Thinking about George Floyd’s family today.
About his daughter, Gianna Floyd.
About Roxie Washington, the mother of his child.
About his brother, Philonise Floyd.
About his uncle, Selwyn Jones.
About his cousin, Shareeduh McGee.
About his sisters, LaTonya Floyd and Jah Jah Floyd.
And about the many people who loved him beyond the image the world reduced him to.
I cannot imagine the weight of carrying such a public grief. The ache of watching someone you love become a symbol, a headline, a joke, while still remaining deeply human to you. A father. A brother. A son. Family.
Praying for softness around them, for peace in their homes and for protection over Gianna’s spirit as she grows older carrying both the love of her father and the pain of losing him so publicly and tragically.
And holding space as well for the countless families who know this kind of grief intimately. The names we know. The names we never learned. The mothers, fathers, daughters, sons, brothers, sisters, and communities left carrying unimaginable loss long after the world moves on.
May we never become numb and lose our humanity.
A new piece is up on The Director’s Notebook with Stacey Muhammad on Substack.
What Is Your Why?
Purpose, patience, and the quiet labor of remaining faithful
This essay is about calling, recognition, artistic lineage, and the deeper reason the work has to be bigger than applause. I write about what it means to stay rooted in your craft when recognition is delayed, when not everyone around you understands what you are building, and when the room is quieter than you hoped it would be.
It is also a meditation on Black artistic inheritance, on the people whose brilliance was not properly recorded, rewarded, or protected, and on what it means to keep creating in conversation with those who came before us. At its heart, this piece asks a simple but necessary question: What is the deeper reason you do the work, and is it strong enough to sustain you when affirmation does not come right away?
If you are an artist, storyteller, filmmaker, musician, or creative trying to remain faithful to what called you here, I think this one will speak to you.
Visit The Director’s Notebook on Substack. Read the full piece, and subscribe to join the community.
staceymuhammad.substack.com
Stacey Muhammad is shaping the stories that move the culture forward.
Stacey Muhammad is a New Orleans-born and bred filmmaker, episodic director, and producer known for her distinctive voice and ability to bring depth, emotion, and authenticity to every project she touches.
Her directing and producing credits span major networks and platforms, including Queen Sugar, Harlem, Bel-Air, The Best Man, Raising Kanan, Black-ish, The Wonder Years, Manifest, Queens, Guilty Party, Love Life, Cross, and more, solidifying her as a creative force across television and film.
As a co-producer and director on Harlem, Stacey helped shape the series’ final season while intentionally spotlighting New Orleans culture, creating space for creatives like fashion brand @the___emline and artist @ceauxartwork , while incorporating elements of the city like second line traditions into the show’s visual storytelling.
Stacey continues to create with purpose, shaping narratives, elevating voices, and leaving a lasting impact through her work.
#StaceyMuhammad #fortheculturenola #womenshistorymonth #neworleansculture #neworleansartists
A new post is up on The Director’s Notebook.
A reflection on short films, not as smaller work, but as foundational work, the place where voice is shaped, discipline is developed, and a filmmaker begins to understand their relationship to the craft.
I share a part of my early journey, including the decision to leave HBO in order to pursue my work fully, a decision that made it possible for my film I Am Sean Bell, Black Boys Speak to enter and win at a festival sponsored by the very company I had just left.
I’m also releasing The Creed for the first time, a short film I wrote and directed nearly ten years ago, starring Yolonda Ross and Akintola Jiboyewa.
I’m sharing it now not as a finished statement, but as part of the journey, the work, the growth, the evolution. This is what it looks like to be in process.
And for filmmakers, I’ve included a 10-step lab on how to make your own short film.
This is where the work begins.
Link in bio.
Directing actors is one of the most delicate parts of the craft.
Actors are asked to go vulnerable places in front of a crew, under time pressure, with lights and cameras capturing everything. The least a director can do is meet them on the other side of that effort with clarity.
In the newest Director’s Notebook LAB essay, I break down my process for directing actors, from protecting the moment after “cut” to giving playable actions instead of emotional notes to recognizing that every actor arrives with a different process.
I also reflect on what working with actors like Patina Miller on Raising Kanan and Jeanine Mason and Rene Moran on Cross has taught me about trust, performance, and truth on set.
A couple of lines from the essay:
“Every actor arrives with a different process. The mistake directors make is assuming the same key opens every door.”
“If a correction is needed, give it with precision. If no correction is needed, say that too. Don’t make an actor guess their way through your silence.”
The full essay is now live inside The Director’s Notebook LAB.
The Director’s Notebook is reader-supported. Paid subscribers receive full access to the LAB, where I share directing lessons, craft breakdowns, and deeper conversations about filmmaking.
staceymuhammad.substack.com
About the Author
Stacey Muhammad is a writer and director from New Orleans whose work explores the cinematic testimony of Black life and the brilliance of the Southern imagination. From her upcoming feature The Return to her directing work on Cross, Queen Sugar, Power Book III: Raising Kanan, and Harlem, she tells stories where Black people are the architects of the narrative, not the scenery.
She is the creator of The Director’s Notebook, a digital film school and creative sanctuary for artists reclaiming their birthright through craft, discipline, and truth.
Season 2 of CROSS premieres tomorrow on Prime Video.
Three episodes drop, including Episode 203, which I directed. Episode 204, my second episode this season, premieres February 18. Last season, I directed Episodes 5 and 6, so returning this year felt like a deepening of a world I truly love working inside.
CROSS became Prime Video’s third biggest series premiere of 2024, reaching more than 40 million viewers globally in its first 20 days and ranking among the platform’s biggest launches. But what matters just as much is the culture behind the scenes. The camaraderie. The rigor. The generosity of the cast led by Aldis Hodge, and the leadership of creator and showrunner Ben Watkins, one of the most talented and kind people I have been blessed to work with. This is a set built on trust, precision, and heart. I’m incredibly proud of these episodes and the care that went into every frame.
I can’t wait for you to step back into this world with us. See you tomorrow.
For years, I have been reflecting on craft as calling.
Not as a concept. As a way of moving through the world. A way of listening. A way of holding responsibility for what we place in the frame and what we ask an audience to carry.
I have been reflecting on what it means to lead from the chair with clarity and rigor. On what it costs to tell the truth inside an image, especially when truth is rarely convenient for power.
I have been reflecting on lineage. None of us create in isolation. We inherit language. We inherit wounds. We inherit music, silence, gesture, memory. Ancestral knowledge lives in the work whether we name it or not.
The real work of storytelling does not begin on set. It begins in how we see, how we listen, how we understand human behavior. Long before a shot is chosen, meaning is already being shaped.
Welcome to The Director’s Notebook: Storyteller’s LAB.
A rigorous space for serious study. For writers, directors, actors, musicians, and anyone who understands that craft is not performance. It is devotion.
Classes are already in session.
Lecture series: Race, Power, and the Language of American Cinema.
Essays including:
On Craft and Calling: Sinners and the Long Memory of Black Cinema
The Work of Witness on Zora Neale Hurston
I Charge the White Man on Spike Lee and Malcolm X
James Fauntleroy and the Work That Knows Itself
Inside the LAB, we study the work from the inside.
There is also a full breakdown of CROSS Season 1 Episode 5, the Ramsey and Cross showdown. We study the architecture of that scene from the inside.
This week I will host a live session on my experience directing CROSS. Craft. Leadership. Process. No spoilers.
The Director’s Vault opens soon. Fifteen years of independent work, rare material, commentary.
There is a free tier. It opens the door.
For those who want depth, the paid tier unlocks the full architecture. Lectures. Scene breakdowns. Case files. Live sessions. The Vault. The work behind the work.
This is not content.
It is study.
If you are serious about your work, pull up a chair.
staceymuhammad.substack.com
@jamesfauntleroyii writes songs the way some people write letters they never intend to send; intimate, precise, and grounded in a restraint that most artists are afraid of.
I actually came to his music through my daughter, @kai_nadirah in the same way she introduced me to The Internet, Mac Ayres, and Alex Isley. She has an ear that listens past trend and surface to hear structure, harmony, and intention.
In my latest essay on The Director’s Notebook, I’m deconstructing why James’s work belongs in the space of On Craft and Calling. His songs move like cinematic scenes that don’t need coverage. They are already perfectly framed.
I’m exploring the “Invisible Math” of his songwriting and why his approach to craft is a masterclass for any storyteller who believes meaning doesn’t need to be overstated to be felt.
Join me in the LAB as we look at the lineage of work that doesn’t chase the moment, but outlasts it.
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Director Stacey Muhammad is a force in TV and film, an artist and activist devoted to telling stories that advance Black liberation.
Viewers can tune in to #Mompreneurs on MadameNoire's Youtube channel or check us out on urban1podcasts
#Mompreneurs | #MadameNoire | 🔗 In Bio For More
Host: nancyredd
Guest: staceymuhammad
Last night was absolutely beautiful. To share space with the legendary @sunnipatterson —poet, griot, light-bearer of New Orleans—was to sit inside a living hymn. Her words rose like incense. Her presence felt like a blessing passed down through generations.
She wrote and recited a poem for me. A poem that felt like flowers the ancestors arranged themselves. I can’t remember the last time my spirit was lifted this high. Gratitude to @east_duvernay and the @blackfilmfestival_neworleans for creating a sanctuary for our art. Gratitude to my family and community for showing up strong and beautifully spirited - ready to share and receive. And gratitude to this city that birthed me, raised me and continues to hold me. Love…
