Jaron Lockridge | Cinematic Truths: A Filmmaker's Real-Life Narratives

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Mick.

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to another exciting episode of Mick Unplugged. And today we have a remarkable guest who exemplifies passion and perseverance. Growing up in West Tennessee, he initially saw filmmaking as a far fetched dream. Despite having no formal training, he has self financed and produced over 11 feature films, drawing on his personal experiences to tell authentic human stories. Please help me welcome one of the greatest storytellers that I know. And I'm looking him in his eye as I tell him this. The incomparable, the amazing, one of my new favorite producers, Mr. Jaron Lockridge. Jaron, how you doing today, brother?

I'm great. Thank you for that wonderful introduction too, by the way. But I'm glad to be here. Glad that you brought me on today.

Hey, I am so excited and I mean it when I say one of the greatest storytellers that I know. Because, you know, seeing some of your films and some of the things that you've produced and written, you genuinely make everything appear. Which I know is hard in movies by the way, but real and relatable, right? Like there are a lot of movies with great actors and, you know, a listers, but you still watch the film sometimes and it's like, yeah, that's not really how that would go. Everything you do is like, I could see my family in the movie. I could, I can see, you know, some of my friends. Like it is real life, real stories, real situations. How do you do that, bro?

It's just, you know, it's, it's pretty easy just using experiences one way that when it comes to writing for me, I just find it easier and more natural. It doesn't take a lot of effort just to use life experiences, things that you witness, things that you've seen, things that I've experienced myself and just put it into your stories. Because for me specifically, I see that people attach to those human stories and stuff that. That they can relate to a lot more than some of my other projects where maybe more fictionalized or horrors or something like that. So I'm finding that telling just authentic stories is my niche, and that's where I'm focusing from this point forward when it comes to writing these stories.

That's awesome. And so, you know, I was just telling you offline, the sticks. You know, we're going to talk about the sticks, but watch it over the holidays. And I was like, wow, it is genuinely one of my top five favorite films. And I'm talking at all times. And I'm 45, about to be 46, so I've seen some films.

Wow.

Okay, man. Like, I saw a little bit of the Wire. I saw a little bit of Hustle and Flight. I saw real Tennessee. Like, I have family in the Memphis area, so I know what west Tennessee looks like. Yeah, that is west Tennessee, brother.

Hey, I. I appreciate that. Never would expect it to be that high on anybody's list, but hey, I appreciate it, man. That's one thing about movie is an art, subjective, and it touches people differently. So I can truly say I appreciate that.

And I mean it from my soul, man. I genuinely mean that from my soul. You know, Jerome, one of the things that I want to talk with you about is your story. But more importantly, one of the ideals that I have from my mentor Les Brown, which is keep going. Right. You are the epitome of not giving up. Knock me down. But I'm coming right back. And when I come back, if you go knock me down again, you better come stronger.

Talk to us a little bit about.

The things that you've been through and how you've overcome those things to get to where you are today. And, and I know that your story isn't even completely written yet because you got so much that you want to do, but how did you get to where you are today? What are some of those things that you overcame and how did you overcome?

Well, you know me, I have the blessing of curse and curse of loving this genre of being a filmmaker, which is one of the most expensive things to do. Like, it takes so much money to make a movie. And a lot of the times when I first started writing, like, I've always known I have a God given gift to write that purpose is what drives me to continue going under a lot of these lows. And early on, it was tough. One of my first films, very low budget, all the money that I had just went into trying to hire people to do this and that. And I remember the editor running off and didn't finish my film. So I had to go all the way back to ground zero and start that over. And project after project, just making these movies, dealing with the issues that go with that with, you know, unprofessional people, unprofessional actors, leaving you hanging. I'm not an actor myself, but time after time, if you ever see me in the movie, it's because an actor didn't show up. So, like, just dealing with those type of situations to the point where I'm eventually starting to see the fruits of that labor with my company. Like, I tell a lot of people who ask questions and stuff, and how do you do it when you're not making money making movies? You put so many thousands of dollars into it, and you can literally see a hundred bucks maybe. How do you continue to do this and not make any money? And my answer to that question was always, you got to have the passion in it first and foremost to drive you through those low times and keep you going when you're not making any money and just consistently staying at it, knowing, like, man, I got something. I just got to keep going, keep improving. And like, these last two years have been wonderful, some of the most amazing years for my company. So now that I see that progression, it's only fueling that fire a whole lot more to go even harder. So just knowing that I have something, knowing that I had a gift that I need to put out there, it's always drove me past those lows and those lulls that I dealt with early on.

I love it. And just for the record, I want you to know this. The next time an actor doesn't show up, you don't have to put yourself in the movie.

Call me, okay?

And I'll only charge you $5 more than what you were going to pay yourself to be the actor.

I promise. Yeah, I got you.

So one of the things I've always wanted to ask a writer, especially a film writer, is this. You're writing an amazing script, but you don't necessarily know the exact actor or actress that is going to play the roles that you have written out. How hard is it to say, I've got this script, I've got this character, and then there's an audition, and it's like, no, that's not the person or the style that I like. How that's got to be hard, right? Because I know that you're a perfectionist. I know you well enough to know perfectionism is one of the things that you do right? How hard is that, bro?

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It's hard. It is really hard. And a lesson that I learned early on is, especially in the low budget realm, you can't get too picky. So what I started doing, a lot of the times were just generalizing things. I would generalize locations, I would generalize actors, and I would wait for an audition and see which one speaks to me. Like, especially when it comes to actors, I'll see how this actor, without any direction, says this line or, or treats this character. And a lot of times you're surprised by that. You're surprised by doing that and it turns out better than what you would have if you had pictured. Anyway, I still sometimes to make it through, I'll picture a certain actor because like this mind, sometimes you can't control it. So I'll still picture a certain actor. I've even had a movie where I pictured Samuel Jackson. I know I'm not going to cast him, but I'll picture him in that role. I just won't. You know, whenever we do the auditions, I won't hold it against that actor because you can't be Sammy Jackson. I've done that before to kind of get through a story. So I have many different ways to do it. But most of the time I try my best to generalize the character and locations so that if I get to this certain location and it's not how it is in my mind, it just won't bother me that much. I can just tweak and pivot however I have to to get it done. Amazing.

What are some of the challenges in your life that you've overcome that people don't know that you've had to overcome? Like, what's something you've had to persevere through that you deeply connect with daily?

Well, the first one that came to my mind, I mean, other than, you know, the, the budget issues and stuff like that when it comes to this. I had a project recently where while we were producing the project, my father passed remembering, like, man, I got these days left in this production. And, you know, most of the actors and everybody involved would have understood if I postpone owned it. But I remember thinking to myself, like, even he, he knew I this is one of my outlets, you know, filmmaking. This is something that I love. He wouldn't want me to stop. So that was something where I was like, you know, even though he's passed, we're dealing with that. I just continue to finish this movie and going that route. And that's one thing that I kind of always look back on, like, you know, dealing with that. If I stopped and stayed and was stuck in my thoughts, that probably would have been the worst thing at that time. So having this as an outlet to continue doing this type of work and doing this in the midst of is how I really learned that this is truly an outlet for me when stuff is going on that, you know, I can create and also kind of have some inner therapy doing something that I love while creating stuff. I love.

That's amazing. You know, so much I want to talk to you about, man. Like, you also have a media company, right? Misguided Perceptions.

Yes, Misguided Perceptions Media Group.

Crazy cool name. I wanted to get to where the name come from and the idea of starting your own Media company.

You know, just when I first decided like this is what I'm going to do, I'm going to start making movies. You know, just trying to come up with that perfect name for your production company. And one thing about my movies that I love to try to do is lead you in one way and then by the end of it you notice that it's something totally different. So that's where I came up with that misguided perceptions. You know, I love kind of putting that twist in there and oh, I didn't see that coming. And that's kind of how I named my company because it's kind of something that I try to do in my stories is lead you in one way and then just totally misguided you to the way it's going to land. So that's kind of a play on words that I did when I started my company.

Okay, so tell the world what else you do, right? So what else are you doing? What is Jaron about?

I just, I'm all about chasing goals and making sure that, you know, life is so short. And you know, one thing about being a police officer is I've seen a lot of that, you know, a lot of trauma and stuff going and you realize like life is too short. So just follow those dreams man. Go after what you want. I'm big on like, especially when it comes to stuff like this that I'm familiar with. A lot of kids that I'm finding in my area are interested in acting and stuff. So I'm at a point now where I'm trying to get a little camp off the ground to kind of teach some of these kids these skills and stuff like that that honestly I didn't think of in school because we didn't have that, you know, LA was a far fetched dream as I mentioned. And I was like, I'm not moving to la. I don't have the money to move to la. This is not going to happen. Let me go this other route. So a lot of these kids growing up and stuff inspired me to start, you know, growing up going a different way from them and provide opportunities that I didn't have. So me and my wife are working on trying to get this camp together and kind of bring the artistic side out. A lot of these kids who are interested in the arts and stuff like that. So that's just me. Just I'm big right now, especially after the loss of my father. It just made it real and just spend every moment going after a goal, chasing a goal. So I'M real goal oriented in that, in that manner of, you know, spend every second of your life wisely because is way too short and love your family. It's way too short.

That's amazing insights, man. Like I almost call you a philosopher because you can break things down to where people need to hear it, man. And so. So that's awesome hearing you say those words. Back to being a police officer, how does that help you or how has that helped you in your film writing?

Just the experience. Experience in so many different stories, experiencing so many different situations. I tried my best not to put out there. A lot of the times is my. Because as soon as you tell somebody, hey, I'm a police officer, you start acting different. Like I'm arrest them or something. Like that's not the case. But yeah, just the experiences because you, you deal with so many people in so many different situations during the day that when it comes to writing these stories especially you can use those real situations on dialogue like how people talk to each other, how people treat each other when this situation happens. Somebody dealt with the loss. How would that mother react to this? You know, in an authentic way and stuff like that. So a lot of that feeds how I, my characters deal with each other in my movies. I don't necessarily take specific situations. Yeah. And put them in movies because I just feel that's disrespectful. I'll fictionalize it and you know, just use those authentic interactions and situations to kind of form around my story just to make it a more real story. And it's not too much that's happened that's never happened before. So you always run at that instance where somebody might feel like, hey, you wrote that after me. Because almost everything has happened before. There's no way to get around that. But yeah, I just use it mostly into the way I write my stories and, and my characters interact and just make it as real and authentic as possible.

That's awesome.

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What's new for you in the world of film? Like, what's the next project that you're going to be working on?

Well, I have this thing like with the Sticks. Sticks started off as a web series that's on YouTube. And one of my issues was I had these big ideas, but at my budget level at the time, just trying to do those series and have a season two and a season three, I just found you cannot quench the appetite of the consumer. Like they'll. It'll take you half a year to a year to get this season one of episodes. They'll watch it in a day. And when's the season two? So like, you just cannot feed that appetite. So I came up with this thing called the Sticks universe where these characters like in the sticks can kind of branch off into their own projects. They're connected, but you can watch each singular project and not miss anything from the other. So it's kind of a brilliant, ambitious idea. It's a character at the end of the Sticks, the detective, Bobby Clark, that's interviewing the person at the end. He has his own movie coming up called Cubic Zirconia that's already completed that I'm actually getting music for now. And that's coming up next. And then I got another movie on the character Chewing Greer is coming up. So I kind of have my own little universe of these movies that's kind of going into different things. And you know, it's a big ambitious idea, but I believe after all said and done, people love it.

That's awesome. What can people do to support you?

I would say the easiest thing is watch the movies. Watch the movies and the next easiest thing is rate and review it. IMDb rotten tomatoes. That data helps us a lot, especially as indie filmmakers because. Because one thing for me is I want to build, continue to build this thing from the ground up. Tyler Perry, as a businessman is one of my biggest inspirations. The way he went from nothing to a billionaire and he's providing opportunities and he doesn't care about Hollywood and their acceptance. And that's me. I want to build it from the ground up, where I am be able to create opportunities and just build my own little Hollywood here without having to relocate and do this and that. So that's always harp on that with people like, hey, if you watch the movie, even if you didn't like it go leave a rating and review a lot of these platforms. Look at that. And like, okay, this title is garnering a little attention. We might need to kind of pay attention to that. So Data today rules everything. And that's the easiest way to help me out. Just say, hey, support the film and, and go rate and review it afterwards.

That's what we'll do. All the listeners, followers and viewers of Mick Unplugged, I'll make sure I have all the links in the show notes and in the descriptions. I need everybody to go rate and review for me. If you care for me, you'll do that for me. That's, that's my only ask as well. I want to talk about like your 10 year goal and vision because you're very goal oriented. Where do you see yourself in the next 10 years?

Honestly, in the next 10 years, hopefully I probably still make movies, but more of a, an executive producer type of role. I kind of want to, like I said, I. Tyler is one of my biggest inspirations. I kind of want to build this company up as big as that to the way, you know, although I might still have the itch to make my own movies. This filmmaker here, because I remember how it was trying to make these with no money. This filmmaker here. Okay, you have a great idea. All right, let's see how we can get this movie off the ground for you. And just using my company and growing my company into its own media house and the way I can provide these opportunities to people without having to go out here to get help out here to get help and just make stories that are important to us and can start to uplift our community. They can start to show our voice in a more natural tone. I would really love to show more stories than are being said out there. Some more stories that will make you think, more stories that people might not be familiar with that are going on. And I'm just real passionate about showing real, true human stories. And hopefully I can grow my company. That's the goal is to grow my company to where, you know, I'm. I can sit back on a board and say, hey, what's your job? Do this, do this, do that, and not be so hands on with everything like I am now. That's the ultimate goal, is just growing my company beyond where it is now.

I definitely think that can happen before 10 years. Like what I hear from you is what's important to you is empowerment. So lifting up others and then legacy, it sounds like. So tell me about that for you. How important Is first, let's just start with empowerment. How important is empowering others to you?

It's very important. It's because I, I know that feeling. I know feeling like, where do I go? Who do I talk to? You know, how do I get this off the ground? Because like I said after high school, if I knew this was possible, I would have, I would have started after high school and everything happens for a reason. Me going to the academy and becoming the police officer and finally getting that itch to write again. Everything happens for a reason. So I know that there's people out there who probably feel like I did at that time, have think it's not a possibility. And if you offer that as a possibility, that may alter some choices or moves, you know, after they graduate or later on in life when they think, well, you know, I'm tired of doing this, but I've always had a dream to do this. It's possible now because, you know, we can make it happen over here. So that's one of the things is just showing people, especially in my area that, you know, it's this sense of, I don't know how to put it, like the staleness or is the dreamers here is very rare in my area. And I just kind of want to show that there are possibilities to do the things that you dream of in this area. We just kind of need to make it happen and have a visionary to kind of just leave that step. So that's one of the things that I'm passionate about. And, and having that legacy, like you said, you hit that nail on the head, is just having a legacy to build something and just have the, the fruits of your labor just, you know, continue to, to blossom. And that's something that I'm passionate about.

Love it. So I want to get you out of here on some advice you can give the listeners. So for the listeners that are out there that are trying to get their breakthrough, that are on the cusp of man, do I want to keep going? Can I keep going? What's the advice from you? Someone who's lived it and actually done.

It, I would say you would have to be a dreamer and be a realist. You have to be great at balancing those two. If I had decided to, okay, I'm going to make films, I'm about to quit my job and just do this, probably wouldn't be at the point where everything is going upwards as it is now. You have to be able to analyze your situation truthfully, seek help and have consistency about you toward going toward whatever goal that you're. You're seeking. Consistency is probably the number one thing because if you're not continuously chasing it or going after whatever you want, it's not going to happen. You can't just sit down and think it's going to come to you because it never will. You have to continuously chase it. You have to have a hunger for it. And then you also have to have a realism on. In order for me to get here, do I still need to do this on the side? And you know you can't. You got to be real about your situation. So I'll just tell anybody, some of the greatest people that I've, I've studied and realized and even me myself. You have a great balance of being a dreamer and a realist and merging that together and knowing what you need to do if you pursue whatever goal that you're going after.

Amazing. You all heard it. You heard it from Jaron right there. I can't even put a better boat on that, man. Like, that's. That's exactly what I would say as well too. And the power of keep going, man. I tell people all the time the things you can do when you have to do them will shock you. When you have to do them, it will shock you. Jaron, man, I appreciate you being on. Where can people follow you on all your social platforms?

I'm on everything. You can just put my name in. Jaron Lockridge, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, Tik Tok. Everything else is guerrilla filmer, which is spelled like guerrilla warfare, but gorilla filmer. And you'll find me online that way. Or you can go to my website, misguided perceptions.com and find out any casting info, projects I got coming up. That's where I'm going to start housing a lot of that content on my website as well.

Love it. Well, I'm going to definitely check for some casting because like I said, you don't have to act anymore. $5 more than what you would have paid yourself.

I'm there.

Don't even worry. Yes, sir. I got a couple of family members too that I know are listening and we were watching together. So my cousin Randy and my cousin tj Y' all look out for Javon. He might have something for you.

Hey, bring it on. I'll be ready for you.

There you go. And to all the listeners out there, remember your because is your superpower. Go unleash it.

Thanks for listening. Welcome to Mick Unplugged. We hope this episode helps you take the next step toward the extraordinary and launches a revolution in your life. Don't forget to rate and review the podcast and be sure to check us out on YouTube at Mick Unplugged. Remember, stay empowered, stay inspired, and stay Unplugged.