We were lucky to catch up with Steven Middleton recently and have shared our conversation below.

Steven , looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. We’d love to hear about when you first realized that you wanted to pursue a creative path professionally.

Growing up inside a rural landscape I was very removed from the hustle and bustle of cities, and city life. My two constant companions were films, and music. I watched movies voraciously! Going to rent movie or flea markets to buy old movies became my favorite hobby. I watched everything I could find from westerns, to Samurai films, to the ever mind expanding works of David Lynch. While I lived in a rural area these works took my mind to places that I could never travel to. Slowly I started to become interested in music. Certain films that I favored how great soundtracks. I especially like old classic country and bluegrass. Slowly after watching the Band’s finale concert film The Last Waltz I wanted to learn to play and be in a band. So I decided at the age of 13 I wanted to do two things and two things only for my life. 1. Make movies, and 2. Play music and I have done both ever since.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

Steven Middleton, founder of State Run Media Productions LLC, is a documentarian that documents social, imaginative, ethnographic, and eccentric stories about Appalachia and the American South. When filming, he becomes highly involved with the subjects — sleeping, ingesting, and breathing with those he is focusing on, exceeding the divide between observer and subject. His films have been featured in film festivals internationally, and broadcast on PBS affiliates in the USA.

What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?

Being able to not be like everyone else. As odd as it sounds I never wanted the life of get married, have kids, buy a house, have a family. I felt that life trapped me and did not allow my creative aspects to flow. Without creativity I am nothing and would be less than alive if I could not produce film and music. So the most rewarding aspect to me is to be free and with my creations live a life of kindness, love, and creativity. I don’t have a lot but what I have I created with my own mind and hard work. This is something that nobody can ever take from me.

Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?

I grew up in rural Appalachia in an area that is at least 40 minutes from a modern town or walmart. When you live in rural areas like I have you have to become resilient and tough. Instead of giving up or becoming another opioid statistic of my geographic area I strived to get out both physically and creatively to show the world that the Appalachian Mountains and it’s people are not all bad and we have amazing creative human beings here that just need a chance. A change to break out, travel, and let our voices be heard.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/staterunmedia/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/steven-middleton-b7594023/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/StateRunMediaPr
• Other: https://vimeo.com/staterunmediaproductions/videos