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

Hi Joshua, thanks for joining us today. Let’s start with the story of your mission. What should we know?

I wrote this with the Prompt : What’s the kindest thing anyone has ever done for you?
Give us the backstory so we can fully appreciate the context, circumstances and what you must have felt like at the moment and why it mattered so much or was so meaningful to you.

– But that prompt disappeared in the dropdown menu. Does this still work?

In 2010 the house I was renting with my friends and family to produce music, was struck as collateral damage from the 2008 housing crisis, and although we had been paying our rent, the owner, unknown to us, was falling further and further behind on their mortgage. We got a surprise letter that the house was being foreclosed on, and we had 30 days to move. At the time we had 5 people, a dog, and a huge music recording studio to move, and there were not many options we could find at such short notice for such a strange living situation. But last minute we did find a new home.

One of my clients at the time was dating a guy by the name Karl Weidmann, and he was a photographer producing her social media content. We didn’t know a lot of people in Nashville at the time, but the boyfriend of our client offered to help us move and we took him up on the offer. Our house took all day to pack up, and as the sun was setting, my client bailed cuz it was getting late., But her boyfriend, who we didn’t know very well at the time, and had no reason to stay, should have left with his girlfriend, but helped us finish packing up when everyone else left, Karl stayed to the end.

It was the dead of night when we finished. January winter ice frozen on the ground. It also happened to be my birthday. A lot of things were converging at this moment. I was cold, tired and stressed. It was supposed to be a day of celebration, but we are struggling to move with limited time and resources.

My client had brought a Birthday cupcake for me, but now that she was gone, her boyfriend Karl was the only one left. If it was me in his shoes, I never would have given another grown man a single birthday cupcake with sprinkles… I would’ve been too proud, or embarrassed…

But when Karl handed me that cupcake, I just started crying. He didn’t need to be there, he didn’t need to help us. He should have left hours ago with his girlfriend.

Karl’s help on that night was so unexpected, so surprising… I’ve never used the word kind to describe it, but it was that kindness that overwhelmed me.

At the time, I didn’t know Karl would become my best friend in Nashville and we would soon start a small business together. Looking back, I realize, I’m so blessed to have such good friends that I can trust in business and life.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

Soon after the cupcake, I started shifting from music production to video production, and the only guy I knew in Nashville with a video camera was Karl. Karl studied music production at Full Sail University and I studied music production at the school of trial and error. He was a dedicated military man, I was a college drop out with a passion for art. Despite our different backgrounds we were two people with music production skills aspiring to be filmmakers.

It’s still all about music, even with visual content. We approach our cinematography and visual editing like a song. The discordant tones, the resolving harmony. The fast paced buildup to the gentle letdown. I still see music when I edit the video timeline or set up lights on set or direct the flow of the camera.

But we were untethered and wild. We needed a stable guiding force to center us.

Lenny Burnett was dating another friend of mine, and he had a background in computer systems. Lenny had the vision for the business that Karl and I were too naïve to grasp.

Just like Karl, Lenny made a big impression on me, when I told him I wasn’t sure I wanted to be involved in a business with him. Not soon after, despite my initial resistance, he showed up to my house with a mockup of a company T-shirt that read “Southern Cabin Films”. And he asked me to start a business together one last time. His persistence won me over.

I think my inner artist is obsessed with individualism and it has taken partners like Karl and Lenny to show me that, as a team we could accomplish so much more.

Lenny started the website, designed our logo, and made business contacts that would lead to some of our best client relationships (Country Music Hall of Fame, BMI, World Hotels, Tedx Nashville, Make a Wish Foundation, Vanderbilt Medical, SiriusXM The Highway)

Quality in this industry is a given and expected. What sets us apart is our attitude. Lenny is always in a bubbly good mood. Karl is kind, compassionate, tough when he needs to be, and I’m always trying to come up with the most audacious and unexpected angles I can muster. I try to break brains, Karl leads us through the trenches, and Lenny is the positive hype man with a vision for the future.

Is there a particular goal or mission driving your creative journey?

In these politically divisive times, one thing that brings me peace at night, is despite Karl and I having radically different political and philosophical views of the world, we still have managed to be business partners and even better friends. In times of info wars and AI images that generate misinformation, our friendship has lasted through the push and pull of bickering media.

I won’t lie, it has not been easy, but nothing in this life is, and the most meaningful relationships must traverse the dark valleys to emerge to the mountaintop to witness that pure radiant sunrise.

I have a philosophy of interchangeable camera lens as heuristics to live by. To fully capture the essence of a story, a cinematographer must use multiple lenses. This applies to more than just political philosophy, but for example; All humans are simultaneously different parts Progressive, Libertarian, and Conservative. Progressives usually care about oppression. Libertarians usually care about coercion. Conservatives usually care about passing on lessons of tradition.

I believe to be a fully actualized citizen and artist we need to care about all of these concepts in different times and in varying applications. Karl and Lenny have helped me see the benefit of different viewpoints and I believe it’s those unique “lenses” that makes us better storytellers.

Are there any resources you wish you knew about earlier in your creative journey?

Another filmmaker friend invited me to be an Extra in a music video with Hardy starring Kevin James (King and Queens, Paul Blart Mall Cop). I invited our intern Gavin Gunter to come along.

I’m twice the age of Gavin and I like to think I’m smarter than him. However, Gavin struck up a convo with a man on set, and it turns out he was the owner of the Location. He proceeded to tell us about how he was a stunt driver for Shia Labeouf movies and he’s a Folly artist (sound design for Hollywood movies). He then graciously offered us his private home for free for a future film location.

I’m not a very outgoing person naturally, but seeing the connections Gavin opened up with a simple friendly conversation reminded me of the power of not being “too cool” to ask questions and showing how genuine curiosity is the best gateway to knowledge, solutions, and business connections

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