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

Joyce, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Let’s start with what makes profitability in your industry a challenge – what would you say is the biggest challenge?

The biggest challenge to profitability in the film and television industry is getting investors to support our work. We strive to create original and entertaining content and getting our work promoted helps tremendously. We have found that the key to more profitability is through promotion and establishing great relationships with investors/aggregators, etc. It is still a huge challenge to get into the room with the gate keepers in our industry, but we continue to move forward and be consistent in producing great content which has garnered a stellar reputation. Throughout the years, my partner, Brian Shackelford and I have nurtured our relationships with other producers, writers, directors and film and television companies that stay in touch with us to get updates on our status with various projects that we’re working on. It has benefitted us to do this, because sometimes the advantage comes years later, not months when one of the entities will reach out with a request that we can fill with content we’ve already created. This is has been the biggest asset that we have been able to offer. In laymen’s terns: Let your work speak for itself by getting into rooms that you haven’t made it into yet.

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.

I moved to California many years ago and planned to become a veterinarian, but my plans change when I saw the cruelty involved in meat production. This swayed me to consider my 2nd love, which was always battling for 1st place: Film and Television. I grew up in the Midwest (Indianapolis, Indiana) and although my parents made us stay outside and play until dark, I did get to watch a lot of television. My parents kept us busy throughout the week, with school activities, piano lessons and household chores. But on Saturday night and all day Sunday, we got to watch as much tv as we wanted. There was the Early Morning Movie, The Mid-Morning Movie, The Afternoon Movie, The Late-Afternoon Movie and the Nighttime movie. I would practically sit in front of the television for eight hours. This was streaming before streaming. (laugh). But, I led a very well-rounded life. my family travels a lot and my siblings and I enjoyed long bike rides, hikes with our dog and we were very fortunate to grow up i the suburbs in a beautiful neighborhood that allowed all of it. I am very grateful to my parents for allowing my creativity to flourish in such a setting. I began working in the industry right after college graduation at the LA PBS affiliate, KLCS TV-Channel 58, but I simultaneously kept a night job working for the City of Los Angeles. I did this to have the freedom to work on projects for free, which eventually led to independent contracts for pay. It was like being a waitress, but for lots more money. I made a good living and by being so young, I could do it all. No relationship, no kids. It was great. Then, I decided to quit the night job and work full-time in television which worked well for me. I transitioned into working for a public access channel, Channel 35 in Los Angeles full-time and then realized that I wanted to own property and my current job wasn’t paying enough. So I left it and began working at two cable networks, 7 days a week. I started at E! Entertainment as a producer for their E! News and E! Online departments, and then I got a position with Black Entertainment Television (BET) as a Managing Coordinator aka Showrunner for 3 shows: Comicview:Caliente, Holla, the talk show with Sheryl Underwood (prior to her stint on “The Talk”) and finally the comedy sketch show “The Way We Do It”), I also worked on numerous independent short films during hiatus, also shot a documentary on Mary Fields in Cascade, Montana in 2007, LONG BEFORE people started talking about her titled, “Discovering Mary”, and I continued to work at E! Entertainment. I was a busy bee. This was all before I met Brian Shackelford, my current partner. WE met when I hired him for an editing project and when we met in 2009, we have been together ever since. We both recognized that we LOVED movies and television and even though we both had lucrative careers, we wanted to team up instead of competing against one another (we actually competed in various film festivals before we teamed up). Once we got together, we’ve been creating great content ever since. My proudest projects to date are the latest films we’ve completed. I am very proud of our family film, “Hidden Orchard Mysteries: The Case of the Air B and B Robbery” because it’s based on my childhood community and the name “Hidden Orchard” is the real life name of the street I grew up on in Indianapolis. I am also proud of our latest documentary: “The Color of Medicine: The Story of Homer G. Phillips Hospital” because it is based on the 1st all premier black hospital in the world that was built in 1937 and remained open until 1979.

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

The story that I want to share that illustrates my resilience, is I am a breast cancer survivor. I found out in 2015 and I have been fighting the fight ever since. Even though my film and television career began before my illness, it did not stop me from moving forward. I am currently under treatment and everyday is a blessing for me to still be on the planet creating and seeing my work being shared to the world. I hope that I will be allowed to continue to see my work flourish and grow in numerous ways: more films, more television projects, books, etc., Hopefully my lief will continue for many years to come. But, if my time comes to an end, I will be very proud of what I”ve accomplished and I hope the legacy I leave will encourage others to pursue their life dreams in film, television or whatever their hearts desire and that my work entertains, educates and provides a range of emotions for many years to come.

How’d you build such a strong reputation within your market?

I think fostering relationships with other in my industry has helped build my reputation. As I stated before, I have been in Los Angeles for may years and the entertainment industry is very small. You generally know just about everyone in it, even if you’ve only crossed paths with them one or twice. But, how you speak about others and how you treat others does get around and if your reputation is negative, it will affect you. I try to remain neutral and not speak on certain topics because we are living in a very divided world right now, and I think keeping my opinions to myself are best. Because of the quality of our work, we are constantly considered for various opportunities. We are smart enough to not wait on one project before starting another, you have to keep busy to survive in this town and you can’t wait on one project to come through. You must balance several plates at once and whatever you do, do NOT rely on one source of income. This is a very expensive place to live and I was fortunate enough to invest early on and that has helped me sustain a certain lifestyle that I work hard to maintain. In conclusion, your reputation proceeds you, so tread carefully.

Contact Info:

• Website: flatcar-productions.com
• Instagram: @fitzparickJoyce
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/JoyceMarieFitzpatrick
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/joycemariefitzpatrick/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/ProducerJoyce
• Youtube: https://youtu.be/gBn8Jw5GElI

Image Credits
Gabriella Pastore Ja’Ness Tate