We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Floyd Marshall a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Floyd, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today We’d love to have you retell us the story behind how you came up with the idea for your business, I think our audience would really enjoy hearing the backstory.

I came up with the idea for my short film festival because I felt certain films were not being seen or celebrated. Film festivals show a certain type of film and films that may be on the fringe are oftentimes not selected. I wanted to give those films and filmmakers a space to showcase their work. What keeps me excited about the Film Collective Film festival is the wide array of films we screen, but more importantly the international relationships that are built. We have some exciting partnerships slated for 2023 and I’m really excited for the participating filmmakers.

Floyd, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

Well, I’ve been married to an amazing girl for thirty four years, two wonderful girls. Grew up in Philadelphia and did a tour in the Navy. Started out in the industry wanting to be a fitness model, but i kept getting the are you an actor question. So I ended up pursuing that and started doing films, tv commercials, etc. I started my own film festival, The Philadelphia independent Film Awards, we did that for five years until COVID. I also started the Film Collective Short Film Festival which we did every month. Also started a non profit the Independent Film Association of Philadelphia where I coach filmmakers about being business people. I find that many filmmakers concentrate solely on the creative process and not so much on the business which is a big mistake. I give filmmakers tools to be better business people. I’m most proud of the mentoring that i do and the life changing information i provide because it was given to me by others. I also do a podcast weekly where i highlight women of color in the industry because i felt their voices weren’t being heard enough. There’s a lot that i do in partnership with amazing individuals that I’m really proud and happy about.

How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?

A major pivot happened at the onset of everything being shut down. I had in person events scheduled, interviews set up, but none of that could happen now. So you had to make a choice of waiting it out or finding other ways to stay creative and relevant. So I turned the in person interviews into online interviews and my podcast A Conversation With Floyd Marshall Jr was born. Myself and other people would stress that although things were shut down they didn’t stop. So you could either create and move with the situation given, or sit and wait. If you sat and waited you ended up behind because the folks who kept creating had an entire year of content.

What do you think helped you build your reputation within your market?

Integrity. Please make sure you have that. Your reputation good or bad will precede you and it will determine who decides to deal with you or not deal with you. I’m a firm believer in doing good business with people, paying vendors and talent on time, putting on professional events and just being an all around good person. Be nice! Be genuine, be authentic. People can sniff when people are only in it to be self serving, but when you approach it from the standpoint of serving and helping that get’s around. The old saying of what people say about you when you’re not in the room is very true. I’ve had instances where people not happy with me may have said things to people I didn’t even know and those people I didn’t know would defend me because they had heard of me through my reputation as a stand up person. That’s what you want, folks who don’t know you going to bat because you do good work. Have integrity and be a person of your word.

Contact Info:

• Website: Aconversationwithfloyd marshall jr.com
• Instagram: @floydmarshalljr
• Facebook: @floydmarshalljr
• Linkedin: @floydmarshalljr
• Twitter: @floydmarshall12
• Youtube: @floydmarshalljr

Image Credits
Floyd Marshall Jr