We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful James M. Perry. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with James below.

Hi James, thanks for joining us today. What do you think matters most in terms of achieving success?

To be successful with anything, I believe you must be able to stay consistent and don’t be afraid to fail. Everything is a lesson. You must be passionate about what you’re doing, be disciplined, and have fun while you’re doing it.

You know what you’re here for so you should enjoy it. They will be good days and bad days. A person must be able to fight through the adversities because they will be many bumps on the journey to your goals.

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

I’m a self-taught filmmaker., born in Baltimore, MD. I previously worked on sets in Baltimore, New Jersey, and Fort Lauderdale doing various production jobs but wanted to step out on my own and take it to the next level. This led to me producing my first written/directed short film entitled “Disillusion” which is now on various streaming platforms.  It’s been a journey since then because I was still learning the type of filmmaker that I wanted to become. Outside of my own produced content, I worked on various creative collaborative projects. This included films written by other writers, commercials to even concept music videos in Miami Florida. One of my most recent collaborative short films entitled “Invisible War” was screened at New York City’s AMC theaters in Times Square.
We had a screening with the IndieNight Film Festival scheduled at the Chinese theater in Los Angeles California. It was canceled due to the pandemic lockdown. Everything had changed but it did open networking doors for projects to be added to various streaming platforms. This includes my YouTube channel accumulating over 3 million views and projects being added to platforms like Amazon Prime and WatchFearless.

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

Great resilience is powerful, especially on your journey to become the greatest version of yourself. It’s a road that many won’t travel and like any road, it’s not always smooth. There are so many things to deal with. We have our creative struggles and our personal ones and sometimes the lack of support can weigh heavy on you, both emotionally and psychologically. Many of our peers can’t fathom investing time or money into their passion. They only see posts on social media. They don’t see the late nights, the early mornings, the pre-production, rehearsals, and the hard work while attempting to maintain momentum and progression. This is when willpower enters. As artists and creators, we must fight through adversities to achieve progression and success. Everything that I learned in this field was out loud. There was no celebrity co-signs or big-time investors. This is a very hands-on journey and it begins not in your favor, especially as a young black filmmaker coming from Baltimore city. There is a struggle, but I look forward to that struggle because the reward is not earned without risk.

That is something that we all either dealt with or still deal with today.
If someone finds themselves struggling with too many things at once. It’s okay to take some time to figure it out. If needed, take a mediated deep breath and create a list of whatever you’re working on. You take that list and select what needs to be worked on first. Be firm with yourself but don’t beat yourself up.
You do that and soon you’ll be running towards your problems with a sword.

How did you build your audience on social media?

I feel like my social media presence is still growing but I’m blessed to have the supporters that I currently have. I look at social media sometimes as an art gallery or showreel for a visual brand. All of the posts matter even if it’s personal because your audience will likely connect with them. I try to keep it equally interesting and professional. I don’t post everything every day but when I do it’s how I feel. I do use it to promote my content but I try to sprinkle some traditional posts in there. I control my social media personally so I try to engage whenever I can.

Contact Info:

• Website: JamesMPerry.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/james.perry/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/XPerry6
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/c/JamesMPerry
• Other: Director Showreel https://youtu.be/ajVk7FxuL88

Image Credits
Akio Evans