Meet Jesse Felsot

Today we’re excited to be connecting with Jesse Felsot again. If you haven’t already, we suggest you check out our prior conversation with them here.

Jesse, we are so thrilled to be connecting again and can’t wait to hear about all the amazing things you have been up to. Before we jump into all of that, some of our readers might have missed our prior interview, so can you take a moment to reintroduce yourself?
Yeah sure. This one will be a bit more in depth than the previous one as that was a few years back and a lot has transpired for me since then especially with what I am doing now, but to summarize what you asked, I am a producer in feature films, commercials and music videos especially with a niche in urban music driven crime/action/drama type films, that I acquire and/or produce and distribute on multiple VOD platforms such as Amazon Prime, Tubi, Apple TV, and Youtube Movies to name a few. To run your readers through some background on me, my past feature film credits are listed as; Assistant to Producer Robert Newmyer on three studio movies – Warner Bros. ‘Training Day,’ directed by Antoine Fuqua, Columbia Pictures action/comedy ‘National Security’ directed by Dennis Dugan; director of ‘Happy Gilmore, Grown Ups’ starring Martin Lawrence, Steve Zahn & Bill Duke and also the Warner Bros./WCW wrestling comedy ‘Ready To Rumble’ starring David Arquette, Scott Caan, Rose McGowan, Bill Goldberg and Diamond Dallas Page directed by Brian Robbins who directed ‘Varsity Blues’ and HBO’s hit sitcom at the time; Arli$$. As you can see, I worked for an extremely busy producer in Hollywood when I first entered the industry at 22 and before ‘Training Day’ Outlaw Prods. was best known for producing the hit movie, ‘The Santa Clause’ with Tim Allen, ‘Don’t Tell Mom the Babysitter’s Dead’ with Christina Applegate and the indie favorite ‘Sex, Lies, and Videotape’ directed by Steven Soderbergh. It was a great place to work, busy as heck, but I do have some great memories from then. A few years after deciding to leave Outlaw, I ended up being hired by writer/director David Ayer who around that time had already written the movies ‘Training Day,’ ‘Fast & The Furious,’ ‘U-571,’ ‘Dark Blue,’ and ‘S.W.A.T.’ They were all pretty much big hits and was an in demand A-list writer. He had just formed his new company ‘Crave Films’ and I was hired as his assistant and to oversee the day to day at Crave Films while he focused on writing. I was his assistant for close to three years. Prior to working for Dave, I worked mostly for Producers/Exec Producers so to see it from the other side was very invaluable. I loved reading Dave’s scripts because of the amount of action and shoot outs in most of the script and he wrote the types of films in a genre I liked and wanted to work in. We went into production on his directorial debut ‘Harsh Times’ and I was made co-producer of the film. Christian Bale who had just completed principal photography on ‘Batman Begins’ came on board to star in it and also as Executive Producer and once he did, everything moved rather quickly into production in the winter of 2004-2005 and we shot the film in just 24 days during a cold rainy winter in L.A. and the film was acquired through a deal with MGM and was released nationwide in theaters in November of 2006. The film is currently streaming on Amazon/MGM+, Tubi, YouTube Free Movies, Pluto TV, Sling TV. Shortly thereafter and after working in feature films, I wanted to follow a real passion I had at that age in making music videos, more particularly hip-hop videos and to focus on my own company, ‘Treasure Entertainment’ now full time. It was not an easy decision to leave a plush gig and working for Dave, but if I was going to go on my own and advance in the music video game this was the time to do it, not some time down the road. So, now that I was working for myself, I went out and put together a veteran director roster that included directors such as G-thomas Ferguson(who had previously directed numerous videos for Suge Knight’s ‘Deathrow Records’ including Snoop Dogg, Tha Dogg Pound’s ‘New York, New York’ music video and Mack-10’s Hoobangin’ Records such as the video for ‘Backyard Boogie’), Feature film/music video director Mink, (who directed videos for Master P/West Coast Bad Boyz, South Central Cartel, the movie ‘Full Clip’ starring Xzibit and Busta Rhymes and ‘Into the Sun’ starring Steaven Seagal, who I was able to get through Jeff Armstrong, my former boss at A Band Apart where I had worked a few years prior before working at Crave Films. I then I went to get Marty Thomas(the go to music video director for Jerry Heller and Eazy’s E Ruthless Records and videos for Eazy E’s ‘Real Muthaphukkin G’z, Skeelo’s big hit song ‘I Wish’ and for Dru Down’s hit song ‘Pimp of the Year’,) and for my fourth weapon, I wanted someone more on the R&B tip and with some choreography under his belt to blend out my Hip Hop guys, so I brought in R&B music video director Lionel C. Martin who directed Def Jam’s ‘How To Be A Player’ starring Bill Bellamy and best known for his music videos he directed for Boyz II Men’s ‘Motown Philly,’ ‘End of the Road’ BBD’s ‘Poison’ Bobby Brown “Humpin’ Around’ TLC’s ‘Ain’t 2 Proud 2 Beg and What About Your Friends’ Wreckz N Effects “Rump Shaker’ 2pac’s ‘Dear Mama’ and many more. I signed him to my company and I had the directors I needed to make some waves. I grew up watching Lionel’s videos on MTV so to see him yelling ‘action’ behind a monitor on set was somewhat surreal. I served as both the Sales Rep and EP of the videos as I knew their director reels better than anyone as I studied them and really took the time to invest into how I was now going to angle this and bring in revenue. I would handle those duties and my producing partner at that time, Mark would oversee more of the physical production as the line producer once I got the video awarded to us and then financed. I was locking videos mid-range around $30k-60kish budgets. Most of them 1 day shoots maybe 2 days at most. With those guys on board I secured clients such as Upstairs Records, who became our best video client due to the Lil Rob videos we produced and also videos for Baby Bash, Amanda Perez, NB Ridaz on this label and others such as; Atlantic Records, Bad Boy Records, Stringtown Records in Nashville, Sony BMG Latino, Aries Records, legendary lowrider label Thump Records/Universal, Rick Ross’s Maybach Music, Power 106fm’s ‘Pocos Pero Locos’ Latin artists/Silent Giant Entertainment with E-Dub and Khool-Aid who produced the song ‘Lean Like A Cholo’, Equal Vision Records, Barak Records in Detroit that had Slum Village, Dwele & MC Breed, Mr. Capone-e’s HiPower Entertainment and produced the music video for ‘Summertime Anthem’ with other rappers Mr. Criminal, Lady Pink, Slow-Pain, Down aka Kilo, Lil Uno, and Ese Daz featuring LaLa Romero. With all that said, and now on the other side, total Cumulative views on Youtube for the music videos I produced over the years are currently around 150 million views with two very popular videos leading the pack; for the punk rock group Pierce The Veil ‘Bulletproof Love’ from Equal Vision Records, directed by Dan Dobi and Chicano rapper Lil Rob ‘Summer Nights’ at Upstairs Records directed by both G-thomas and the award winning Visual FX-directing duo; Aggressive, Inc out of NYC as the Executive Producer of each of those videos with currently close to 50 million views each and became fan favorites in those two genres of music. The song ‘Summer Nights’ reached #36 on the Billboard 100 and being on the Top 40 countdown for months and peaked at #9 on the rap charts section in the summer of 2005 and MTV played it non-stop during primetime. We had a nationwide hit music video. That was not the norm for a Chicano rapper to cross over like that but the single and video worked together in perfect harmony and still does to this day. Since a lot of our client work was Latin based, where I created a niche for our business and to separate us from other companies bidding on the same jobs, most of our videos played on MTV Tr3s and the Spanish-American network Mun2, now NBC Universo, where our videos were on heavy rotation particularly a video we produced for Sony BMG Latino; Young Seb’s R&B song ‘High School Wifey’ that we filmed at his High School in Concord, CA near the Bay Area that was directed by Lionel Martin. It played heavily on the network. With great momentum of the videos we were producing and now with notoriety on MTV, Mun2 and BET with some hit videos now under our belt, in the summer of 2008 we Exec Produced the debut music video for ‘Janelle Monae’ for her first single ‘Many Moons’ off her debut record ‘Metropolis’ that was co-financed by Bad Boy Records and Atlantic Records and directed by BET award winning director, Alan Ferguson who was Bad Boy’s Director over the years including the music video for hit song (‘Only You’ with 112 featuring Biggie Smalls and Ma$e). Alan had just completed directing the music video for (Katy Perry’s big hit ‘Hot n Cold’) at Capitol Records, where I did a loan out production service deal with Anonymous content’s Exec Producers at that time to secure the video and Alan’s services to produce it through Treasure and save them money from doing it as a full blown union shoot with a production budget of around $250-300K. We brought the bells and whistles of equipment and crew. We rented out the extremely large KTLA soundstages in Hollywood, It was a huge soundstage and the place was pretty much packed between crew and extras. She came out on stage and just killed it. As I watched the cranes/cameras move around her on a huge platform stage that was built for her with Alan looking through monitor, I saw a new star arrive and it was cool to witness it in person and even cooler seeing it on my set that I worked so hard over the last few years to create with my team. It was a special moment. The video was a big hit on BET. Janelle went on to do some amazing things both in music and currently as a movie actress as well starring in the films such as; “Hidden Figures” and the upcoming Universal Picture’s heist film “Never Saw Me Coming.” I was 30 years old at the time, flying high and now had some serious credits in both feature films and music videos on the resume/reel. Those years doing videos was really a fun time for me mostly due to the people I was working with from directors to crew to models to car clubs and mixed with the explosion of Latin Hip Hop. After that incredible chapter in my life and moving into more current day between both film and music, I am currently working in the feature length music documentary genre as a writer/director/producer with two films ‘Where’s the Soul?’ and ‘Nightclub Star’ and both received distribution deals across North America and the UK. WTS? was acquired by Distributor KDMG Media Group and Nightclub Star was acquired by distributor High Octane Pictures/Octane Multimedia. Tubi licensed my film WTS? as part of their ‘Hip Hop Industry’ category as they were fans of the film and combined with success I had as an Exec Producer of the Hip Hop themed crime/action film ‘God City Da Movie’ that I acquired out of Charlotte, NC in 2020, which became a hit movie on Tubi with a huge number of streams a few years ago, it opened the door for me to secure a licensing deal with that platform besides my deal with Amazon Prime and Amazon Music for future titles I acquire and open a distribution arm to my company in the process for me to acquire films and/or produce my own. My follow up films were, ‘Bay Area Gangstaz’ that I acquired from a rapper/director out of the Bay Area rap scene and my new film coming to Tubi this Spring, a music driven crime/action film ‘Hitting Licks’ that I acquired from a rapper/director out of St. Louis featuring rappers from the city and I am currently in production on my new music doc film; ‘Drug Rap’ shooting in Las Vegas, NV.

Great, so let’s jump into an update on what you have been up to since we last spoke. What can you share with us?
Yeah since we spoke last, things have been good and a lot of new stuff happening with my company, but with that said I have put in a ton of work and hours to get where I am at. I have been able to really round out my core business of my acquisitions of more specifically, urban films/black cinema titles which then allows me to take to VOD platforms such as Tubi, Amazon Prime & Youtube Movies and have added a few more arms to the business with my own music distribution where I have a music distribution deal with the online music platforms through MNRK Music Group; formerly known as E-1 Music and DVD/MOD distribution for my titles as well with distributor, Allied Vaughn. Coming from the music game, having a streaming platforms like Amazon Music, Spotify, Soundcloud, Youtube Music, Apple Music, Facebook music, Tidal, I can create and drive traffic through these sites which then cross-markets my titles for my advertising on IG, FB, Tiktok since a lot of this is driven through social media video clips/reels/stories with music video style trailers that I promote through influencers and other IG pages that have a large following in the Hip Hop realm to then showcase :60 cut-down trailers on reels. I plan over the next year or so to focus more on my music label side of my business and put out more soundtracks/records and shooting music videos for the records and then release them on IG, Youtube, FB. My DVD deal is pretty strong with Allied Vaughn which gets me placement on Walmart, Best Buy, Amazon Prime, Target, Moviezyng, Deep Discount and more and for Blu-Ray releases as well that I do for my music docs with 5.1 audio mix. They distribute DVD and Blu-Ray for the studios, so I get really good placement with online retailers. DVD’s still sell, and I did pretty well off of Physical DVD sales on my titles in 2024 and still am currently. I also like it because together with my soundtracks it takes the pressure off a bit of a title of mine having to hit a certain number of streams, rentals, purchases across VOD. I’m an independent producer/distributor so to have these multiple revenue streams for my product is important to the overall success of a title I release.

We also want to give folks a chance to get to know you a bit better so we’ve prepared a fun lightning round of questions. Ready?

Favorite Movie: I have a few: New Jack City. Boyz ‘n the hood tied with Menace 2 Society. Carlito’s Way. Deep Cover.

Favorite Book: Personal Power Through Awareness by: Sanaya Roman.

Favorite TV Show: Breaking Bad. HBO – The Sopranos. Oz.

Favorite Band or Artist: Can’t list one, but at the top: 2pac, Bob Marley, Wu-Tang Clan, Ice Cube, Marvin Gaye. Biggie. Beastie Boys. Cypress Hill.

Mountains or Beach: Beach. I grew up in the OC dude.

Favorite Sport (to watch): NBA Finals, game 7. Superbowl Sunday.

Favorite Sport (to play): Basketball, I could hit the ‘3’

Did you play sports growing up (if so which ones): Yessir. Basketball, Baseball, Soccer. I played on my High School’s Varsity basketball team at Corona del Mar High. 1995 CIF Champs.

Favorite Childhood movie: Colors. Beverly Hills Cop.

What are you most excited about in the coming year?
Well this year I’m focusing on my new music documentary film project; ‘Drug Rap’ mentioned earlier that I just started shooting recently throughout the city of Las Vegas to give my film a different backdrop vs my two previous films. I am really looking forward to making my third music documentary film. Vegas gives you multiple options/looks for shooting and an urban centric feel to it once you head East and North from the strip. There is much more to this city than just the strip and I look forward to shooting in areas not seen too much. One minute I am in the middle of the desert shooting BMX dirt bike footage and the next in an industrial feel of bridges/tunnels/train tracks inner city feel and then obviously your casinos and clubs off the strip and across the train tracks. It’s still a place where there are not as many already existing sets pre-built here vs. a place like L.A., but there are soundstages/studios with lots of equipment and plenty of places that rent out equipment besides private owners you can bring on board and people that are looking to get involved with production here plus getting locations here is a bit easier once you are off the strip. On top of this there are really great exterior locations where you can capture the horizon of the strip and the desert casino vibe which is hard to get anywhere else obviously. To give you a short brief, my new music doc film delves into the Opioid crisis in today’s Hip Hop with Fentanyl, Percocet, Oxycontin, and other Pharma drugs being pushed through/by the rappers plus the purple drank aka ‘lean’ Promethazine/Codeine mixed together and taken with high dosage of heavy narcotics in the system and the negative effect it is having in the music industry and followers of the music and unfortunate accidental overdoses of rappers and kids that are a result of this. It will also get into new eerie form of Gangsta’ Rap; ‘Drill Rap’ that stems from Homicides in the hardest inner cities throughout the U.S. such as Chicago, Detroit, Memphis and Jacksonville and how its all interwoven together. There is more to it, but that is the overall premise as I can not go into too much detail on it yet.

Website: https://www.cmfilms.biz

Instagram: @jfelsotfilms

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