Today we’d like to introduce you to Daniel Ford
Alright, so thank you so much for sharing your story and insight with our readers. To kick things off, can you tell us a bit about how you got started?
To start it off, I can’t really remember if it was craigslist or maybe Facebook or I was looking for a job as an extra. I need up coming across a job posting for being an extra and a college project. I sent them a selfie of myself and they said they liked my work and that I was invited to the shoot. The shoot was at Depaul University, which I was familiar with the area cause I used to work Downtown. Once I enter the room and I met the people that I needed to meet, I took a seat and they told me just to act normal, act like I was doing some work, I act like I was paying attention to the class, to the teacher more specifically. Everything was OK and the real test really happen when they want to be B roll footage of all of the students, like a panning shot from left to right of our facial expressions to the teacher. This means we all we’re going to get a close-up shot and this was the real test on how I felt about the film industry as a whole and they put the camera on my face and somehow it didn’t feel as weird as I thought it would’ve been.
After that we were out and I left, and I started looking for more extra work just to experience more of it, somehow along the way, I landed another student project but it was more so a the project was a product placement, but I landed the lead role for that advertisement. And this college was I believe Columbia possibly? Anyway, this is a whole different experience because I was actually treated as the lead cause I was the lead and the commercial to summarize it was pretty much I’m in the middle of a classroom and the product placement is about these headphones when I put on the headphones are going to my own world where I’m doing a vast amount of different things. And more importantly, I arrive at this party. We’re all of my friends are welcome to me and dancing and I join the party with them and as I keep listening to the music the professor is actually hitting me on the leg because he’s standing right over me and this classroom and I jump out of my daydream into reality where he’s looking down on me. It cost for a various amount of close-up shots from different angles, B roll footage of me dancing with other people and me. Also a close-up shot of me walking into the party, trying to look as cool as possible and with all of that moving around a different angles, I figured out that I didn’t hate acting, I actually kind of liked it.
That’s when I started investing all of my money to classes and I also started working as an extra on a very sad mount of television shows until I landed a permanent full-time background gig on Chicago MED for season six. Throughout all of that extra work, I was taking acting classes at Acting Studio Chicago, Vagabond in School The Arts, I was reading books on directing I was reading books on acting, I was taking workshops, and lastly, I started to create my own contact with my best friend Jon Spight.
I met John through acting classes at Acting Studio Chicago. We we got along pretty fast started to hang around each other more often especially after classes we’d get a Mail or grab a drink. We both have the same aspirations, and we share the same passion for filmmaking and acting in general. I had a random idea to re-shoot a scene from training day, and I wanted him to star in the scene work with me thought it was a great opportunity to work on our acting skills and also implement the work ethic and shooting style of what a professional set would be like in our own personal environment, as if we were the stars. It wasn’t the greatest video that we made at the time thinking about it in retrospect, but somehow, as I was working on Chicago MED while we were filming this on the weekend, I got the executive producer, Nicole Rubio to watch and critique the video, and unbeknownst to me, until after she gave me the critique she revealed to me that she was the script supervisor for the actual movie Training Day. She was there on Saturday with Denzel Washington, and Ethan Hawke as they film the entire movie way back when. So getting constructive criticism from her of all people was the biggest compliment of all. Obviously, we had some technical errors in terms of. We didn’t know how to tell the story from certain camera angles, and what not, but what she admired more than anything, was the effort put into the project itself. The fact that we went out of our way to implement a work ethic that we only learned by reading books, and or actually being on a professional side, and applying that to our own work ethic, creating our own content, creating our own opportunities as a pose of waiting for them. She loved that the most, and encouraged us to keep going.
Throughout my time of working on Chicago MED, as a Production assistant, I was able to connect with the various amount of directors, producers, and even the actors on occasion. They all would either watch our continent or just give me a constructive criticism on how to make it in the business. After we wrap Chicago MED I worked the Chi for a few episodes as a PA, and then I worked for a pilot. They didn’t get Greenland as a PA as well. That was my last job behind the camera before I decided I was going to invest all of my time in money, and to go on in front of the camera and pursue acting full-time.
I joined a conservatory program at Vagabond School of the Arts, wear for five days a week, for an entire month, seven hours a day, we work material from level one all the way through three, and at the end of that we’ve got to perform our very own professionally written monologue, and it was also professionally filmed. Throughout this month, not only did we work through material how to perform as actor/actresses, but we also got the opportunity to interact with guest speakers on occasion from television shows from major productions from talent agencies, casting directors, and even from SAG. By the end of the month, we were all ready to send out our package to agencies out in the city and put ourselves out there.
I was lucky, blessed and fortunate enough to send my package to Talent X Alexander, and I was contacted by my now agent, Lisa Mooney , not even two hours after I submitted my package. I signed with Talent X immediately. As I’ve experience what it’s like to audition for actual official productions and commercials and short films and movies, I’ve been blessed to land a couple of roles.
Throughout this time I also never stop creating contact with my best friend, Jon. Since then what we turned from Mojave of re-creating scenes from movies and television shows, we are now transformed into an actual production company to now where we create original content. We’ve invested our own money into our productions, hiring actual professionals to help film, and our produce are content, equipment, locations, etc. We have officially produced three projects as of now. One is currently and post production, we got hired to produce this particular project, but we also got to audition for it and land roles as well. We have two other finished projects. Both were submitted to the independent short film festival in LA. One of those projects got nominated for an award, and the other one actually won in the award.
Which brings me to know. I’m currently sitting on a couch and an Airbnb in Los Angeles getting ready to attend this film festival that me and my production company got invited to because we are award winners.
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
It has definitely not been a smooth road. My own personal journey throughout all of this has been hell itself, but I wouldn’t have it any other way, because I wouldn’t be the man I am today if I didn’t experience and live through all of those hardships. There is a point in time where my apartment burnt down, and I lost about 70% of my personal belongings, and all of the money that I was making from the five simultaneous jobs that I was working at the time we’re all going to the conservatory that I was enrolled in, or they went to a workshop that I wanted to go to, or an acting class. I slept in my car numerous nights, or on a friends couch, but I never use the money I make to accommodate my living expenses, I use them to invest in my self in my career, turns out starting to pay off.
I’ve severed relationships with people that I thought were close to me, some of my closest and best friends we know how strange relationships are. I don’t speak to them anymore, I’ve given up opportunities to go places, or meet particular people, or do certain things, I’ve missed out on a lot, for the sake of being a workaholic and trying to create something out of nothing. And then the times when I did decline all of those invitations, or I did sever those relationships or I didn’t go out with my friends, and it seemed like nothing was ever going to work out in my favor. Lo and behold here. I am about to attend this award show, walk a red carpet, networking socialize with people and professionals that are in my actual career that could help steer me in the right direction, personally, and professionally with my production company, or just me in general. That makes the sacrifice all worth it, and the only person I need by my side is my best friend, Jon Spight, who is also the co-owner to the production company that I own, which is a Lunar Productions, you can find us on Instagram under @lunarfilm productions,
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
First and foremost, I’m an actor first, that’s what got into the business of filmmaking and that’s what will probably keep my longevity as well. I got it to Acton because it’s a way for me to express my emotions without me having to go home with those emotions I get mad all the time in my personal life but that doesn’t mean that I scream at anybody, with acting I can do that. I can cry I can let off steam, I can get into a fight scene, I can do a plethora of things, and no one will actually get hurt. I can get the opportunity to travel the world, meet all kinds of people from all different walks of life, and also possibly get handsomely paid for it as well, and all I have to do is just be myself. It’s not a bad gig.
I also serve as a producer, director, and writer. As I stated before, already, I own a production company where we have produced three films, as of right now, two are in festivals, and one is still in post production, we are also in the middle of shooting a short series written, directed by, and starring Jon, and currently about to start pre-production for a mini series written by me, I will also be directing and starring in this miniseries.
What am I most proud of? It’s hard for me to conceptualize still that two years ago. I didn’t know anything about filmmaking for the most part, and now here I am in Los Angeles as an award winner I’m not proud of a particular project, I’m more proud of the fact that we did not ever quit, we did not ever stop, we always kept going, and now here we are because of that.
When I was a PA on Chicago MED, I got a chance, I got a few different chances actually to converse with Nick Gehlfus. He was one of the lead stars on the show at the time I was able to talk to a very sad mount of actors and directors of course, from Sarah Rafferty, Dominic Rains, Marlyne Barrett, Steve and Weber, Ethan Choi, Nicole Rubio, the list goes on. But the most memorable conversation that I had was with Nick Gehlfus. I remember him specifically saying it takes a mild obsession to become successful in this business. Not to the point where you’re losing sleep or you’re not eating but to the point where maybe you are not hanging out with your friends as much as you’re getting the opportunity to maybe you’re not going to those parties you’re not eating out you are spending every single ounce of free time you have working on your craft, whatever that craft is that producing directing acting, etc. It takes an obsession that was going to set you apart from the others. Consistency.
Not only that, but being a young black man in America, along with Jon, with no graduate, no degree or no doctors and filmmaking we didn’t go to school for this. I went to the school of hard knocks. I learned everything through experience, through actually been on set. Working as an extra, working as a Production Assistant, working as Health And Safety after Covid, reading those books, taking those classes, investing in those workshops, watching videos, watching film, creating our own content, and learning to get better at creating content through failure, and the Keita all of that was to keep going. I sometimes feel that I have to work twice as hard, to be twice as good, to get while others have. That’s very disheartening. It’s very discouraging, but regardless it doesn’t affect me. Not only because I have faith in myself, but I have a best friend and a partner and someone like John where I can rely and fall back on in my lowest points and vice versa for him.
Is there a quality that you most attribute to your success?
Ambition is number one. Do you have to be a dreamer, you have to create boundaries. You have to find these goals you have to establish them, and then you have to execute them.
Consistency is number two. You don’t have to be consistent to the point where you’re doing something every day 24 hours out of a day seven days a week you’re a human being live your life work work whatever job that you have to do what you Gotta do to survive in the world, but do not fall back on your plans on your ambition. You have to stay motivated you cannot give up on the dream. Make a schedule find an accountability partner do whatever you have to do to stay on the path whatever that path looks like it can be once a week, it could be twice a month, whatever pace that you want to go at, but it has to be consistent.
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