Today we’d like to introduce you to Lamont Gant.
Lamont, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
I started my journey as a filmmaker first as an artist designing book covers and getting commissions doing portrait art. I also produced music professionally working with artist like Lisa “Left Eye” Lopez and Bobby Brown to name a few. When the music biz changed in Atlanta I decided to go full throttle with designing and graphic arts. While designing book covers for several independent authors I decided to create my first video book trailer to help my author clients better promote their novels. I enjoyed creating the video book trailers so much that I began spending my own money adding actors, scheduling photo shoots and producing music for them. Eventually, I got to a point where doing a movie was the next big challenge.
In 2012, one of my author friends Marlon McCaulsky wrote a novel called “Used To temporary Happiness”, which I also designed the cover for. It was a great story about four female friends and their relationships and thought, this would make a great movie. I started a film production company called Creative Genius Films, LLC and “Used To temporary Happiness” became the first feature film that I would direct and produce under that company. The greatest discovery I learned about making films was that it allowed me to express myself artistically on several different platforms. First as an artist (storyboarding, graphic Arts and sketching concepts), Music production (producing my own music, mixing and editing audio), Film Production (camera work, VFX, editing, etc.) and storytelling/writing screenplays.
Anyway, I showed my film “Used To temporary Happiness” to a New York film producer who was in Atlanta working on a reality show. After watching it she submitted it to a New York film festival called the “Ocktober Music and Film Festival”. To my surprise, my film was well received and was confirmation that I could have a future in the film industry. I took what I learned from that film and in 2013 author Marlon McCaulsky and I created (2) short films, “No Time For Love” which was a feel-good love story and “Annulment” which was a story about secret agents and mercenaries. The following year,”No Time For Love” made it to network TV on a show called “African American Short Films which aired all over the U.S. nationally on NBC, FOX, CBS and more.
In 2014 I had an idea for a great sci-fi film, so I got together with the talented authors Marlon McCaulsky and V. Marie and created my second feature film called “RETURNED”. “RETURNED” went on to land a national distribution contract with GVN Releasing in association with NOVUS Content and Sony Pictures Home Entertainment. “RETURNED” is now available in digital formats and DVD nationally in Wal-Mart, Best Buy, Google PLAY and so many more. I also published a novelization of “RETURNED”.
“RETURNED 2” will be going into production in 2018.
Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
Not at all. Any time you take risks traveling down roads you’ve never traveled before, smooth is definitely not something you experience starting out, Lol. Challenges making movies included managing lots of schedules and locations simultaneously, money to pay for locations and licensing, actresses changing hairstyles in the middle of scenes and so much more. It’s important to surround yourself with positive reliable people when you’re taking BIG risks.
Please tell us about Creative Genius Films.
Creative Genius Films, LLC is an American film and television production company owned by myself. I am a Film Director/Producer/writer with the company and Marlon McCaulsky serves as Screenplay Writer/Author with the company along with Victoria “V. Marie” Brock.
What sets us apart is we’re an independent African American film production company that writes, directs and produces our own content. Best known for acquiring national distribution for our sci-fi film “RETURNED” and self-publishing the novelization. And, producing SUCCESSFUL red carpet film premiere events.
If you had to go back in time and start over, would you have done anything differently?
Every win and loss was an opportunity to learn and grow so I wouldn’t change a thing. Well… if I could change one thing I guess I would’ve started earlier in life.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.returnedmovie.com
- Email: creativegeniusfilms@yahoo.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lamontgantofficial/
- Facebook: www.facebook.com/lamontgant
- Other: https://www.creativegeniusfilms.com/
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