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

Lavelle, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. It’s always helpful to hear about times when someone’s had to take a risk – how did they think through the decision, why did they take the risk, and what ended up happening. We’d love to hear about a risk you’ve taken.

As storytellers, my writing partner and I have had to risk finances, vulnerability, and criticism, to bring our stories to life. We (Devin “Big Ruk” Wilburn and I) started out on our individual paths, however, those paths led us across each other’s path, allowing us to bring our talents together. As we embarked upon our first feature film together, we had to face the challenges of inexperience in directing and finding the funding to make a feature film. Through determination, faith, and family and friends, we have been able to write a full length feature film, get investment partners, hire actors and crew members, and start pre-production on our project. It has not been an easy road and while we still a lot of work to do, we are on our way to getting this film out to the masses. It has been a risk that is well worth the reward.

Lavelle, 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?

My wife, Dr. Gabrielle Lemonier and I, own and operate a photography and videography business, Lemonier Photography. My partner (Ruk) is the same, a creative as well. He is an music artist, producer, and actor. We are both in the creative space, using our talents to act, write, and produce. We met on a film set and that meeting positioned us for this space that we are in. After being on set and seeing productions from the other side of the camera, we felt compelled to start our own production company, Dream Team Alliance. We are both successful podcasters as well and that experience has helped us on this journey toward , filmmaking. With great input and advice from filmmakers such as Johnnard Harper, Joseph Elmore, Jr., and industry veteran, Curtis Von Burrell, we have been able to move forward in this process with a lot of confidence and appreciation. Our brand, Dream Team Alliance, is simple…we make movies…PERIOD.

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

My writing partner and I, Devin “Big Ruk” Wilburn, started out on the journey to make a feature film, with nothing. All we had was a completed script. There were a million reasons to wait or to let someone else make the movie for us, but we determined that it’s our story and we can tell it better than anyone else. We are both inspired by filmmakers such as Tyler Perry, John Singleton, and Spike Lee, among many others. With no funding in place, no distribution, and no apparent steps to take, we stepped out on faith. That faith allowed us to find investment partners, find a distribution company in Los Angeles, and find the right steps to take to build a team to make our film.

We’d love to hear about you met your business partner.

Ruk and I met on the set of Joseph Elmore, Jr.’s feature film, Gutter. There was an instant bond and we immediately started communicating. He is the founder of a popular podcast, Tha Daily Smoke and I am the co-creator (along with my wife, Dr. Gabrielle Lemonier) of the successful podcast, The DadCast Podcast. We worked together on a few episodes of the podcast, then we developed a trusted friendship. A director reached out to me about writing a Christmas movie. So I reached out to Ruk to write it with me. Together we wrote this amazing script, A Very Bayou Christmas. Due to scheduling reasons, the director who asked for the script, backed out on us. So we thought, “we can do this.” So we decided to take the script and bring it to life ourselves.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.dreamteamalliance.biz
• Instagram: @dtadreamteamalliance
• Twitter: _dtalliance

Image Credits
image credits Lemonier Photography