Janks Morton is an award-winning documentary filmmaker. Rolling out caught up with Morton while he is touring across the country with his latest film, HoodWinked.
Why are you so passionate about making documentary films?
I can recall three specific occasions when I have been put on my knees, heartbroken, and crying out to heaven. The first was in 2006 when I was made aware that the out-of-wedlock birthrate for African-Americans was 69.7 percent (US Census-American Community Survey 2005). The second instance occurred in 2009 when I found that 82.3 percent of African American children born since 1990, are guaranteed to live in a home without their biological father before graduating high school (A Demographic of Analysis of the Family Structure Experiences in the United States: The Institute for the study of Labor, August 2007). The third occasion happened in 2011 when it was shown to me that 97 percent of Americans have engaged in premarital sex (Sexual Behavior, Sexual Attraction, and Sexual Identity in the United States: Data from the 2006-2008 National Survey of Family Growth: US DHHS, March 2011).
How do you stay inspired?
From the data, there are so many opportunities to tell stories that promote healing the wounds left by the scourge of the baby boomers’ self-indulgences. I use this medium to identify and bandage the scars of a generation of young people sacrificed at the altar of pride, self and ego of my generation.
What is one thing you wish you had known before you started your own business?
When I “officially” gave my four weeks’ notice, I was of a mind-set that the income, media exposure, and speaking engagements were predictable and consistent. Little did I foresee the financial crash of 2008 and the great recession and how it would affect all sectors of the American economy as well as my business.
Where do you see the future of film going? Why?
Technology is changing production models, distribution models, content quality models, fundraising models and several of facets of film making dramatically every three months. … Physical DVDs will probably be obsolete in the next five years.
What advice would you give to a new entrepreneur in your industry?
To those seeking to come into filmmaking without a film school background, welcome. Listen to your instincts, bring your vision to life. For those recently graduated from film school, throw everything you just learned in the trash. Film schools are part of the system, that is part of the problem with black imagery, black authorship and black entrepreneurship that I expose in my films.
Janks Morton is on social media www.twitter.com/janksmorton
