Meet Lucas Ford

Today we’d like to introduce you to Lucas Ford.

Lucas, please share your story with us. How did you get to where you are today?
I grew up in a small town in Southwestern Ontario, Canada. From an early age, I loved tinkering with cameras. This led to a fascination of creating videos with my friends and sharing them online. I liked that I could get immediate reactions to see what was working and what wasn’t. It was all very DIY, but this was my first venture into what I now know as filmmaking. What began as simple prank videos, grew towards more ambitious, narrative films with higher production value over time. I compiled a collection of my films and sold them as DVDs at school. These videos started getting hundreds of thousands of views on YouTube, and all 50 of the DVDs sold within a few days. It was surreal. This was producing, even though I had no idea what that meant at the time. I didn’t know it’d be a possible career path until later on. I’d continue to spend most nights staying up late editing, learning visual effects, and coming up with new ideas for my next video. Then, I began producing monthly videos for my high school assemblies, where audiences of 400+ would watch my work projected in a performance hall. This was an important moment where things started to feel more possible.

After high school, I moved to Toronto to attend Ryerson University’s film program. There I learned everything I could about physical filmmaking and the nuances of each position on set. I found Producing to most align with my interests/skillset where the majority of my classmates preferred directing their own films. Because of this, I would often get to pick my favorite projects to work on. In my thesis year, I was lucky enough to win the Norman Jewison Filmmaker Award for my produced work. My first industry job was at TIFF (Toronto International Film Festival), coordinating for the Director & CEO. This is where I cut my teeth and learned about Independent, International, and Hollywood cinema. I look at this experience as my real-life film school. I had no idea who Abbas Kiarostami, Jane Campion, or Wong Kar-wai were at the time, yet I was receiving masterclasses on the daily of the world greats. I immediately became a lover of all things cinema. After TIFF, I was looking to be more involved in the creative process of creating film/tv, so ended up working on a few seasons of the Canadian hit series Letterkenny (Hulu) and Bad Blood (Netflix).

Everything changed for me in 2017. I got the call that I was accepted to the Peter Stark Producing Program at the University of Southern California. I’d always dreamed of attending this competitive program. When the opportunity came, I packed up and moved to Los Angeles. During my two years in the program, I secured internships at incredible companies in Hollywood like Amazon Studios, MGM, and Fox Searchlight. During Stark, I also won a grant to produce a film called Natives, an East LA crime story adapted by a stage play. The film is currently playing on the festival circuit, including a couple of Academy-qualifying film festivals.

After graduation, I landed my current gig where I work in the film division of Shawn Levy’s production company 21 Laps Entertainment. There, I support our development and production slate of projects. These include major studio movies like Free Guy and series for Netflix like Stranger Things and I Am Not Okay With This. The coolest parts of the gig are finding and identifying potential new projects, meeting with exciting filmmakers, and collaborating with the insanely talented industry colleagues I have the privilege of working with and learning from. I’m always educating myself with the next emerging talent and try to keep on top of current material in the industry. A big highlight this year was finding and pitching a competitive horror film to several studios and buyers across Hollywood.

As for my independent work, over the last couple of years, I have produced, secured financing, and found distribution for three short films under my production company Ford Films. My work has played at over 50 film festivals around the world, received numerous awards/nominations, and has brought me to incredible places like the Cannes Film Festival and across North America, Iceland, Germany, and the UK. I always strive to create character-driven films that are anchored in an emotional truth, a distinct POV, or universal themes – agnostic of genre and concept.

Has it been a smooth road?
Oh man. The road has been and continues to be a series of readjustments. Rejections and setbacks are all part of it and only make the journey sweeter on the other side. That’s the narrative I’m going with at least. There have been enough tests in the past decade that have asked me – are you sure you want to do this as a career? How will you afford to do this? How are you going to stay in the country? Whatever it’s been, there’s always been a simple answer…find a way. I don’t intend to sound reductive, but if you want it enough, you will and you’ll make the sacrifices needed to get there. That’s been my experience. There are humble beginnings, but start small and put yourself in the right direction of your end goal. Politely elbow yourself in. Sometimes it’s hard to step back and realize how far you’ve come, but it’s important to do so every once in a while. I remember having $30 to my name and when an important industry meeting ran long, I got a $70 parking ticket. Rookie mistake on my end, but it was devastating and I won’t ever forget it.

Anyways, I’ve learned that you have to be flexible with the timeline that you plan for yourself. It may not look exactly as you envisioned, but you have to fight the Imposter Syndrome as you go. I’ve struggled with that for sure. I truly believe that luck and preparation eventually meet and it’s worth playing the long game. I’m proud of my work and the places around the world that my films have taken me, but I’m also grateful for the bumps in the road along the way that have informed my process.

How do you think the industry will change over the next decade?
I’m excited and optimistic to see how the Entertainment industry will evolve over the next 5-10 years. I love that the proliferation of content has also created a path for unique content that otherwise wouldn’t see the light of day. There are so many buyers hungry for good content that you can be flexible with your format and get creative with how you put your projects together. Don’t get me wrong, it is incredibly difficult to follow through with any artistic endeavor, let alone find meaningful distribution. There have been so many great movies and shows this year that will never find a wider audience. At the same time, there has never been a better time to be a creator. In lieu of theaters in COVID times, some have found success through Drive-ins, some through online releases, VOD, and festivals. You have to get creative to cut through the saturation to find your audience. Whether it’s YouTube, TikTok, Netflix, or others there might be an audience for you if you’re catering to a need as well as providing quality and value.

Contact Info:

• Website: imdb.me/lucasford
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lucasford/
• Other: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lucasjsford/

Image Credit:
Ramone Farrier, Kyle McDonnell

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