Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to James Lewis. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Hi James, thanks for joining us today. Can you open up about a risk you’ve taken – what it was like taking that risk, why you took the risk and how it turned out?

How about the story of me being stranded on a caribbean island after a producer shut down production of a film I was about to direct, to be shot on location in the tropics and just weeks from starting shooting. Talk about losing face. Going back to the big city empty handed was just not in the cards. This was friggin PTSD-like. It was time to take some risk and make lemonade out of lemons, albeit fresh tropical ones. This is the story of me recognizing an opportunity among the disaster of years of preparation for a never to be project, and seizing on it.

That opportunity turned out to be (after more years of toil) a now famous movie a feature length Documentary called HEARTLAND REGGAE which I shot and Directed in Jamaica in the late 70’s and still is in release and beloved and recently Paramount pictures included some footage from my film in their upcoming 2024 big budget production “Marley”.

So I guess my ‘story’ about ‘risk’ would be the above with some anecdotal trials and tribulations in the making of the movie and and how overcoming and sacrificing in the end became a pretty historic and internationally entertaining film… helping or hindering my burgeoning career in the industry may be the underlying question.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

I went to art school for 5 years 3 in Canada and 2 at the Chicago Academy of Fine Art. But in the end I fell in love with filmmaking. that of making kinetic art, art that spoke and moved and resonated. That would be my calling!

As a creative ‘artistic’ person you are outside the mainstream. This is a fact. The stream is made up of all kinds of fish, few are artists though, although without art the world would be untenable. These days the fine artist is being overridden by Artificial Intelligence, further thinning the pool of human originators. Movies were expensive to make and employed dozens of specialized artists behind the scenes and in front of the cameras, many now will be redundant. What most don’t understand that these folks in all crafts are driven and compelled by ancient forces to ply their trade. These forces are beyond our control realm, they whell up inside and manifest as … well.. inspiration.

‘Inspiration’ is a jewel that shines seldom and briefly and when it does the artist must strike and overcome any variances not unlike the lovestruck warrior bent on fulfilling their destiny. This is the passion that makes for real art, and drives it’s creators to move heaven and earth to complete their inspired contribution to the betterment of all.

So I, like my artistic colleagues before me I’m am simply a guy with some gifts to offer. Some of us attain notice. Some, more likely most, will suffer quietly.

We’d love to hear your thoughts on NFTs. (Note: this is for education/entertainment purposes only, readers should not construe this as advice)

NFT’s got a bad rap, and too many sketchy players leaked into the pool. I was kind of elitist. Humans are tactile and digital is not. Intellectually one has to accede to this premise to accept to veracity of NFT’s. Trust these days is being eroded and NFT’s to a great degree required a foundation of trust and digital watermarking. A.I. will further erode our trust in visual acumen that NFT’s rely on.. NFT’s are not about an aesthetic more about a currency, thus passion is excluded from the desire component. It’s hard to get your head around a digital bored very expensive graphic of an ape sometimes. I’d revisit this concept in a decade or so, if we’re here to mind meld by then.

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

Trying to make it in the movie business is fraught with rejection and even with herculean tenacity it will guaranteed to take way longer then you ever imagined to succeed, if ever. Sometimes the if ever rears it’s head and you have to sheve your dream just to survive and take care of your family, while of course still harbouring your artistic ambitions, whatever the medium. And sometimes things come full circle just when you don’t expect it. Here’s a tale of ambition, opportunity, and risk.

I had to give it up. My scripts were not getting it. My drive was wilting and the cost of diapers was rising. I decided to switch gears. Retail! My dad was a merchant, I should be good at retail. But how to bring it into today and the future. Was there a niche. I decided to fowd Laserplex, you’re one stop high end computer printing shop and fax service and photocopying. This was back when no one had a laser printer and it was five bucks a page to print your work at Laserplex. We were upstairs in a mall. With my graphics training I was able to promote the place up and do small gigs helping walkins with logos and layout on top of printing their brochures and menus and diaries etc. I still held on to my passion to make films but the focus was on lifting the little business at the time.

One day a jolly fellow came in with a handful of those disks and asked me to laser print the final version of his fifteenth book, another novel. He had some success in his authorship career and was given hefty advances to deliver a novel or two per year. We got to talking and over time he learned of my filmmaking passion and prowess if even in the underground scene at the time. One day he ask me to teach him how to write screenplays, as his writing output was long form paperback and hardcover books. A screenplay is very different. I agreed and as experience is the best teacher I said let’s write a screenplay together and I’ll show you the format and rules of cinematic storytelling and I in turn will learn from you how to write properly, period. So then we had to figure out what to write and he said his best seller was a story based on a unnatural disaster in British Columbia and that he felt we could pitch CBC on it and we did and we got and advance to deliver a script to CBC based on his book.

So we decided to move from Toronto to BC with both our families and write the script. I gave up Laserplex and I was back in showbiz and off we went three thousand miles to relocate in Vancouver and write we did and he learned how to write for the screen and when we were done and turned in the finished draft the CBC said it was too expensive.. We had become so engrossed in writing the story that I forgot how ambitious it was and of course it never got made but we got paid and wrote many more movies together over time. I went on to become the president of a film union and eventually joined IATSE the giant international film union as a 2nd unit cameraman/director and had a long career shooting TV and Feature movies. So that pivot to Laserplex let to an unpivot which in turn fulfilled my lifelong ambition.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.heartlandreggae.ca

Image Credits
I own all the rights to all the images I have provided.. JP Lewis 9/10/2023