We recently connected with Jesse Felsot and have shared our conversation below.
Jesse, appreciate you making time for us and sharing your wisdom with the community. So many of us go through similar pain points throughout our journeys and so hearing about how others overcame obstacles can be helpful. One of those struggles is keeping creativity alive despite all the stresses, challenges and problems we might be dealing with. How do you keep your creativity alive?
I think for this I keep it alive by having that need to always create. Meaning my mind is constantly thinking of ideas, types of shots, stories, especially when I’m listening to music, working out mostly these days – that I’ll remember or write it down to circle back on it later as well as scrolling IG reels where I’ll watch something that could be a cool movie idea by expanding on. It can just spark an idea that turns into a film. It can come from anywhere, something I hear, something I see. Creating a visual in my mind when I hear a song is something that keeps my creative side alive. These music videos I direct in my head from the song blasting in my car is a great way to keep it alive and feel creative and keeps your brain in check. In the videos I produced for years prior to directing on my own I would take it as far as I could with the budget I had for production through post-production once it was shot and choosing the right creatives to attach to a production and the right editor was very important. A lot of my producing creativity was knowing what buttons to push just like a music producer making a song I was making the visual that I already saw in my mind what this could look like by using this Director, this DP, this Editor, and so forth and now it was blending peoples strengths together and working through that to the final result. It was putting ingredients into the bowl and mixing it all up. It is understanding not just people but how this person will fit in and come in ‘on budget’ and take this to the next level. So, the creativity was not just creative artistically but budgetary as well. For me as an EP on those videos I did, that was my job. Will this director make this work for the budget and kill it at the same time? That was always the challenge. Also knowing the artist and their culture. Does this director know this culture and again the small things it will need? As you know the lyrical content is their story in their culture & neighborhood so attention to detail was crucial as well. Knowing the director as a person and where they came from, their experiences, their background was just as important as their reel to me when I sent them the track that I was going to then stand for to the record label as they entrusted me to do with thousands of dollars, they would pay out to us. That’s what I still love doing putting the team together on a project through just that keen sense that I have developed over the years and as I grow and go through more things in daily life I come up with more ideas, stories. So yeah, I think the creative side will always be there.
Appreciate the insights and wisdom. Before we dig deeper and ask you about the skills that matter and more, maybe you can tell our readers about yourself?
Yeah, no problem and thanks for reaching out again. I am a feature film producer & writer/director. My background as mentioned comes from music especially in the Hip Hop/R&B genre and a lot of my work I have produced or directed is in an urban genre. I started my career producing-directing music videos in this world and it’s a world and people I am familiar with. I grew up in a music household with both my parents hailing from Detroit, so I grew up on listening to a lot of old school R&B and New Jack Swing type music then getting hooked on Hip Hop music through the years. All of that was buried deep inside of me that I eventually let it out of myself by writing my first music documentary “Where’s the Soul?” Writing is not new to me. I wrote many of the treatments/visual pages for the directors I brought in for the music videos we did or at least a creative/budgetary pass with any fixes to it before it went into production. I’ve worked for top writers and have had great conversations with many that do it a high level plus I write my own music docs as I am now going on my third one. I have had the privilege over the years to of produced/work with a number of top directors in the industry and learn from them. Film writer/directors such as; David Ayer who wrote ‘Training Day,’ award winning commercial-film director, Jason Zada, who I hired to direct the video we produced for Baby Bash, music video BET award winning director Alan Ferguson who directed the Janelle Monae video we Exec Produced, Chris ‘Mink’ Morrison, who directed Lil Rob and Slum Village for us as well as the late Marty Thomas, G-thomas, Scott McCullough, and R&B legend music video director Lionel C. Martin who directed the movie; Def Jam’s ‘How To Be A Player’ starring Bill Bellamy as well as others. Creatively speaking I produced a number of music videos that have garnered millions of views on Youtube; most notably Lil Rob’s ‘Summer Nights’ which is now close to 50 million combined views on Youtube, directed by Aggressive Inc., and G-Thomas. That is a lot of views and could not be happier to see the success it has had worldwide and still relevant today. As well as feature films that were theatrical releases and stream heavily on VOD platforms such as Tubi, Amazon Prime, Apple TV, Youtube Movies. In my early to mid 20’s, I had employment at companies such as Outlaw Productions known for ‘Training Day,’ ‘National Security’ and ‘Ready To Rumble,’ which all three I have a credit on as ‘Assistant to Producer.’ The company had produced other big hits such as Disney’s ‘The Santa Clause’ with Tim Allen, ‘Don’t Tell Mom the Babysitter’s Dead’ with Christina Applegate as well as award winning indie ‘Sex Lies & Videotape’ directed by Steven Soderbergh distributed by Miramax. I got to see firsthand the business side of putting a studio level movie together from development until it’s finally greenlit for production and then ready for release with a big studio marketing P&A. I was then employed at A Band Apart Commercials/Music videos where I learned that side of the business, a company owned by Lawrence Bender, Quentin Tarantino and Michael Bodnarchek and then at Crave Films (‘End of Watch’, ‘Fury’) owned by David Ayer as previously mentioned where I worked as his assistant and as the co-producer on the MGM crime-action film ‘Harsh Times’ that he wrote and directed as his debut film. I enjoyed working for him, he taught me a lot. Steak lunches at Pacific Dining Car was not bad either. So literally after graduating from UCSB I jumped into the industry head on. I was very eager with a strong drive and work ethic and put that first and foremost. A little more modern day, a recent film of mine; ‘DJ Mixset’ that I wrote-directed and produced was acquired by top indie distributor, Indie Rights Movies for worldwide distribution/sales now streaming on Tubi and my new music film project, ‘Drug Rap’ that I wrote and currently producing-directing, is an intense look at what is happening in today’s Hip Hop with the Opioid epidemic throughout the country while exploring the Malt Liquor craze of Gangsta’ rap back in the 90’s is currently in production throughout Las Vegas. It will explore both eras throughout the film. This is a more hard- hitting look inside Hip Hop compared to my previous two films. Definitely a challenge in way I am creating the story but will be well worth it when it all said and done and hope to have it released during late 2026-2027.
Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?
I would say some qualities that were impactful was to be someone that wants to really learn the game from the inside, meaning getting jobs and employment working for those people that are doing it at a high level so you can get on the job training as mentioned earlier. That has proven most valuable to me. To get the blueprint to work off of. My former boss from Outlaw Productions, being the late Bobby Newmyer, a top Hollywood Producer, Executive Producers from A Band Apart such as Eric Bonniot, Jeff Armstrong and Adam Bloom. Adam who served as Head of Production at that time where we were the top music video/commercial company in the industry taught me about bidding and budgeting projects where I worked there for two years in a staff coordinator position. The Director roster consisted of top directors in the music video & commercial industry such as; Wayne Isham, Nigel Dick, Chris Applebaum, Neil Tardio Jr. and Martin Granger. We had music videos play heavily on MTV TRL and commercials play on big awards shows and the Super Bowl. I was able to get my producing training through those companies then I was able to go out on my own apply what I had learned to then build a library of credits in my own company at the time; Treasure Entertainment where we our core business was in music video/commercial production and director/writer management. Another skill is resilience, meaning there were times I could of thrown in the towel especially when it got hard, or felt like things were crumbling and not going the way I had envisioned or saw myself in my career be it a movie not performing, a music video that the client did not love, a production that got botched, shady distributors pretending to have your best interest and so on. I’ve been through a lot working in this industry, I have experienced incredible highs and also experienced some lows. A repeat client is a gift as there is much competition and people looking to steal your client or take your spot. Shit talk, this and that. My best music video client turned out to be Upstairs Records who had rapper, Lil Rob and with the success of our Summer Nights video on MTV, we went on to produce six music videos for them including recording artists Baby Bash & Amanda Perez, and NB Ridaz. With the music video landscape changing, budgets shrinking and not really able to sustain a 5-person company we decided to shut it down after a rather stellar run and number of videos, artists, labels we produced for such as Janelle Monae, Slum Village, Lil’ Rob, Baby Bash, Snoop Dogg and Mr. Capone-e. After that I endured a transitional time where I needed to figure out what do next, and how to further my career as it was just kind of at a standstill. Ok so after going non-stop for 10 years, what the F now right? So, in 2011 I decided to re-approach an idea I had shelved that I was pushing for a while prior to this called “Where’s the Soul?” An R&B-Hip Hop mentioned earlier story that was previously financed by a private investor for us to make the film in 2008 with director Dwayne Johnson-Cochran attached to it with myself as the writer and producer on it. We had a pretty big budget for a documentary and was going to probably be a theatrical release or at least a big cable deal as this was prior to the streaming sites coming to life. However when there was the huge banking financial crisis in the summer of 2008 our investor; a stock broker with Morgan Stanley wanted to hold back some of the monies we were going to receive to go into production combined with them wanting to take a different approach creatively I told them no thanks, I was not interested in making that version of the film they were wanting me to write and through legal I got the rights back. It sat for close to three years just because of the bad experience I went through on that and false hopes on getting it made so upon deciding to just go make it I spent the next seven years making the film I envisioned independently which then received a distribution deal in 2018 with Factory Film Studio/Kaczmerek Digital Media Group who released it on Amazon Prime, Apple/ITunes, Tubi, Comcast, Direct TV and by doing so I am having a great ride right now due to the doors that opened up for me by not giving up on the project. The film that came out was the film I wanted to make. I am not sure I have going on right now if I would’ve just thrown in the towel. That was one of the hardest things I ever had to do. I really have put in the hours, the grind, the early mornings, late nights, sometimes no sleep nights, I push through and do what it takes. Keep in mind I had to scrap for everything; nothing was just handed out. Starting out, I was an unpaid intern during the day and then waiting tables at night to make money. Go through that and you will happily scrap. I’m real with myself, meaning I know where I need to improve and get better and where my niche is in the industry. Another skill is being a good communicator, being able to talk to people of all walks of life, learn from them and hear them out, no matter what their background, race, or their job is, those conversations make you see things and gives you insight to your stories and characters especially if you are trying to write as well. For years I was on the producer/executive side, so it’s been a real blast to go out to write and direct stories. Being someone that can bring people together on projects and see where they are coming from but keep a vision intact and to again push through to the end. Producing is really hard and taxing on the mind, body, so you just have to keep paddling up the windy choppy lake and eventually it will settle and you will be able to lay on the campground. Its a mental thing and you need to be strong upstairs because you will be tested especially if you work for yourself or plan to.
What’s been one of your main areas of growth this year?
I would say to this and probably over the last 12-24 months was being able to get stronger and wiser in certain areas of producing especially in the post- production side and then getting better as a writer-director as I continue to make my music doc films. After this next music doc, I look forward to doing more fictional narrative projects as writer-director-producer. As much as I like music docs, they are very difficult to pull off especially the way I craft them with the music, getting the story to come through, b-roll and graphics. I was pretty young when I had started in this world and have really learned a ton over the years. I have learned really from doing and taking the action and that builds the confidence. I really never waited around for a gig, I was either working at a company or producing a gig through my own company and as you continue to do that, you make the mistakes to learn from and you teach yourself as you go and that is for all departments, being able to talk that language with different crew, come up with game plans that make sense based on experience, understanding how this page is going to be shot, what challenges may lay ahead. The small things really are the big things. I try to challenge myself on each one to get better and learn from the previous ones, where I can go, ‘Oh ok, I get that now, or this is what I now need to do here, or how can I now elevate this thing visually and go for it. Distribution is in place for me these days which is a big piece of the pie. Remember to think big picture, what really matters here? There is going to be quite a number of small remedial obstacles and tasks that you will need to take care of that really no one cares about and even arguments you may get into with fellow colleagues and people you are working with, but I actually see that is a good thing because we are debating how to best approach this situation and find a solution and maybe even a better idea comes from that. Speak up on your work and defend it best you can with other people that may be involved. What makes you or your work unique? Fortunately for me, I have complete control of my work when it goes to the platforms, the distributors I deal with allow me to create my own trailers, artwork, marketing and the film is never re-edited or re-arranged. I am not saying this will continue to be the norm for me, but I do like that its 100% on me if its well received, viewed and number of streams it gets and on the other side of that too if it does not work I can learn from that and tweak some things on my next one. I am going to be a work in progress probably forever, I do not think you are just 100% perfect by a certain project, I think it’s always a moving piece. My films get licensed to the top VOD platforms, such as Tubi, Youtube Movies, Google Play, Amazon Prime, Apple TV, Pluto TV and play side by side studio level films. As an indie filmmaker-distributor I am in a real good place with what I have going on with VOD, DVD-MOD Blu-Ray at online retailers, Amazon Prime, Best Buy, Walmart, Moviezyng and Soundtracks I release for my films on Digital service provider’s such as Amazon Music, Spotify, Soundcloud and Tidal. After I complete Drug Rap and get it off to my distributor, I’m working on a new feature film narrative project about a shady-corrupt music lawyer that gets in too deep with his clients he represents in the Hip Hop game. A music driven crime-action type piece that I am putting together. Now that I’m based in Las Vegas I have made some great connections when it comes to locations, crew, businesses and plan to shoot my projects here. As I wrap this up with you reminiscing and discussing this journey I’ve been on, I am blessed and fortunate and I wouldn’t have changed a thing. I look forward to what the future holds for me.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.cmfilms.biz
- Instagram: @jfelsotfilms
- Facebook: Jesse Felsot
- Linkedin: Jesse Felsot
- Twitter: @felsotjesse
- Youtube: @jessefelsot-11
- Other: Tiktok: jfmusicguy11
Image Credits
Jesse Felsot
