Roderick Red Sold Comics as a Kid
Roderick Red | Influencer + Red Squared Productions
by Christopher Lomax
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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 below and look for Part II here.
Entrepreneur Quarterly | EQ3 | Sal + Mookie’s Pizza, Thursday, September 6th at 6:30pm | All Welcome
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The Spider Bite is Real
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Entrepreneurship is not something everyone knows they have. Often the bug to go their own way bites at unexpected times — and when it does finally hit, it just seems so obvious.
Creativity comes in many shapes, colors, flavors, and words. Sometimes it is a means to an end, and in others it is the end. Creatives can be artists and writers, of course. But, they are also architects and contractors, lawyers and accountants (just don’t be too creative…), graphic designers and coders, and photographers and film makers.
Creatives are not always entrepreneurs, but entrepreneurs are always creatives.
Roderick Red is an entrepreneur that turned his lifetime love of telling stories into his own creative enterprise.
It should have been obvious.
The creative spirit was there in the sixth and seventh grade when he was drawing comics, something he admits he is still pretty darn good at — the entrepreneurship lurked even then in plain sight.
“Man I loved reading comic books, and drawing characters and stories, but I also sold comic books too! I was always trying to create something from nothing,” Red noted about his childhood foray into entrepreneurship.
But, he was young and didn’t know that hawking comic books to his friends was entrepreneurship. That realization came much later when he least expected it, and not due to any schooling or really any prior preparation.
After finishing the University of Southern Mississippi in Media Production in 2012, Roderick spent some time working around his uncle Fred Red’s car dealership. He and his dad had started dabbling in photography and video gigs using some of the skills he learned while at school — “I did study what I do for a living in college, but not really.”
That’s when his dad passed.
That’s when he discovered entrepreneurship.
“They are connected,” Roderick remembered about his dad’s passing. “I wasn’t even planning on doing my own thing. During the time I was working for my uncle, I didn’t realize that I was being inspired and indoctrinated into being an entrepreneur but the passion really took off after he passed. That really served as the inspiration for me to start my own company. I wanted to do something that [my dad] would appreciate and be proud of, so that was the initial inspiration and that’s what keeps it going.”
Roderick launched Red Squared Productions right out of the car dealership — “Red Squared” as an homage to his dad who had once been a photographer and who inspired him to make something of his own.
From comics to cars, Roderick had the creativity and entrepreneurship distilled into his blood. From my Uncle Fred Red and the dealership “I picked up some of the tips and trades of how to be an entrepreneur.” He had finally moved beyond a creative into being an entrepreneur.
The timing, while sad on a family-front could not have been better in the changing world of marketing, advertising, and social media platforms. Red Squared was poised to ride a new wave of creative productions for making money and for making art.
“Red Squared Productions is a full service production company. We offer three tiers of services. We basically are film and multimedia content creation company. We make commercials, promotional videos, and we also specialize in documentary films.” The work he was doing was on the edge of a new generation of advertising. It was reaching new markets.
“I was in school at a very interesting time,” Roderick remembered. “These things like YouTube and Google were around, but they weren’t what they are today.”
Southern Miss had changed the name of his major from “Radio, Television, and Film” when he started studying at USM and around 2009 they changed the name to ‘Media Production’ to approach not just the news but also the telling of stories with content, whether in the news or for a company on a news feed.
Rodrick was convinced. He changed from Photojournalism to Broadcast Production — “to this day I can’t remember why I changed it but more than likely it was so that I could get a job.”
He loved telling stories and creating but knew that it may not always pay the bills. Sometimes comic books needed to be sold, not just consumed or created.
It is that line between creativity and entrepreneurship that lights him up. Turning stories into lunch money is where Roderick has been able to turn a little formal education and a degree from USM, a little on the job training with Uncle Fred, and a lot of hard work into something that drives him to create everyday at Red Squared Productions.
“You can definitely inject creativity into stories,” he notes. “Everything we do boils down to storytelling and has never been more true in this day in age in how we receive news or understand companies. Whether you are doing the news or making a commercial, it all comes back to storytelling. The differences come back to the technique on how you do it.”
The advertising for big companies pays the bills, for sure. But, his passion really lies in documentary film making and connecting creatives and entrepreneurs. His passion is helping others find that bridge from art to hustle.
Regardless, the spider bite had taken. Roderick was a super-entrepreneur.
It is in you. You may not realize it at first — or maybe ever. But, if you do, it will light you up when you least expect it, or at least it did for Roderick and Red Squared Productions:
“That’s also why I believe that it is halfway successful today because the reasons why I stared it are not to be rich and famous and for everyone to know who I was, it was just something to make my dad proud.”
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Look for Part II of our Feature on Roderick Red here. Check it out, read both, and then come talk to Roderick about turning creativity into entrepreneurship at EQ3.
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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.
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Find Roderick and Red Squared Productions:
On the web: www.redsquaredproductions.com
On Social: @redsquaredproductions| @roderickred
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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.
Find More Awesome Eats, Beats, and Gear at Local Mantle. City Club Partners.
