Urban League Of Essex County - Creative Agency Directorial Debut

At the Urban League of Essex County, it’s why flows from the belief that every person deserves equal access to the resources they need to achieve their potential. I am so pleased to announce my personal directorial debut for this organization. When I was approached by program director, Kevin Jones to help create a film that was not the traditional capabilities piece that would show at their annual Red Gala to help raise funds as a donation/inspiration film, I said as Curated’s agency director - “this is right up my alley.” I tend to not follow traditional paths in almost everything I do. Sometimes it gets me into trouble, but the payoff and the impact is often better than I could dream of. A little angel sat on my shoulder that day and said, “well kid, you’re now a director - figure it out.”

From there, we chose to dig into the human lived experience in each of our subject’s stories. We didn’t create a film that was a traditional deck of dreamy music and long pans over locations and testimonials by the senior officers of the organization. We didn’t create poverty-porn. We knew that If the goal was to raise money for the underserved communities of Newark, NJ, from both individuals and corporations, we had to aim for the heart and showcase the efforts produced by the servants of the organization and then feature the impact and gratitude of those they serve.

From creative concept and art direction to the pre-production interviews of these very special case studies and the heartfelt execution at the homes and community spaces of these incredible humans, we got it done. The Urban League https://nul.org and https://ulec.org reached their fund-raising goal and I got to - for the first time in my life, call myself a creator.