Capes for Hire
Part II: Roderick Red | Influencer + Red Squared Productions
by Christopher Lomax
So… this chat with one of my favorite people had too much stuff for just one sitting. Check out Part I of my chat with Roderick Red, if you haven’t read it already.
Entrepreneur Quarterly | EQ3 | Sal + Mookie’s Pizza, Today, September 6th at 6:30pm | Free Food, Discounted Drinks, All Welcome
***
Saving the Day, One Creative Partnership at a Time
*
Going from a creative to an entrepreneur is a big step that takes superhero like confidence. But, very few superheros can work all on their own. Tool belts and a supersquad make saving the world or telling the best stories a lot easier.
After taking the plunge and launching Red Squared Productions, Roderick was growing from merely a photographer, to a videographer, and his aspirations were on art and in telling stories. But, even superheroes have to eat.
“Now I dip into the advertising side and that is how my job has evolved. Initially I just wanted to do photos and videos for people. As the years have gone on — this is my 6th year of being in business — we have slowly gravitated towards a documentary style. Documentaries are what I truly enjoy doing it is kind of like my art, my craft.”
But, advertising pays the bills, after all, and those jobs are hard to find and sometimes hard to pull off — at least by yourself. You can’t make passion projects on your own.
In the beginning, you think that you are Superman — you know:
Faster than a a speeding bullet. More powerful than a locomotive. Able to leap tall buildings in a single bound.
That’s what it feels like at first any way. And then it gets busy and real. “When you start pulling your hair out, that’s when you need to bring someone in to start helping,” says Roderick who has managed to keep all of his hair.
#
Roderick Red is no Superman. He doesn’t claim to be either…
**
“If you think of Red Square Productions as Ironman, Southern Cult is the Avengers. We band together to take on the big bad guys, or the big client that are huge and need several different things.”
Ok. So, at least the sixth grade Roderick is still out there playing his comic book fantasies out in the world of filmmaking and film advertising. He obviously had found his confidence and his superhuman strength, and soon after he started out his squad found him.
His squad was a just a band of uber-talented creatives. Each with a different talent — filmmakers, photographers, graphic designers. Not only were they talented, they liked each other too. They looked out for each other and brought you into their story if they liked you back. They weeded out potential 80/20 clients for each other too.
Writers note: I have worked, unknowingly, with several members of Southern Cult, and I can vouch for their professionality, their tendencies to recommend each other (how do you think I found each of them), and their excellent work. Roderick tells me that they must have enjoyed working with me. I guess I will take his word for it!
“Southern Cult is a freelance ad agency,” says Roderick, talking about the rise of his startup production company and its struggles. When hiring for an ad or a marketing gig, “[companies] don’t just need video, they need a website and a logo.” When one of the super-friends found a gig that was too big to handle, that’s when the light went up.
“We would call Southern Cult and tackle that together.”
It was more than just a job finding resource, however. “I found creativity with them, they referred a lot of work to me. We tackled business together. My business grew tremendously when I met them. Not just through referrals but through working together.”
The super-friends were capes for hire. Sometimes they flew together, other times they worked alone.
Roderick credits Southern Cult for much of his success thus far and he is paying it forward these days with the rebirth of “Fleet” — a meetup for creatives. Since he has brought back the creatives group it has been seeing 15 or 20 people per creative showcase, like they did for an Erin Foster feature, and workshop, like the After Effects workshop with his brother Jordan Red just recently.
Why Fleet, Roderick? Southern Cult, which is located in Midtown Jackson, is located at what has affectionally known by the super-friends as “the Ship”. Each member of Souther Cult is referred to by naval names, Roderick is a “Commander”, Tyler Tadlock, a designer and composer, is Captain, Robby Piantanida, a DP/DFX, is General. Other members of Southern Cult are Aaron Phillips, Photographer/Cinematographer, Alex Warren, Director, Hannah Lipking, Designer, Kevin Perez, Cinematographer, and Azod Abedikichi, Editor.
“There are way more [creatives in Mississippi] than a lot of people think that do work on par with the rest of the country. Our struggles in Mississippi are what makes us unique, they breeds greatness. I wanted other people to start their own Southern Cults. We want people to get together and to grow. To create a community so they can get better at what they do.”
Roderick found that his time with Southern Cult allowed him to pursue opportunity. That’s what he wants for others, too.
“Pursuing opportunity. That’s what Fleet also hinges on. We don’t want to doctor things. We just want to give the opportunity for greatness.” He feels the same way about Mississippi and its struggles. Roderick sees a whole “Fleet” of Southern Cult-like potential in the creative world.
Indeed, Fleet is meant to grow a whole new cast of super heroes.
Between his super-friends, his desire to create new bands of super-friends, and his Nintendo Switch, which he uses to unwind, Its clear Roderick likes to ride his stories and analogies out to the very end.
Its a very “creative” thing to do too.
Find More Editorials, Gear + Signals at www.mantlesandbox.com
##
The importance of Authenticity
***
Roderick and the super-friends also like to credit authenticity to their success. Being authentic, and being real, will get you gig after gig. People like real.
It’s also why he loves documentaries. “Docs humanize and bring that universal element to different people,” Roderick muses.
“I like the authenticity [of documentaries]. Our generation craves authenticity. We are looking around asking what’s real? With iPhones, Facebook, and Instagram, we are constantly getting advertised to all the time so we can see when someone is trying to sell something to us from a mile away. We are talking about telling stories, the best way to do that is to be as authentic as possible, to lay it out there on the table, to be real, to show some reality behind whatever is going on. We are all interconnected in ways that we don’t really realize and that individual stories can kind of bring different people together from different backgrounds.”
He has been taking that authenticity to some small documentaries up to this point and he is super excited about a new “personal project” that he feels has some potential to move people.
“I am working on a documentary of a local soccer league here in Jackson called CJSO — Central Jackson Soccer Organization. It is an interesting story of the organization that was started in 1992 by parents and immigrants who came here to play soccer at local universities like Belhaven. They stopped and they stayed here and they lived in Jackson and they met up and mingled and started a soccer league.”
In fact, Roderick played with a lot of the kids who have since going on to the highest levels of the game. Roderick is trying to highlight the league as they are struggling with finances and to stay relevant.
“It is just amazing, this league has the most kids playing soccer at levels from D1 and up to pros where two currently play professional soccer,” Roderick says as he gets excited just talking about it.
Roderick’s new unnamed project was just partially funded and he is waiting to hear back on a few other grants to start shooting. This personal project will be “a feature length documentary that we can submit to film festivals and we have some big people that will be working on it with us.” While he can’t say who right now but Academy Award caliber people are lined up and he is “excited” to get started.
###
Tools for the utility belt.
+
Some advice from a creative turned entrepreneur to other creatives out there looking to leap tall buildings in a single bound:
“First thing I would do is to make sure there is passion behind what you are doing, that there is general interest and curiousity behind it. That is the most important thing. That sets the foundation for everything you do.”
…
“After that, I would meet and mingle with the people that are doing the thing that you want to do. Go and pick the brains of those people and be around those people and that gives you more background into what you ultimately want to do. It is also a good testing ground to see if you actually want to do this or not. You may have an idea about what you want to do and then you go around someone who does it and you go, ‘I don’t know if I want to do this’.”
…
“Whatever you do, get out there and do it. And, don’t quit something until you have given it your all. You can’t judge your success off of giving yourself a part time job.”
…
“Entrepreneurs are like babies. When you are baby you learn something is hot when you touch it. Entrepreneurs learn by doing.”
…
“Do work with strings attached and do some things for free. You have to do work to make new work. Those are the things that are going to stick with what you do.”
…
“You learn to be an entrepreneur for doing things for free. Build up your library or catalogue and then start setting conditions.”
…
“Make your mind up on what you want to do. If you want to do Rap Videos, make sure you want to be in that game because it will stick early!”
…
What did Uncle Fred teach you?
“You have to value your time and to say ‘no’.”
…
“Organizational skills and watching money coming in and out, save money in all parts of the business.”
…
What things are you using that make your life easier?
“I am big on being organized and we use Asana. I love it because it is project based.”
He uses StudioBinder is for video world specifically.
“When I am trying to unwind and chill, man, I just recently bought a Nintendo Switch. Sometimes between edit sessions or in pre-production we stop and play some Mario Kart, beat somebody in a race real quick and get back to work.”
…
What things are you listening to and reading to grow as an entrepreneur and creative?
Find More Awesome Eats, Beats, and Gear at Local Mantle. City Club Partners.
- The Startup Podcast by Gimlet.
- No Film School Podcast — www.nofilmschool.com — “If you didn’t go to film school like me, they give you lots of tips and tricks.”
- MasterClass — specifically, Warner Hertzog for film — whatever you are trying to do you can do for $90/class.
- Story and Heart — www.storyandheart.com
#
*fin*
Entrepreneur Quarterly (EQ) is a quarterly meetup of entrepreneur groups in the Jackson metro area. All are welcome. EQ3 is 6:30pm at Sal + Mookie’s Pizza. This quarter EQ is featuring creatives and creative groups in Jackson. Pizza and snacks are free, drinks are 25% off.
— —
Find Roderick and Red Squared Productions:
On the web: www.redsquaredproductions.com
On Social: @redsquaredproductions| @roderickred
— —
Christopher Lomax is the Founder of Mantle., a company that provides the space and the tools for starting and growing your life’s great work and networks.
