes that I need to take to learn how to how to do what I needed to do in order to make movies
so that's kind of what I did even when I write today I write this is my only job
I only right now only direct now I don't have any other side jobs
and I just came to that realization that I was able to do that in 2020. no 2019 was the first
year I was what I can actually do this and not worry about taking another job that was the first
time that I did it we felt really good to be to to get to that point but to that I was terrified and
so I did a lot of writing I write out of fear even today I still write out a fear my and the
fear is oh this is my last job I'll never be able to work again so that's another reason why I have
no problems in writing the 15 pages because it's either this or Stars I but I know that I needed me
I need to put myself in that mental headspace in order for me to push myself to get to where I am
today and that's why since 2018 I've directed over 22 Episodes of TV and three and three made for TV
movies because of the fact that I've I've pushed myself to that corner where I've I have to fight
to get out and the only way to do that is to do what I need to do which is writing and directing
what kind of conversations were you having with yourself when you said you were living
in Irvine you had a nice car you had this safe quote-unquote job were you going on lunch hour
and and saying what these people are all really nice but this isn't for me and I need to get out
of here it's funny when I came to the point of saying what I'm done with corporate world I want
to do this writing directly thing it actually came out of out of anger and frustration because
I knew there was something missing already in my life in regards to getting back into
the arts I wasn't going to dance I wasn't going to choreograph anymore I knew that so I knew I
wanted to jump into the right of the writing and directing so it was not a hard difficult decision
at all I see so even all the all the trappings of success it wasn't worth it to you if you're
waking up on Monday mornings not wanting to go into the office yeah yeah and that I you're right
I did not want to be in the office number one even if the money was okay and and here's the
thing I looked at it this way okay I'm making okay let's I'm gonna say what I was making but
let's say I'm making $75,000 a year plus I get a pitch in plus I get benefits that's great okay
it's not a lot of money especially in California it's not a lot of money it's okay I was living in
South Orange County it's not a lot of money in Southwest County number one number two I'm this
is my ceiling I'm limiting myself as a writer and as a director the numbers are limitless
so do I want this steady with a with a ceiling or do I want to yeah a little more dangerously but
have this not have the ceiling on me and so I said after that first year it was tough and I'm oh I
mean there was a lot of times that I would go back and take a look at okay what jobs are available a
lot of times so it wasn't once I was done I was done when things got lean when things got tough
I did look several times I even interviewed at some places so it wasn't I just left it but I
was but I will never get to where I need to get to if I do that if I do it I won't I won't grow
and so we have that's 2018 I'm sorry 2017-2018 most of the year again it was tough I mean I even
had to move back in with my mom it was that bad and it was it was a difficult situation and then
I got a phone call that they wanted that Bounce TV wanted to work with me about doing a musical
for a Christmas musical and I'm okay cool so we started having some meetings and back and forth
it wasn't a lot of money it was you know it wasn't a lot of money but it was my first opportunity so
I went ahead and and took it and then it grew from there but that was the latter part of 2018
September so those first nine months of 2018 was tough it was tough but yeah it's all come through
and then 2019 comes and I I started making some money I'm oh wait a minute and and actually was
more money that I made in working with the city and then 2020 comes and then obviously
the 2020 situation everything shuts down and then we pick that up again in August
and that I made more money in 2020 in four months that I made in in 2019. so I'm okay
I there's a light at the end of the tunnel I see that this actually can work and I'm happy
that that I did not take those other jobs that I was on the keys about to send me my resume for
was there a feeling of you might lose friends or acquaintances if you left that world that
corporate world no I didn't feel I was gonna lose friends or acquaintances I wasn't really friendly
with a lot of the people there let me clarify I'm friendly with everyone but it's not we we
didn't hang out I didn't do things that so no I it wasn't not a an issue for me at all okay so
it wasn't yeah you weren't going to lose a circle of friends or nothing but okay no no no no okay
I keep I mean my circle of friends are not necessary people that I work with in the
corporate world I mean I'm friendly with everyone but we didn't hang out my circle of friends and
folks that I used that I went to high school with I mean those are folks I'm still really tight we
there's about seven or eight of us and we we we talk once or twice a week in group chats and stuff
that so no my friends are are people that I've grown up with since I was eight 14 years of age.