Exploring Life & Business with Richard Bakewell of Lightforce Pictures

Today we’d like to introduce you to Richard Bakewell.

Hi Richard, thanks for joining us today. We’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
It started at a very early age. I was five years old and spent a weekend watching Star Wars, Rocky, and Grease. I asked my uncle for $10,000 so I could create my own version of Grease and kiss the girl that I had a crush on. He never gave me a dime, and I definitely didn’t get the girl, but that first rejection inspired me to spend my life pursuing a world where I get to make movies for a living.

I went to Columbia College in Chicago. I didn’t come from wealth so after a year I ran out of money for school. I wrote a few bad checks just to finish the last semester of my first year, but then I had to spend some time working for a living to pay the school back before I could continue. In between jobs, I got into amateur boxing, and it really helped shape the person I would become in the entertainment business. Boxing gave me discipline, taught me to keep fighting even when I didn’t have anything left and gave confidence in myself which I had lacked until I was 20. You need thick skin and a good chin to work in the entertainment world. Nothing will ever be handed to you and trust me I fought for every single thing that I have. That is all thanks to boxing, and boxing will always be the love of my life,

Once I got my finances in order I went back to school, graduated, and did 3 internships to get a foot in the door. And the last internship turned into a full-time job, and that show took me to LA in 2004. It was only supposed to be for 4 months but became 19 years and I’m still here. I’ve been quite successful because of my talent, my work ethic, and idea that there is never a day off in this town. When I’m not working, I’m always prepping for another project, networking, or looking for that next great job.

Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
If there was a yellow brick that would lead you to a lifetime of success without putting in the work, I think everyone would follow that path. The journey I have been on has been filled with so many bumps that I’m still shocked I have tread on my tires.

I started my career in Reality TV when it was actually REAL. I worked on shows like COPS and Intervention. And let me tell you those shows are 100 percent genuine, and I nearly lost my life a couple of times on those shows. As much as I loved those shows, I would always find myself on a soulless reality show to pay the bills. The last one I ever did hit me hard. I hated is so much that I ended up quitting halfway through the show, and had only quit one other job in 13 years. Reality TV wasn’t for me anymore so I turned down everything that came my way and spent a few months figuring out ways to reinvent myself. After six months I started to find the work that I always wanted. I did corporate shoots, then small commercials, documentaries, and ultimately found my way into narrative. And now there’s no looking back.

Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your business?
I started my company Lightforce Pictures a few years back. In the beginning, it was just me. People only wanted to hire me and my camera. Now in the past three years, Lightforce Pictures has really taken off. When I get contacted about any upcoming productions, I now get to bring on every single crew position and supply all of the camera and lighting equipment. Lightforce Pictures specializes in commercials, branded content, documentaries, corporate videos, and narrative.

2022 was our banner year and we did several branded content spots for Netflix, Youtube, Google, Subaru, and all of the Promos for Amazon Music Live for Thursday Night Football. We also just wrapped principle photography on a 1980s throwback science fiction psychological feature film called Roswell Delirium. It stars several recognizable faces from the 80s including Anthony Michael Hall, Lisa Whelchel, Reginald VelJohnson, Sam Jones, and Dee Wallace. Not to mention a handful of rising stars such as Kylee Levien, Arielle Bodenhausen, Ashton Solecki, Kayden Tokarski, Georgia MacPhail, and Romyn Smith.

I’m a very humble person, and I come from poverty. I am grateful for everything I have, and I treat everyone as a friend first a foremost. A lot of the people I work for have me their first call, and even when there isn’t a shoot happening, we still grab lunch or dinner. Sure it’s a business but for me, I only work with people that I like, and that includes the people I hire. I had a new Production Assistant tell me they didn’t want to work for anyone else because they were scared that they wouldn’t get treated as good as I treated them. While that’s wonderful to hear, it’s sad because so many people get mistreated in this business. A lot of egos and power trips run this town. That’s not how I want to run my business. The key to this business is personal relationships.

Do you have any memories from childhood that you can share with us?
My favorite childhood memory was going to the movies and theater hop. On most Saturdays, I would look at the paper, figure out all of the movies I wanted to see, then make my guess about how long the film actually was, and then build a schedule for the entire day to go from one show to the next and to the next. I would sneak in two to three cans of soda, buy one popcorn, purchase one ticket, and sit there all day long. Watching three to four movies kept me out of trouble and helped me escape from the problems I was having at home. And I’m sure that these days at the movies would ultimately help shape the director I would become. Sometimes when I’m talking to an actor I’m going to work with, I will make reference to some of those magical moments that I watched during my childhood. Let’s face it making movies is not easy. But what keeps me coming back year after year is being able to help create these new magical moments onscreen where you get to hear an audience sigh or laugh, even for a brief second. And that little bit of satisfaction makes the struggle of making a movie worth coming back to.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.lightforcepictures.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/rickbakewell/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/rick.o.bakewell
• Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/lightforce-pictures-burbank
• Other: https://pro.imdb.com/name/nm2424105