Reel Caribbean: Visions for The Caribbean Film & TV Industry

From his humble beginnings in the pews of a church to the helm of Ikon Media, Horane Henry's story unfolds in our latest episode, painting a vivid picture of the Caribbean's potential in the media production landscape. As a Jamaican-born powerhouse in engineering and media production, Horane's curiosity fuels his creative drive, while also shedding light on the milestones achieved by his own production company.

Navigating the world of filmmaking comes with its own set of trials and tribulations. Horane opens up about the real costs of content creation, from the financial hurdles to the quest for corporate support that often feels like searching for treasure in the deep blue sea. His personal tales of self-funding projects and the struggle for recognition in the industry provide an earnest perspective on the underestimated value of Caribbean storytellers. The candid conversation doesn't shy away from the stark realities behind the scenes, offering insights into the complexities that lie beneath the surface.

As we wrap up, Horane peers into the crystal ball of the Jamaican film industry, contrasting its unique prospects and challenges with the likes of Nollywood's booming market. He doesn't just highlight the obstacles; he charts a course for how Jamaica could steer its film industry towards a flourishing future. This episode not only spotlights the creative avenues for supporting Ikon Media's endeavors but also serves as a beacon for anyone passionate about carving out a space for authentic Caribbean stories in the global narrative. So, anchor up and set sail with us on this eye-opening journey through the currents of Caribbean creativity and innovation.

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:02

Hey everybody, welcome back to another episode of Carry On Friends the Caribbean American Experience. I am excited to have Horan on the podcast today. Horan, welcome to the podcast.

Speaker 2: 0:11

Thank you. Thank you, Carry On. Thank you for the welcome. You can't even talk right now. That's so excited I am to be here and hoping your audience gets a kick out of this one.

Speaker 1: 0:23

Yeah, man, yeah man. So Horan, I think the audience might know where you come from based on your name, but why don't you tell the community of friends a little bit about who you are Caribbean country you represent and talk to them about the work you do?

Speaker 2: 0:35

Well, I am Ayadee, jamaican, born and bred. I lived there for most of my early years, into teenage years, and I migrated to the United States. You asked me what else am I doing? So my day job, I work in engineering. I'm an engineering director, specifically software engineering, but on the side I am a filmmaker, photographer, creative you know anything that has to do with media and production. That's where you'll find me. So yeah, All right.

Speaker 1: 1:08

So the purpose of this conversation is the side part. So talk to me a little bit about media production. Talk to me about why you chose to get into that industry and that business and some of the work that you've done Absolutely.

Speaker 2: 1:27

Well, doing that, awesome. So it's quite interesting, right? So, growing up in Jamaica, my church boy through and through, I got my start in media in church. I remember my father. He was a cell engineer.

Speaker 1: 1:44

for this, he had a singing group that he was the manager and the cell engineer for.

Speaker 2: 1:49

So I would travel around the entire Jamaica when they go from church to church or concert to concert, and he used to be there rolling out wires, plugging stuff in, walking out with a camera from a very young age.

Speaker 2: 2:03

So I just fell in love with it from then and just got really good at doing it. From very early on I'd pick people's brain as like when I see something new that I didn't know about, that like be very interested and learn from them. So started very young and then in my professional life, you know, I went to engineering school Because as an engineer, you have a curious mind, right. So I just thought it went well with my production and you know, video and all that other type of stuff. Being a Caribbean and an immigrant, your parents always say go to school, you know, pick up your book and all these things and get a good job. So being an engineer, that was the pathway to me getting a good job, so to speak. I'm doing earcodes for those who are listening on audio, getting a good job. And, you know, do that whole thing Because the creative industry was always seen as this place where you have bones from place to place. You don't really have, you know, a good mechanism or means to make money, but I've always loved being a creative. That is just who I am, a part of who I am and you know I just couldn't let go off it, so I do it on the side along with my day job. Some things that I've done? Ooh, there are a lot of things, but that's not the answer.

Speaker 2: 3:32

So very early on, my friend and I went to Earth Kelly, who's a business partner of mine we started our company called Icon Media. At that time it was called Icon Graphics because we were like, all right, cool, you know, we can do some stuff. We did the web design, graphic design, but our goal was always to make films. Always to make films, got film show, you know, always to make movies, because we grew up wanting to tell stories. And through that, you know, it took us quite a few years. We've been doing this for over 15 years now.

Speaker 2: 4:08

There's a lot of transitions that we went through. So we went from doing graphic design and web design to shooting weddings. We started with wedding photography, then we started doing wedding videos and we did both together, and then we elevated to doing films. We did short films with our friends from college and then, you know, on and on and on to just recently, we became the first team to have an Oscar qualified film from Jamaica, as well as becoming the first group to have won an African Academy Award. So you know, we've had our ups and downs working on different series, but everything that we've done so far has been self-funded, and that's also one of the sacrifices that we've made is like, hey, you know a lot of people. They do production to make money. Yes, we do it to make money, but also it's really to make our own content, because there's not enough authentic content out there representing you know who we are. So that's something that we hope to fill that void in the space.

Speaker 1: 5:20

Your story represents so many other stories you know and a couple episodes, I guess. Someone asked me like we were talking about my origin story and I said you know, I got my start in public speaking in church. You know, I grew up in church and yeah, sunday school anniversary, all these things, you have to go up and recite poem or Bible verse. And so church was really, and continues to be a breeding ground for creative folks, because if you think of all the a lot of people in the black creative community they got their start in church singing right.

Speaker 1: 5:55

So church really is that place where you are nurturing your or skills, and I just love this idea of you wanting to tell our stories and that's cultural right. Every child in the Caribbean knows how to tell a story. Rainfall, you know. That's our language of communication, right? Even if something happened on the road, that's our entire story. So, instead of over here, so just those are even given directions.

Speaker 2: 6:27

Like I know, y'all have seen these videos. Somebody said oh, you're gonna say you want to shop down the sea and make a left, you make a right, you go up. You know it's all a part of us.

Speaker 1: 6:37

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So I love that. So congratulations to you and your team for making Oscar qualified film from Jamaica, and then also to your African Academy Award. So tell me about those films we're going to get to. The self funding, the money, all of that. That is the story for everybody. But let's, I want to center the work and the work that got you this echo. So talk to me about the project that led to these honors.

Speaker 2: 7:08

Yeah, absolutely so. The film is called raw materials. It's about a kid who grows up in this community. He grows up in a very rural community but also rough and tongue, because you know it's like the ghetto and he loves fashion. And you put a guy who loves fashion in a ghetto and you already know the stereotypes that come out around that from, or diaspora, right. So he grows up in this community. His father is an abusive alcoholic and his father can't pay the rent, so they're on the verge of getting kicked out and the kid is going through a hard time trying to find himself, love himself, because he loves fashion. Everybody around him thinks he's gay, but dude is literally just a level of fashion trying to find himself as he goes along without the pressure of people like yo, you know, like woman and all them thing, you know. So that's, that's what the story center around. We don't overtly talk about it, but it talks about, you know, mental health traumas that people face in those situations, because it's very traumatic.

Speaker 2: 8:23

There's a scene in the film where the kids went to go, you know, give money to the pastor to drop off the ties to the pastor, and there's also part of this tour stereotypical, where the pastor's wife is trying to come on to me and stuff like that but he's walking back from the pastor's house and he gets attacked by the by gang members, you know and the money's stolen. So it's a lot of those things where we touch on. We weren't afraid to touch on anything in that film. What we told? A cohesive story.

Speaker 1: 8:59

Wonderful, and so this might get to my next topic. So where can people see that film?

Speaker 2: 9:04

So currently it is still on the film festival circuit. We have one more festival that we potentially get into, so it's not publicly available yet because it did so well you know Kudo for the team again everybody that worked on this film it did so well like it came out September 2022. Yeah, oh, my goodness, it's been over a year and we just get accepted to film festival after film festival, so we couldn't really put it out publicly, because that's one of the things with film festivals, but hopefully it'll be in a place that we could. It'll be public soon, hopefully, if we'll see what happens with these film festivals.

Speaker 1: 9:49

All right, so that answer still leads me to where I want to go. So one of the things that I feel that is important to discuss, right? So in social media everybody's like why we can't have more Caribbean, jamaican, whatever flavor you want, right, movies, et cetera. So we have one flavor where for most people is like trailer on TV coming soon, big, booming voice, this in theaters, or maybe something on streaming. And here you are telling us another story where you're like we're going through the festival circuit. So explain to the audience these two different paths that a film takes and the difference between the two and the importance of why. Why I feel most Caribbean folks their film goes to the festival route and, with the exception of the one by the big money himself coming out soon. That's the different animal, but for the most part Mo seems to go to the festival route. So can you talk to us why that is the case, the difference between the two and why that's the case, absolutely, absolutely.

Speaker 2: 10:56

So that's a very good question and I think for those who are not as versed in the film space, they may have those questions. So one, funding is a big thing, and with funding I mean that in the most general sense. So production funded, but then also marketing and distribution. That's a big part of the puzzle that a lot of people don't know about. I wanna say distribution and marketing. So distribution means getting your film out there for the masses to see so that you can get a return from it, and the marketing of that as well. You talked about seeing a trailer on TV or a radio commercial or seeing posters around their whole campaigns around that.

Speaker 2: 11:41

So the I wouldn't say easiest, because I'll dig into this a little bit more the more accessible is the right word. The more accessible way for people to get their films out there for people to see is the film festivals. However, you have to be careful and be very selective about what film festivals you apply to, because that also in and of itself is expensive. So two years in a row we spend quite a bit of money. So, with raw material, we spent about $2,000 on submission fees alone just to film festivals. The year before we had two other films that were in film festivals as well. We spent about $500, $600 on those. But it also costs you to submit to these festivals, right, and the reason I say that is not every festival is created equally in the sense of the awards that you get from it, but also the selection criteria and knowing the pool. So you have to do some research in terms of the festival side of things.

Speaker 2: 12:42

Theatrical distribution that's a whole other ball game, because nine times out of 10, as an independent filmmaker, you will not get your films distributed without having an agent signing a contract with a distribution company. So, yes, film festival route is more accessible to the regular person, me and you and the bigger distributions. You're gonna have to need a studio behind you or a big distribution company. Another thing that has been coming up is YouTube, but you gotta put a lot of work to make YouTube work for you. So we've done YouTube and the film festival circuit haven't quite cracked the code yet on getting a studio behind us right, and I'm sure we'll talk about that too of how difficult that in and of itself is. So hopefully that answers what you were asking.

Speaker 1: 13:44

Yes, it does. So, Arine, thanks for giving us that explanation about the film circuit and also theatrical releases. So I mean, I thought I was gonna hold this to the end, but really, money, money, talk. Everything else were followed right behind. So talk to us, or educate us about what it takes to get funding, for I mean, I know this doesn't just impact Caribbean folks, right, but we're a Caribbean audience. How? What impacts us from our creative works by people like you being seen by the entire Caribbean diaspora in the US or getting more people to see it? What stops that from happening?

Speaker 2: 14:27

Honestly, I haven't cracked the code yet and this is something that we're struggling with now. Very transparent moment here. So we've reached the epitome of what we could do by ourselves. Like everything that we've done has been self-funded, like sacrifices, all that type of stuff, but you can only go so far with doing it by yourself. So, perfect example the next time you watch TV, folks look at the credits. So the big, most of the beginning opening credits you'll see this production with this person or this production, there are multiple people that pitch in to make a film right. There's no one, even on the big theatrical releases. There's no one studio who's funded it. It's a combination of folks and that's where we're at right now and I haven't cracked the code to that yet.

Speaker 2: 15:30

I've talked to many people, even independent filmmakers here in the US like they have a hard time. A lot of times what they do is they crowdfund, but even that it's not a all right. I'm gonna start a crowdfunding campaign and get the money in six months. There are people. I know one of my coworkers actually it took her 10 years to get the funding for her film right and for me, I just think I don't think that's sustainable.

Speaker 2: 15:57

So what I'm trying to figure out and if you have thoughts around this too is where are the people who have money, who are willing to support Caribbean filmmakers? Because personally, I haven't cracked that code. Oh my God, I've done countless pitch decks, gone to people. Producers just try to get funding, and it's something like they're not really there.

Speaker 2: 16:26

But here's the thing, though and this is a very, very big piece of it that I think is important is our local governments in the Caribbean need to start supporting. If there's one thing that I love about Canada, canada is very, very big on supporting the creative industry, specifically film, and they have a lot of grants and tax incentives that the Canadian government gives to filmmakers, right. So if there's one place that really really embodies like giving people money, it's Canada, but you have to be in that system to get there. I don't know, europe is there as well, but again we're talking about the Caribbean diaspora and how we need support, or stories Like there's not really much coming out of the Caribbean in terms of financial support or even the ecosystems to create that.

Speaker 1: 17:30

You have hit the nail on the head and it is something that I've experienced. So a couple what time flight. We're in 2024. So last year 2022, maybe, maybe, I don't remember I was in the Black Ambition Program and I had to figure out how I was gonna raise some money.

Speaker 1: 17:53

So I tried the crowdfunding and it didn't really work. And, to your point, crowdfunding takes a lot of time. People get suspicious of it because there's a scamming culture behind it, so people can't decipher whether this is a scam or whatever. And to your point, or industries are mature but the investment into those industries are not mature. They are lacking, and I think it goes back to the value that is placed on the creative industry. It is not seen and I think the way it's evaluated they're using the same way to evaluate other industries. With the creative industries, you can't evaluate them the same way. But also, I feel like this is gonna be like a multi-day conversation. I have this conversation. All right, let me re-look back in Audience. Let me re-look back in because let me tell you Orion, touch the button because, that is exactly what's happening.

Speaker 1: 18:56

There's no businesses advertising on this podcast. The value it's always looking at the immediate return. It's like the thought processes are just very different and you don't find corporate support the same way, and that is the number one challenge.

Speaker 2: 19:17

Oh my goodness, the number one.

Speaker 1: 19:21

But I can say this as the young people say, I'm standing on business business, not business business, as I could say, make you get a Oscar, everybody on that one. I go say he's a Jamaican, yes, and in my head I'm like yo, why you never support the thing when the man, when they struggle with the image that my girl, the player, I try to do the thing. That is the problem that I have and you can celebrate people, but I feel like yo. It comes back to you're in tech, right, yo? Where are the early adopters in the thing? Everybody's a wagonist. We need people for comeback, build a wagon. You know what I'm saying.

Speaker 2: 20:02

You are. We always need an ordinary, noble kind. You are preaching girl Like yes yes, and so that is.

Speaker 1: 20:10

You know, I see it, and this is why I feel, like I said to you before we, we hit record, like I feel this unction that we have to bring light to this thing. You cannot be, you cannot have people on social media saying that we need this, but businesses are not supporting, and you know, the thing is real talk. If we do get investors who are not of the culture and they might, you know, what we do is we might have to make some compromises because they'll be like, well, I don't want to see it finished this way or that way, and that's the real deal.

Speaker 1: 20:44

You might have to make some cuts and then the audience goes. I mean, I've a light that Mr Well, the person will pay for it, Ray, you understand. And so audience we're, we're. May I get excited, I'm not complaining, but I need you all to understand the real deal of what is happening. It's not for lack of trying. You have O'Rea and you have plenty of other people out there trying to create content that reflect us, their stories about us.

Speaker 1: 21:10

But it's not as easy. It's not easy. It's not as easy to just go juke something up on YouTube and things say, well, it's a YouTube ads that are going to run through it. You can make some money from YouTube ads, but it's not a lot to cover production costs, Right? Even editing a podcast costs a lot of money, you know. So money is important. The other thing I want to talk about is how are they valuing the size of the audience? How do they determine that value to say, all right, we're going to invest in this, Because, from where we sit, everybody wants to be Caribbean, Everybody wants to be Jamaican. You go on TikTok how much Jamaican dance. You know everybody raising a rave and a flag. Everybody's doing something Caribbean. But I know that when I look out, the Caribbean is often lumped up in Latin America.

Speaker 2: 22:04

Correct.

Speaker 1: 22:06

Or North America generally, depending on what it is. So, and we know Latin America is most Hispanic speaking. So how can we accurately value not only the Caribbean audience but lovers of Caribbean culture, because that's also the audience. And are they looking at the region? Are they looking at the world? Because the region is one place but the rest of the world, the diaspora is huge. So what are the conversations people tell you in your life? I'm not sure the audience wants this.

Speaker 2: 22:38

Yo, it's so crazy because this question floats over into my day job as well, because I work for one of the large entertainment companies who has multiple streaming services the way that the Caribbean is grouped together. When you look at the map of how they target the content, it's actually grouped in Latin America, so the numbers get skewed. This is also another challenge, right. Is or diaspora, again speaking for Jamaica, like we have, or we have 3.1 million? The last time I checked around there, 3.1 or 3.2 million was a census of people living in Jamaica, and you have that same number of people living outside of Jamaica, right, and I'm sure it's probably similar for other islands as well.

Speaker 2: 23:38

However, the lovers of the culture are much bigger. Europe, for example, is such a huge market in terms of reggae music, dance culture, dance culture. You go down to Japan. Japan is heavily influenced by Jamaica and dance hall culture, right? So I don't know if the marketers have really understood that value, and that's something that I think, whenever we do get the opportunity, those of us who do make it into those spaces which, again, we're touching on. Something else that is near and dear to me is I know it's oh taboo, I know, but DEI and representation in those rooms is very important, because then you can have people like us who can break that down and translate that for the powers that be to say, hey, you're looking at this not the correct way. Here's how you look at this market data and break it down. So it's a combination of things. You need a representation, but then you also need advocates who will actually understand how the culture works.

Speaker 1: 24:55

I mean holy pithings and Minati go touch on that because I'm a Godon. One next river, I'm just like a glass over it. What I will say, backing up to what you said about Canada supporting its artists and why Tiff is such a big thing, I feel like the UK has the best output of content around Caribbean culture. They have their output is ridiculous. I keep talking about Desmond's and I was talking to Waityaati a couple episodes ago and a few other people and I mean I grew up in Jamaica watching Desmond's right and then that's a British program, even if you tell me that. Sorry, whenever I will put Jamaican's come on the podcast, but that's Godon in the pot.

Speaker 2: 25:40

Listen, listen, that's right.

Speaker 1: 25:44

The audience gets it, but sometimes after we let back. I mean for the US and culture and the Caribbean diaspora. We can't have an American sitcom surrounding a Caribbean community. I was telling someone the other day that I was watching Kim's Convenience, which is based in Toronto and it's around a Korean family and they have all these characters that come in. That's representative, to a way, of Toronto and how diverse it is. But the UK's output is ridiculous. We could think of Desmond's, we think of small acts, we think of all these other things that come out of the UK and the US has a, I understand, a much larger entertainment system, but our output is nowhere near that. Three bird, all of these stuff that is coming out of the UK. Why do you think that's the case?

Speaker 2: 26:40

I think it goes back to one having the execs in the places that make those connections right. It's very interesting Something you said a couple of minutes ago where the person who pays for it has the final say, and we don't have anybody in the US who's willing to put up money, or so far hopefully one day there will be, because it's not for lack of stories there's nobody who's yet putting money behind series or films like that. Outside Again of the Bob Marley service is gonna come out, but that's really the only thing. That's really the only thing that somebody's willing to take a chance on, and the Marley family had to go in on that too. So it's like the barrier to entry is super high, and, again, there's no marketing behind it too. So, from a US standpoint, I don't know what it's gonna take, because these execs are not willing to give it a chance.

Speaker 2: 28:05

What I'd hope for, though, is again if the diaspora could come together and do what Nollywood did. So Sherri Lee Rav I saw her. We were at Essence Fest early this year from the film festival, and she came by. She did a panel right before I did one with Storm and a couple of the folks, and she talked about, you know, when she was growing up in the industry, at Injumica, she was trying to push the industry forward and Nali, the African film industry, was, you know, back in around the same time the Caribbean film industry started and then they just leapfrogged us, whereas we are still stunted in growth. So I think that's what it's going to take is somebody to really invest in Caribbean stories. We've got to come together and it also can't just be one person doing a story every 10 years, because that's not sustainable and, I think, from a purely business standpoint, that's why we haven't seen it yet, because nobody's put the money behind it to create, you know, a pipeline of stuff.

Speaker 1: 29:13

You said something and I was going to ask about it, so you talked about Nali Wood, right? Yeah, let me go back. So one of the things that I noticed, right I think there was there was a period where we had some things going on so we had albeit spread out, but you know, I could talk about it. We had Third World Cup. There were, all you know, gangsters, but it's better than nothing right.

Speaker 1: 29:42

We had Shattas and Dancehall Queen, before that, lunatic, which I absolutely love, with Paul Campbell, right, and what I realized? That the minute we went to streaming, the output dropped, because all those are DVDs and granted, maybe people in the burn, the Mili Galway, whatever that. You know that people were watching them and so with streaming, it felt like there was a drop off and there's a few reasons for that. Because it's streaming, it's now splintered, you can watch it any and anyway. Right, that's one or two. The barrier to entries questionable. I don't know where I'm going to stream this. So, with all these different outputs, you know you see a lot of Nali Wood type film, like when I go into my streaming service, if I click on some of them I can tell that they're from Nigeria or Africa.

Speaker 1: 30:38

Yeah. So my question is what is the opportunity to leverage like a Ruku channel or all these other things, all these different ways? I'm not endorsing one of the other methods. I use them for the context of this conversation.

Speaker 2: 30:53

Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1: 30:54

Yeah, I make it clear, but not this is what I see and this is what I hear people use, so OTT over the television platforms that are popping up. How can we leverage that? Or is that something to be leveraged, or it just as difficult to get onto these things?

Speaker 2: 31:12

So great question and I'll give my unbiased opinion, truly unbiased opinion. There's so many of them out there that, yes, you could get onto them. But what really is your end goal? Is it eyeballs? Is it just to say, oh, I'm on a streaming service because you could get on any streaming service you want? Really, because there's so many of them, the proliferation of those have caused a water down off the market, right, because you want to go where the masses are, where the eyeballs are, and that's why the larger streaming services have that concentration. Personally, again, because we don't, as a diaspora, as Jamaican or whatever, because our film industry, our film outputs are so small, there's nobody. There's just no aggregator who's going to come and say, hey, I want to buy 10 shows from you, or something like that, whereas in Nigeria, africa, they're output in hundreds per year, so they have that mass market that they could pull from. And that's ultimately one of the things that's holding us back is because there's not the level of output as well as the quality.

Speaker 1: 32:40

One of the things that I want to sidebar on this, because I love talk to you, because I know growing up, I noticed Jamaica was used to film on location for different films. Right, is it my observation?

Speaker 2: 32:56

What are you laughing at?

Speaker 1: 32:58

Show me the air now. No, it's just an observation. Is it me or has that dropped significantly? Where Jamaica is not? They're not scouting Jamaica as a place where people go film stuff, I don't know, because I think that also helps to build an industry, because then you need people or they could be bringing people come instead of using local talent. So tell me what's happening down there as much as you can.

Speaker 2: 33:28

Ooh girl, Lord Jesus, I hope.

Speaker 1: 33:31

Me touch a button, me touch a. I'm a friend of the crucifier.

Speaker 2: 33:34

but a couple of things, and this is one of the big ones that annoys the mess out of me. Jamaica refuses to create a tax incentive for people to shoot there. So you know what's been happening. Right, people are going to Dominican Republic, barbados and these other countries that have Sorry, I'm not yelling at people, so I'm going to put it on my hand they're going to these countries that have these tax incentives and they're shooting those places as Jamaica, right? So there's only been in the past couple of years maybe four or five projects that have gone there that have actually shot Jamaica, four Jamaica on location.

Speaker 2: 34:24

But other projects they're using other places to shoot because, again we talked about earlier, there's no incentive to these production companies. Like, I'm not going to want to pay full price for a production when I can get the tax break in another location that still kind of get the same scenes, right. So that's one aspect of it. The other aspect of it is for the ones that do go into Jamaica, right, they bring people in. So the locals are working as third or fourth line. You know, on these productions Very rarely do you have a local who is going to get even a second 80 position. You're probably getting a third 80 or fourth 80 position and a PA position way down the line. So that also plays into it. Granted, you know, it still brings jobs to the island, which is I am super grateful for people get to work. But if we had created a more robust industry, robust ecosystem around it, it'd be way better, you know, and we'd have our own people telling our own stories again.

Speaker 1: 35:44

Yeah, back up a little bit and explain to the people then what is AD and PA, please, oh sorry.

Speaker 2: 35:51

So an assistant director or production assistant there are different roles on the film set, right and an assistant director or a second assistant director. They're pretty important on the set, they help to manage the set, and that's what I'm talking about. You know, if we had our own productions and telling our own stories and having a big output of that, we would be the directors, the cinematographers, you know, the assistant directors. So that's what I'm talking about.

Speaker 1: 36:21

Yes, it goes back to what we're saying, right, the you know, we're just so reactive. Yeah, you know. Like you know, it wasn't until 2008, with Beijing, that Jamaica capitalized sports as tourism right, as an industry right, and we should have been doing that from the Queen Merlin Ati in doing our thing right. And we've seen what happens when other locations incentivize film, because, I mean, when I first came to this country, you're going to LA, no, you're going to Georgia. You know, and I've seen that, you know that transformation. So it is possible, but it goes back right, tourism is important, but tourism also cannot be sustainable long-term because of the environmental impacts that it has on an island. So, who are the visionaries who are thinking about? What does this mean for our culture and the extension or the continuation of our culture?

Speaker 1: 37:23

Because I hope we don't feel like, oh, we're Jamaica beaches, it will be around forever, we may, not other cultures are only you know, you know, across the ocean, yes, and we're not head out of the park as we think we are or we're not we're not done.

Speaker 2: 37:39

Hopefully we're back out of class. Yeah, I mean.

Speaker 1: 37:41

Yeah, so these are the things that I see, and I'm just so grateful for this conversation because, in order for people to understand what is happening, these conversations give a window A window into why aren't we seeing more of ourselves. It is hard and it starts with the country. I had a guest, maybe two years ago, who talked about how Korea South Korea particularly prioritized K-pop to make K-pop the way it is right.

Speaker 2: 38:12

And look at what's happening right now.

Speaker 1: 38:14

Exactly, it is all possible. What are we doing to make our cultural exports in terms of the arts, make that central to the strategy of the region? And then to the diaspora and quite honestly maybe this is another conversation with somebody in some other thing, but I'm just throwing it out there A diaspora is separate from the country right, very much so it's very separate.

Speaker 1: 38:40

So, as a diaspora, do we need the home country to do this before we mobilize and do what thing? It's always a question I'm asking because I feel like, as a diaspora, we're always in our way to answer. Right, we give difference to the country, and we should, right, but we live here, so, so there's certain things that the government there cannot do here because of basic diplomatic protocols, right? So what are we in the diaspora doing and what role do we play that we don't necessarily. Maybe we lead the way, as opposed to waiting on the country to lead our way.

Speaker 2: 39:15

I love that thought and, again, I think this is where your podcast may be a catalyst for something like that, because then you could be that catalyst to connect those of us in this diaspora in the industry who have a passion like this to do something right. One of the challenges in the diaspora is that because we're so spread out right, we don't all know each other. So maybe I don't know if there's a I haven't filmed one like a film connection for Jamaican diaspora folks to say, hey, who's interested in coming together making something happen? You know what I mean.

Speaker 2: 40:03

And personally, I've tried to reach out to Cherily Routh to just float ideas. Obviously she's busy, but hopefully one day she'll see a message, because I know she has it Like she spoke it when you were at Essence. It's like she has a passion in her heart for doing something for that. So hopefully those who are in the ranks and made it more clear we have so far start making that connection and then we all just come together and make something happen because, again, I know their resources, like collectively. I know the resources are there, so we just need to make it happen.

Speaker 1: 40:38

Man, I love this conversation. We'll do some of it offline and whatever, but I mean even talking about Cherily Routh in another podcast I did with my friend McKaylin Styland Vibes. We talked about how wonderful Cheryl and her brother because her brother was in a few episodes of a different world and I said her character on Abbott Elementary. I think it's the perfect character because we know it, like when you get our upset, the liquor comes out.

Speaker 2: 41:09

The liquor comes out, yo, oh my god, I think I still have it on my phone. I felt so proud. There was an episode of Abbott where she got so annoyed, where she broke out in Tapatua, and I'm like thank you, like this is so amazing to see on international TV where this is embraced. So yeah, no, that's all.

Speaker 1: 41:34

And I think it is important because I feel like other characters are caricatures of who we are, whereas Cherily, at work in Abbott Elementary, represents us Like I'm going to work and I'm like this, but get pominers or in Call me at work, you go, hear me talking to make it on the phone and that was I feel so proud of her and the work she's always done to represent Jamaica, always done that.

Speaker 1: 42:03

But that character I just love it, that character and the other character I'm talking about, Randall's wife, on this Is Us. I think it's a good juxtaposition of like a Caribbean-born person here. You may not be able to speak the accent in the same way, but you have that aspect of the culture You're raised in your household like that Exactly. And then another one I think is Grace Byers' character. When she read the Girl in the first season I was just like yes, yes yes, that's crazy.

Speaker 1: 42:42

And so this is why I feel like deep down, like my love of watching all things TV, documentary, music, video is like I see these representations and I light up and I just love where the potential of what we can do be more on screen. But we have to like galvanize, mobilize and educate the audience. That it's not as easy but if we, you know, we put pressure where pressure forget put out, we know where the pressure forget put and we support the filmmakers when they are doing crowdfunding.

Speaker 2: 43:17

So, yeah, that's where it's at.

Speaker 1: 43:20

Yeah, you got to support them when they have to do crowdfunding. I mean, everybody love ESA, rated after crowdfund for the money before she gets our HBO, exactly. So you know crowdfunding is really and we understand people are, you know, have been burned by sketchy crowd funds. But, from what I understand some people when they I mean you may not do this, but I remember one year was supporting someone and their crowd they used a platform that was backed by another platform to support, like the tax free, whatever. So there are different ways that these creators are using to raise funds. So, audience, please support, please support. I will make sure that I put Orain's iconic media, or icon media, in iconic because of our conversation with you and, as I continue, the series on people in film, streaming, tv, whatever, you know, the goal is particularly for this year because, like I said to Orain, like I feel it on my heart, particularly for 2024.

Speaker 1: 44:23

This is like a high priority, yeah this is that year, and so I am so glad. Yeah, my friend, knowing I'm in a minute.

Speaker 2: 44:31

Yo, we're connected.

Speaker 1: 44:32

Yeah, yeah, friend.

Speaker 2: 44:35

Trust me, like yo of Kindred Spray, we're inseparable from no one.

Speaker 1: 44:42

All right, you heard it your first me and. Orain inseparable. So why don't you tell the community of friends where they could find icon media on the internet and how to support the work you guys do?

Speaker 2: 44:53

Yeah, absolutely so. We're on YouTube. If you go to YouTube and just icon media and film so is IKON media and films you'll find us the blue logo, blue and black logo. We have a couple of our films up there and a mini series we actually did in COVID lockdown, which was a gorilla film school type of production, because we did that series with only five people, which was crazy. We're on Instagram icon media JA. At icon media JA, and again it's IKON and our website is icon media JA dot com. So IKON M E D I A JA dot com.

Speaker 1: 45:41

All right, there you have it, folks, and, as I love to say at the end of every episode walk good.