The Alimond Show
Welcome to The Alimond Show --join us as we share our entrepreneurial guests' stories, uncover their secrets to success, and explore the unique paths they've taken to build thriving businesses in our community.
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The Alimond Show
Mignon Pinson - From 80s Actress to Independent Film Producer: Building LoJai Productions with Daughter Maya
Get ready to be inspired by the incredible journey of Mignon Pinson and her daughter, Maya J Pinson, the creative minds behind LoJai Productions. Discover the fascinating transition of Mignon from her acting days in the 80s to the establishment of her own movie production company in 2020, spurred on by her daughters' passion for the entertainment industry. We dive deep into the making of their first feature faith-based film "My Private Line to God" and uncover the evolution of Lojay Productions through impactful short films like "Distractions" and "I Dare You." Listen as Mignon discusses the nuts and bolts of the filmmaking process, emphasizing the crucial role of a dedicated team.
Explore the strategies and challenges of promoting independent films and the pivotal role of community support and cost-effective marketing. Mignon shares her future aspirations, including the development of seven completed scripts and how Maya's creativity during the pandemic played a transformative role. We also touch on their passion for writing, with insights into their children's books and the release of "Transitioning from Teen to 20." Finally, be inspired by their initiative to involve senior citizens in the entertainment industry through Shooting Future Stars, giving seniors fulfilling opportunities to shine on screen. Join us for a heartwarming story that champions the importance of staying active and engaged in meaningful work.
My name is Mignon Pinson, the name of my business is Lojay Productions, and we are a movie production company owned and operated by my daughter and I, maya J Pinson.
Speaker 2:Oh, wonderful, now that seems like an exciting business. How did you get into this?
Speaker 1:I actually got into the entertainment industry back in the 80s. I was cast in a few movies and then when I had my first daughter, I decided wasn't for me, I want to be behind the cameras, you know. So I put her in the industry because she was a happy baby and she started booking and doing modeling, print work, working with clients like Bill Cosby, will Smith, phyllis Hyman commercial. She, she's the she. When we started her she was one, yeah, so she was doing a lot of magazine advertisement and she booked her first commercial at three. So she really. I said this is for her. And then we just over the years just kept, you know, her career going. And then I had my second daughter 14 years later, and when we had her she started doing sports. But then when she turned 11, she said Mom, I want to do movies. So then we started her career In the family, yes, in the family, yeah. And it's been uphill ever since then.
Speaker 2:Wow, what inspired you to start your own production company? Wow.
Speaker 1:When inspired you to start your own production company? When my first daughter was into the industry. That's when I started it, because a lot of parents and a lot of families were seeing a lot of the magazine advertisements my oldest daughter was in and they started asking me can you help me get my children into the industry? And then adults, can you help me get into the industry? So that's when I started my own business, which is shooting future stars as well, okay, and then when we started Lojay Productions in 2020, that's when we started the film production side of it.
Speaker 2:Okay, and what was that like starting your own business? Did you have anybody that was kind of helping you on on along the way like a mentor somebody no so tell me what that was like to kind of start a production business from the ground up.
Speaker 1:It was. It was, it was easy in a sense. Back then I thought it was easy, but today starting a business is so much easier because you have so much resource sources at your fingertips. Back then you're talking about 38 years ago you did not have the Internet. You didn't you know, we didn't have the phones, we didn't have the text, but then they ended up starting with the. What was it? The? What do you call the things? Oh, the. Blackberries, not the Blackberries, the Pagers.
Speaker 2:Do you remember? Yes, I do remember the Pagers. I'm old enough.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so they started with the Pagers, but anyway, but I thought it was easy because of the connections I had, if I didn't have the connections prior to it. But it was fun. I love doing, I love meeting new people. I love making a difference in people's lives. I love being the person that's helping people, one of the people that's helping people, because I know there are a lot of people helping people.
Speaker 2:But you like to be one of them.
Speaker 1:Yes, I'm a helper.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so what kind of things are you producing?
Speaker 1:Well, since 2020, we've produced 11 movies. We produce short films, animations. This year alone, my daughter and I, lojay Productions. We released a movie called my Private Line to God that's our first feature faith-based movie and in June, we released the Christmas Room. So the Christmas Room is about a girl named Grace, who plays the role by my daughter, maya J Pinson. He has dementia, so that's bringing a lot of awareness to the world of dementia. Yeah, so yep, and we have currently seven movies on a pipeline to do.
Speaker 2:Wow, that's exciting. Yeah, Thank you. And so are these all faith-based movies? No, tell me what kind of movies these are.
Speaker 1:So the two features that we did this year one was the Faith Face, the other one was a Christmas movie, the Christmas Room. But prior to that we came out with short films. Short films that bring awareness to people. For example, distractions is mainly for teens and new drivers it was written and produced by Maya J Pinson and New Drivers it was written and produced by Maya J Pinson and she wanted to bring a lot of awareness to new drivers. You know about distraction and don't distract the driver. And then she had another short film that we produced called I Dare you, and that's bringing awareness to domestic violence. We also have animations. So we have to get somebody to put the animations, the cartoons, together.
Speaker 2:but yeah, how does this process work? I mean, do you find that? I find the script? These people come to you with the scripts, then you guys cast it kind of what's the workflow on how this works for some of it, for people like me who don't know, I'm a writer, maya's a writer, so we're content creators.
Speaker 1:Like, we'll write the script. Um, we're writers, so we'll write the script, which we have that in our corner as a blessing. But if you, if you're not a writer, then you would collaborate or hire someone to do your writing or purchase a script. You know, because you start with a, with the script, and finding something that's going to be suitable for you or your background or whatever you what your beliefs are.
Speaker 1:Yes, that speaks to you. Yes, so you get your script and if you decide you want to produce the movie, then you, if you have a team, the camera production and your crew behind you, then you all just start doing casting. Once you get all that in place, then you schedule your production. You start doing the call sheets, you schedule the whole process. You go pretty much from the script casting getting your production together, start creating your schedules with the main actors and then you dive into the filming part of it and then, after you do the filming, if you don't do post-production, then it shifts over to post-production once it's finished, okay, and then the editors put the whole movie together, okay. So you have.
Speaker 2:So it's a lot of work, but it's fun it's a lot of yeah, I can tell you you. Can you radiate joy just talking about it? I love it. And you guys are based in DC mostly, is that correct?
Speaker 1:Native.
Speaker 2:Washingtonians and again, for me not being in this world, I would always think you've got to be in New York to do something like this, or LA to do something like that. Is there a big market for production and film industry in DC? So?
Speaker 1:the larger markets is where you definitely want to be or ultimately try to be. You don't have to pack up and move there, but it's a good starting place, especially if you don't have kids and you don't have a family to shake up and move. So that's a good place to try to start. But you don't have to because, just like DC, virginia, maryland, other smaller cities, there are a lot of independent production companies. They're doing and writing and producing a lot of independent production companies. They're doing and writing and producing a lot of wonderful movies, just like we are.
Speaker 1:So if you can get a hold of a production company, you definitely want to start reaching out and auditioning and just trying to follow them, because people are posting on social media. These are places you can find opportunities. But one of the things that I stress to people as you're diving into it and before you start reaching out to production companies, look at their, some of their, their work. Look at their work, because you want to be careful of what you attach in yourself your, your, your, your, your skills or your, your looks and your talent too. You want to just careful, um, because some people are doing movies that's um that suits them, but then I have actors that come to me sometimes later and say I wish I can take myself out of that movie, but you can't. Once it's done, yeah.
Speaker 2:Once it's released, yeah yeah, it's done, it's edited and it's out.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and then some of the actors. Uh, as they start growing and you know, having more people calling them to do movies, they look back when they first started, you know. So I tell them just don't look back. Yeah, you know you have to start somewhere. Yeah, but you still want to be careful as to where you start.
Speaker 2:Do you have anybody like a particular actor that you watched grow Like, maybe started something really small, small, small production and now they're doing bigger things and what's happened? Like you mean someone else, um, like someone you were able to kind of help get into the industry. That's really flourishing now, or well, there's a.
Speaker 1:I started a young guy career when he was three. His name is colleague Moultrie, and they had never had any experiences with getting into the entertainment industry. He actually for years was on Sesame Street. Oh yeah, he was on Sesame Street. It's a lot of actors that we've started their careers and I don't know what they're doing now, because back then you're talking about 38 years years ago, when we didn't have the internet to keep up. They don't have ways to reach me unless they're looking for the name that we own now, which they don't know. And then over the years, so many people changed telephone numbers, so we don't have good numbers for them. And then, in terms of production companies, in this area, it just seems like a lot of the production companies that we are. We've collaborated with some and they're still doing a lot of independent things, but we're still all trying to get there, right, we're trying to get there.
Speaker 2:Trying to get there.
Speaker 1:I haven't seen where anyone have had an A-list actor in a movie and it's expensive to get them?
Speaker 2:Oh, I'm sure it is.
Speaker 1:But in terms of growth. You know we're striving to get there. Yeah, so that's in the pipeline.
Speaker 2:That's on the pipeline too. That's on my bucket list. Yeah, wouldn't that be great. It's coming. It's coming, see, we're going to manifest it now.
Speaker 1:I believe in manifesting. We're going to manifest it now it's coming.
Speaker 2:How do you guys get these movies out? Like, where can people watch them? Is are these in? You know, small theaters in DC? Is it online? How do people watch the content?
Speaker 1:Our short films. You can go to Lojay Productions that's L-O-J-A-I Productions, and you can watch all of our short films and the animations there. This August 3rd we're doing this is the first time we're ever doing this but we're doing a five short films movie compilation for kids. It's going to be red carpet to give kids the opportunity to see what it's like to be on a red carpet, to meet some of the actors, because we have five different short films. We're going to have actors from each one of those films that's going to be there. So we're going to show that in Greenbelt. Oh, exciting, and that's going to be one way people can see this upcoming group of five movies. But the movies we currently have out, they are on YouTube. On YouTube, okay, but the two feature films that we just released this year, we have platforms for them.
Speaker 2:Okay, we can't reveal it yet, but we do have platforms, yes, but they're coming. Another thing, that's coming down the road. Yes, what are you doing for advertising and marketing? What's working for you these days, what's not working for you and this can be in regards to even how you're finding your actors and actresses and and how you're kind of getting getting these movies out and promoting them. What's working for you?
Speaker 1:Okay, so I do casting as well. I've been doing casting for years. So when we're working on our projects or other projects, if a production company reach out to me, we will, I'll create fly flyers, we'll put it out there on social media all the social media platforms, um, and you have a lot of actors who will and non-actors who will turn around and repost it. So it's just by word of mouth or referrals. People put it out there, we send it out. I have a huge email distribution, um, and again, with a lot of independent film companies, such as my own, our company you don't have the funds to pay the radio stations or TV to advertise that you're casting, so you have to do it the independent way. Right, that's what I'm going to call it the independent way. We have to take the independent route. So that's how we do with the casting, and I have a huge database with actors that we work with and new actors, so I'm always in search of new actors. So that covers that question with the casting.
Speaker 1:But the movie is the same thing. If we have a movie premiere, we take the same route. We get back out there, I try to get movie. What is it? I try to get news coverage. We it, I try to get news coverage. We get it out there to promote it. If we are successful to get the news stations to help promote it, sometimes we are very helpful. I mean we are successful with that. Then we ask people can you promote it? Can you promote it? But yeah, so we definitely. And I think I'm answering this for a lot of local states, independent companies. We definitely rely on the help of others to keep promoting it.
Speaker 2:That's good. It's because you've got a good community to lean on.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's very expensive to pay for marketing the type of marketing that you really want. Yeah.
Speaker 2:But that all comes with growth too. It all comes with growth it all comes, grow right yeah, speaking of growth, where do you see this all going, birdie, a GC a you?
Speaker 1:it sounds like you've got a couple more movies in the pipeline and we have seven more scripts is done and we I've been writing for years, so I just write and I put it in a notebook. I write and put it in a notebook. So I have seven movie scripts that's done. So in years to come I just want to keep doing this. You know, my doctor tell me he says you should be the picture poster for low blood pressure for your age. And he says keep doing what you're doing. He says, by the way, what are you doing? I said making movies.
Speaker 2:Yes, keep doing what you're doing, he says. By the way, what are you doing? I said making movies, but yet you're sitting here totally calm and collected and nervous.
Speaker 1:No, you can't even tell yeah, but yeah, no, I'm hoping, hoping to grow and just keep making movies and keep helping people. If we can help people, we want to help people. But in the long road to come, my daughter Maya, she's phenomenal and you know, if I retire, when I retire, hopefully she'll be able to keep it going.
Speaker 2:Yeah, wasn't it great that you can leave that legacy for her.
Speaker 1:Yes, it is, it will be. But the funny part about it, it was Maya who shifted my whole world. In terms of the film production side, I've been connected to the entertainment industry. I've been a SAG member since the 80s, okay, but I'm part of Screen Actors Guild. But it was 2020, during the pandemic, when she came downstairs Pandemic, just with the world shut down.
Speaker 1:She says Mom, I'm bored. And she has always received recognitions and awards for writing. We both are children book authors. So I told her, I said, go. And she's an actress. So I said go, write a movie. If you write a movie, we'll get it produced, we'll get it done. And she did her first movie called I'm Ready, and that's for your son to look at too. I'm Ready is she wanted to bring awareness, to promote open communication, honesty and trust with teens, and what she did was she wrote that storyline around a young girl who was 15 and wanted to go out on her first date. So that's on YouTube. You can see it, but it's about open communication. Yeah, I have an 18 year old, a 15 year old and a 10 year communication.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I have an 18-year-old, a 15-year-old and a 10-year-old.
Speaker 1:Well, the 15 and 18-year-old, they should definitely watch it.
Speaker 2:We definitely apply. Where did the passion for writing come from? Is that something that you always had?
Speaker 1:I've always been writing. I've always been a writer. Even in school I used to, just after I did my homework. I would just write poems or write. I've just always been a writer. And then, in 2006, we released my first book. And then in 2009, we released the second book. And then Maya has a book out too. So she has one children's book out too. So those are three children's books that's out. Oh, that's great. Some people think that, oh, oh, you're writing movies now, or the content is coming. But no, what people don't realize. I remember, just like listening to a story with Jay-Z and Tupac Shakur. You know, they said, before they got discovered, they used to write songs and put them in a book.
Speaker 1:Just build the book up, you know so a lot of times, you know, and the same thing like with um actors, when people hear, like I remember Martin Lawrence just shedding light to, he says, when people see you in your first big movie, you know they think, oh, where did this person just come out? But no, they've been doing movies leading all the way up to it. And he too said there's some movies he wish he could come out, but he can't come out. But yeah, so I just write. I'm always writing, you know. So vacations, I'm writing, that's great.
Speaker 2:That's relaxing to me, and tell me about the book you brought today that just came out.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I love it. So here is my new book and it's called Transitioning from Teen to 20. And it's really for college kids as well, even young adults and some older adults who might need reminders.
Speaker 1:But it's just preparing it's different chapters in here. That's preparing these young kids for adulthood things, reminding them and encouraging them when you come out of school 18, whether you go to college or whether you just move out and get your own apartment. It explains the difference between a lease agreement, mortgage agreement, a rental agreement. It's encouraging them to the importance of why you should pay your bills on time, how it affects your credit. It's a very it's a paperback book, but it has different things on there.
Speaker 1:You know, and a lot of times you're going to find some things in here that parents have already may have already shared like with their children, but for the most part of it we haven't, because my daughter's 20. And you know. So it tells them what the three credit bureaus are, you know. So if something happens to your credit, you already have it right here where to go or who to write to right, which website to visit, the importance of saving money. You know things that we the 3C payment methods. I love that. Yes, the 3C, yes, 3c time management. So, yeah, this right here is actually a good resource tool for young kids and it has all the information in one place.
Speaker 2:I know just a couple. I mean, he's my son's 18 now, but when he was getting his first job, even just going through that process of filling out that first higher paperwork and it had been a long time since either of us had done it either, we were like I am not sure and and just his process of like knowing those forms and I'm like they don't teach this in school and these are the skills that you actually really need.
Speaker 2:They have to fill out a tax form and build your credit up, and all of that stuff they're not teaching in school, so do you feel like there's a gap?
Speaker 1:It is. But um, and that's another thing with my two daughters, you know their friends, you know they would often say, uh, mom, they don't teach us about how to do this, how to manage money, and so, hopefully, this right here. But I didn't want to make it long winded and make it a thick book because, the truth be told, anyone who's writing for children, teens and adults, we're competing against the telephone. So they're going to put this down soon.
Speaker 2:So sooner rather than later. But yeah, short. I was going to put this down soon, sooner rather than later, but it's short.
Speaker 1:I was going to say it looks like a quick, like cliff note. Yes, the importance of building a support system you know. So it's a very yeah when to lend your ear, to listen and not speak, you know.
Speaker 2:It's just different little things in there.
Speaker 1:I love this. And then employment you know it explains to them because they are 18 or it could be for 11th grade or two, but you know it's explaining to them what an employer is, what an employee is and employer benefits. You know just certain things you can just keep with you, yeah, and respecting your employer.
Speaker 2:Yes, I think that's something that's kind of been a lost, a lost art too. As we kind of wrap up here, are there any last parting words you'd like to leave us with in regards to it can be business, or maybe just a mantra that you live your life by?
Speaker 1:So one of the before I get there, one of the things, we have this coming up, we have this again we have this compilation coming up where we are encouraging anyone that have kids, you know, two or three years old. Get a bunch of kids, schedule that play date and come to this.
Speaker 2:This is going to be August 3rd at 12 o'clock.
Speaker 1:Where is it at? In Greenbelt, maryland, it's going to be at the movie theater. Um, yeah, it's going to be actually at the Greenbelt theater. Um, so schedule that play date, get your other kids and parents. You know, the tickets are only $15 and popcorn is included for the kids and you get to meet the actors, take pictures with the actors and, for those who are interested, from pregnant if you're pregnant, because a lot of people don't know if you want to get your baby into the entertainment industry, they have to be six weeks old. They can be as young as six weeks old. So therefore, we want to reach a lot of the parents who could be expecting or who might be expecting and want to take this journey, because you've got to time that just right. If you need it. You want to learn as much as you can and before you get into the entertainment industry.
Speaker 1:And we cast a lot of senior citizens. We have a lot of senior citizens. We have a lot of senior citizens who are always sending me emails. You know you have really helped me. You know, just made a difference. This is so cool. Never thought we could be in a movie. So anyone who's interested in getting into the entertainment industry. They can contact Shooting Future Stars on Instagram, shooting Future Stars on Facebook, shooting Picture Stars on Facebook. And then, going back to one of my favorite quotes is and it's in this book for the kids yes, one of my favorite quotes that I came up with was where you work is an option, but not working is not an option. I like that a lot. Where you work is an option.
Speaker 2:Yes, but working is not Working is not an option. Yes, working is not. Working is not an option. I love that. Well, thank you so much for being here today and thank you for sharing your story with us.
Speaker 1:Thank you, thank you for having me Pleasure.