Chenita: Who has influenced you the most in your career?

Rika: I think from the beginning, it's always been my mom, which is the cheesiest answer but it’s so true. I'm Indian, and Indians don't really do creative things often. My mom's an engineer and my dad's a pharmacist. They're very in the  “traditional” boxes of Indian careers. My mom was like, “I knew since you were five years old, you were not going to do anything like that.” My dad eventually was on board. 

They've supported me through everything: through my decision to get a master's; through my decision to move to LA without a job to go find one; and they even provided the financial support because careers in Hollywood do not pay well in the beginning. 

Chenita: So, you're a development assistant right now.  What type of development assistant are you?

Rika: We acquire or generate new content and then bring on writers and help them through the development process of the story. So, we produce content. Development in the film and television industry terms is more like telling stories and making those stories. 

Throughout undergrad and grad school, I knew I wanted to produce because I liked being in charge. In grad school, I formed the idea that I wanted to be a screenwriter because I wanted to tell stories that I felt were missing from the space. For me, most importantly, that's an accurate representation of people of color and a lot of representation of people of color.  It [mainstream representation] still leans towards the stereotypical side.

I work in [overseeing] genre content right now. There's no murder mysteries or thrillers with an Indian woman at the top,  just being an American woman. Stories like that are what I want to tell, so I thought that the only way to do that was through writing and specifically being a showrunner because a showrunner is the head writer of a show. Writers' rooms are filled with at least five to eight writers that contribute to the entire series. As a showrunner, you lead the room and you also are the executive on the project. So you're the producer who gets to make the top level decisions. 

Chenita: When it comes to grad school, what were some challenges that you faced?

Rika: I always wanted to tell stories, but I kind of meandered in different avenues to get there. Looking back on it, it was a little more difficult in my program because every year there was only one producing specialist. So each year, the producers built their own curriculum, and so I built a new curriculum because I didn't like the old one, which turned out to be successful because they're still using it. I built it around what I thought being a creative producer in the industry was going to be.  

Sometimes with film programs, it really depends on the program and how much access they have to like real world industry. I think my biggest criticism of my program, which I loved being in because I did learn a lot, but it's a very Auteur based program. The shining stars are directors and then secondary to directors are DPs.

That’s what filled out the faculty. That's what filled out our curriculum. There are a lot of people that don't want to be directors and don't want to be DPs. They give you the opportunity in my program to do all of that so it's a very production heavy program.

You should look in programs [and ask yourself] do I know what I want to do? Is the school going to offer me that? If I don't know what I want to do, is the school going to offer me enough information so I can figure it out? 

Chenita: How can someone entering this career stand out from the rest of the crowd?

Rika: For anyone, be the best version of yourself and be hardworking. Also recognize that we're not doing surgery. The Hollywood career is very intense, and there are a lot of people that are not the nicest and expect things well above and beyond the realms that we are capable of. Thankfully I have never had a boss that is like that.

I have found the places that I belong in- with good people- by being completely honest.  My number one thing in any job interview was that I needed everyone to know that I am obsessed with Marvel and anything that comes out from Marvel.  If you work for a company that is going to diminish the value that you see in those films, then it's not going to be the right company for you because they're not producing content that you are passionate about.

Also, you want to work with people whose tastes align with yours. So even if they don't like Marvel, they appreciate that you like Marvel, and they don't say it's bad. That's just a specific example of being who you are. 

If you can't get past the superhero part of it, then you're not really in-taking what Marvel is, Marvel is at the forefront of diversity and representation. They have the most diverse cast. They can do better because you know, it's still a lot of white people, but they're doing better than a lot of the industry. They have Asian leads, they have black leads and they have female leads. They have a deaf superhero coming. 

Anyway, you stand out by being yourself. Be honest and authentic. Marvel is something that is hit or miss in the industry where you get people that are too high brow or people that really understand it and want to break it down. If you're not yourself and you aren't honest about what you want to do, then you get stuck in your job. You don't enjoy your job, and you don't really advance yourself.

Chenita: What excites you about being involved with this year's Visions Film Festival & Conference?

Rika: Since I left school, I've always had this passion to help people because of the things that I have learned being in the industry that I wish that I had known when I was in school. I think that Visions and all these panels are really good spaces to be able to do that. These panels are also great because they're from people who have experience in different parts of the industry, whether it's in LA, New York, Atlanta, or local film.  It gives students a better idea of what is actually out there that can't be taught by teachers, textbooks, and films that already exist.

To learn more about Rika, follow her on Twitter: @RDBhakta93