I really set out to write a character who wasn't sort of a stereotypical mass shooter.

You know, you don't typically see, you know, a scholar and an elite prep school on his way to Harvard committing a mass shooting.

It was important to me that he comes across as intelligent, as rational, that he's saying

things. He has all the statistics, the numbers. You know, I wanted the audience to, in the

storytelling, to say to themselves, you know, wow, he's making some sense.

... He's making some sense.

Hello and welcome back to the Directors' Cut, brought to you by the Directors Guild of America.

In this episode, an affluent teenage scholar attempts to avenge his brother's death and director Tamika Miller's thriller, Honor Student.

The film tells the story of a Washington prep school student, outraged after having lost his twin brother in a mass shooting.

Wanting to take the matter into his own hands, he attempts to teach America a lesson it will never forget.

Honor student is Miller's theatrical feature directorial debut.

Her other credits include the movies for television,

The Christmas Lottery, Back to the Good Life, and Serang Song,

and episodes of the television series Quantum Leap, The Equalizer, and Station 19.

Following a screening of the film at the DGA Theater in Los Angeles,

Miller spoke with director

Paris Barkley about filming honor student.

Listen on for their spoiler-filled conversation.

I think I answered the question, yeah.

Did it have anything to do with the 82 school shootings we've had so far this year

well i wrote it before then i wrote the script in 2017 um but yeah it was it was it was well then

then my next question would be why did you end it the way that you did because i think that's the

...