We caught up with the brilliant and insightful J. Michael Hayes a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
J. Michael, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. We’d love to hear about a project that you’ve worked on that’s meant a lot to you.
I feel so blessed to be in a position where almost all the work I am involved in right now feels really meaningful. My agency is currently working with a company that has spent 20 years developing assessments and early intervention for children with reading challenges. Some of our other clients include a Wampanoag history museum, an equine therapy center, and an online comic convention centered on BIPOC creators.
Two current projects hold a special place though.
On the design and development end of things, I’m working with my wife and her sister to launch a lifestyle brand intended to celebrate and educate about their Jamaican culture, from Patois greeting cards to products inspired by important historical figures. It’s going to be really exciting to launch that in the next month or so.
The other project is a short film I directed and co-wrote with one of my favorite collaborators, author Zig Zag Claybourne. It was all shot on Martha’s Vineyard with an brilliant young director of photography, Emerson Mahoney. From the actors to the music, to design, we have the most amazing group I could ever ask for.
We’re telling a story about the transition from childhood to adulthood, or any life transition really, through a fantasy tale that pulls from a number of diverse cultural references. But it was important for us to make sure that in doing so we avoided the cliches and stereotypes that often happen when fantasy pulls from non-European cultures, especially indigenous cultures. We wanted to make the anti-Avatar, if you get my meaning.
Both of those projects have been so broad in scope, but the process of collaboration and the depth of their stories have made them two of the most meaningful projects I’ve ever been a part of.
J. Michael, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?
I make dope thing with talented, passionate people!
I’ve spent the last 13 years as creative director and co-founder of Anansi Hayes Media, a design and marketing agency with clients around the globe. Our goal is to help businesses with bold, meaningful ideas bring their visions to fruition. Embracing the collaborative process, and being able to feel good about what I’m involved in creating, that makes it a lot easier to head into the studio in every morning.
In addition to the work with my agency, I’ve worked in a number of different creative fields over the last 20+ years and I’ve come to think of art as being fluid. Music, visual art and design, literature, film, each medium draws inspiration from the others, and there are methodologies that are directly transferable between them as well.
Over the last two years, I’ve been working to combine the skills I’ve developed as a creative director with my work as a writer and musician, and my life long love of film. That has all come together in founding Cast Iron Rocket, a film production company using storytelling, music and design to create more dope things with talented and passionate people. It’s the most collaborative thing I’ve ever been involved with and I’m loving every aspect of it.
Is there mission driving your creative journey?
When I talk about creating dope things, whether it’s in writing or film, scifi, fantasy, or horror, I want explore and celebrate the beautiful uniqueness in each of us. People use the word “Diversity” but one of my writing mentors, Tananarive Due, has a better term: “Reality”. Our world is infinitely diverse. That is reality. So creating art, film, or even marketing that reflects that reality shouldn’t be considered revolutionary. It shouldn’t be strategic or require some outside incentive. It should be obvious, normal. Why would you do anything else?
Nobody wants to hear a song where every instrument is playing the same note in the same rhythm, over and over. Harmony is made up of many different voices. I want anything I’m involved in creating to follow that approach.
Are there any books, videos, essays or other resources that have significantly impacted your management and entrepreneurial thinking and philosophy?
I keep a stack of books in my studio that includes fiction, philosophy, poetry, art, cookbooks, comics, scripts, all stuff that inspires and challenges me.
There are so many great resources out there right now, it can almost be intimidating. If you learn how to wade through the deluge of information and opinions, you can find people with genuine experience who are willing to share their knowledge. But you’ve got to look for people who have given thought to the methods of success rather than their specific circumstances. You can’t follow anyone else’s exact path, there are just too many variables along the way.
My writing mentors, Tananarive Due and Steven Barnes, have a wonderful podcast called “Lifewriting” that explores balancing a creative lifestyle and finding your way in Hollywood. And while that sounds specific, between their well thought out ideas around personal development and the stories of all their incredible guest, you can really apply the knowledge they drop to almost any field. Steven Barnes makes two points that I think are relevant to just about anyone, but especially folks in creative fields.
The first point is that creativity comes from your inner child, and you have to give that child the room to feel safe and play. When it’s time to handle the business side of your creative career, that’s when your inner parent comes out, reasoning, caretaking. Those two parts of yourself should support and complement each other, rather than compete.
The second point is about understanding the premise of mastery, and that the skills required to master anything can roll over to just about anything else. When you’re a creative that works across a lot of different areas, like I do, you’ll see the commonalities all the time.
The other concept that has had a huge effect on my approach to business and creativity is really simple: Go to the source! When I was in my early 20’s I was lucky to learn directly from two of my heroes, but I realized that they had put so much of themselves into their work, and that’s readily available to anyone. So I started trying to absorb what I could from people I thought were masters of their crafts.
As an example, very few people get the opportunity to sit down with someone like Jordon Peele, but you can get his annotated script to “Get Out” on amazon. Most people will never get to pick Stevie Wonder’s brain, but there is a great documentary about the making of “Song In The Key of Life” and things in that film have stuck with me for over 20 years, and even translated to how I work in my design agency. Study the way people have made their professional moves, don’t just look at your favorites, find out who their favorites are and so on. Go down that rabbit hole. The more you do that the more you’ll discover those commonalities that Steven Barnes is talking about.
Combine that approach with the idea of creating harmony through incorporating diverse voices and perspectives into you work and, while everyone may define success differently, you’ll at least be involved in creating dope thing.
Contact Info:
- Website: castironrocket.co
- Instagram: @castironrocketproductions
- Other: anansihayes.com
Image Credits
all images © Anansi Hayes Media / Cast Iron Rocket