Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Radomir Jordanovic. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Radomir, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. If you could go back in time do you wish you had started your creative career sooner or later?
I started really young with just any software I could get, and before that I was editing with tapes. When I was 13, my dad said, “I see that you like this audio and video stuff, so let’s go get some real software for it.” We went to Circuit City, if you remember those stores. We got Magix Music and Video Maker Generation 6 Deluxe. With that, I had a greater range of abilities in making videos, and I wish I had had software like that even earlier.
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 started shooting my own movies in Indianapolis. Later, I moved to Los Angeles for a larger community of people shooting their own movies.
Last year, I shot a movie called “Pay the Lady,” which is on Amazon and Tubi. It’s a drama starring Lauryn Ford, who plays an abused wife who seeks revenge against her crime-boss husband by devising a plan to steal his Bitcoin fortune. Also I worked on countless short films, and I traveled to shoot VR content with various comedians and hip hop stars. It was pretty cool shooting an interview with Busta Rhymes, for instance. And earlier this year, I traveled to Mexico to make a documentary that will come out soon. Currently, I’m writing two movie scripts to shoot in the next many months, and I’m always looking for even more to do.
Have any books or other resources had a big impact on you?
My favorite book on this subject is “On Directing Film” by David Mamet. It reads like a conversation between him and his students, and it shows the choices needed to communicate visually. Too often, I go to film festivals and watch a movie that is a basic retelling of events in a person’s life, with experience excused as plot. That’s just footage of people. Everyone should read this book.
I like also “Your Movie Sucks” by Roger Ebert. It’s a collection of Ebert’s two-star reviews. I like to watch a bad movie every now and then because I can see it falling apart at the seams, and it’s easier to see through the veil and into the faults of the production and learn from that. This book is better than bad films because you don’t have to watch a bad movie and still you’ll get a sense of what to do to make your audience happy.
I’m a fan of “Save the Cat” by Blake Snyder for its anthropological view of storytelling. Snyder explains that he listened to movies and could tell that there was a naturally occurring storytelling cadence, so he broke it down into his format that now everyone seems to be using. I like it because it can help with writer’s block. Now, if I have an idea, I can see where in the list of story beats it probably fits and see which beats take me to and from there. It improves the writing process.
Are there any resources you wish you knew about earlier in your creative journey?
There are countless little shops throughout Los Angeles that service cameras and sell unique items that productions really need. I wish I could have known about all of them at once, but I’m glad that I’m finding out about them as I go. For instance, there’s a small shop without even a storefront, and it looks like it’s one guy who repairs lenses. There’s another store, this one with a storefront, with one guy who repairs tripods. I had known of some, though, like Duclos, and I’m really enjoying that I can just drive over there now that I live in Los Angeles.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.custommadename.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/custommadename/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/custommadename
Image Credits
Christina Korotich, https://www.instagram.com/christina_korotich Yung Rick Foxx, https://www.instagram.com/yungrickfoxx/ Kayla Eva, https://www.instagram.com/kaylaeva_/