The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted an already grim economic outlook for Native Americans, especially for the young people on the reservation. "Someone goes to school for filmmaking, they come back here and there's nowhere to get a job. So that's a lack of opportunity right there. Someone has a passion for something and they go away and study it. And then they come back to the 'res' because they love their home, and then there's nowhere to get employment for all the work they just did in school," said Kyle Mesteth, the director of Ground Control. He is also frustrated by how life on the reservation is portrayed in the media.