Meet Christopher Henley | CEO & Producer

We had the good fortune of connecting with Christopher Henley and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Christopher, we’d love to hear more about how you thought about starting your own business?
Graduating film school we knew we could be very successful moving to LA and starting from the bottom and climbing the ladder of the film industry but the biggest problem is we would be making other people’s movies not our own. So my business partners and I all looked at each other and said, why not just start our own production company? Knowing the challenges of making it big in the industry, Lot1 Productions was co-founded with a vision of bringing more creative freedom and control to up-and-coming filmmakers in the Greater Los Angeles Area. Our ultimate goal is to diversify the entertainment industry by creating a platform for creatives to bring their ideas from thought to reality.

Alright, so let’s move onto what keeps you busy professionally?
Lot1 Productions has been a vessel for my creative dreams and aspirations. Being able to control your own content and produce what excites you is super rewarding. It hasn’t been easy and it still isn’t easy. The biggest challenge, which is the challenge for most companies is, money. You can’t make movies at a high quality or high production value without money and unfortunately film requires a lot of upfront capital before you ever make any money. Luckily we have been able to survive through small contracts, a few films, and through a lot of luck. BUT I wouldn’t give it up for anything. I feel like we have been able to grow more and in better ways as filmmakers because we have been able to make mistakes, go work on other people’s project and learn from a far and apply them to our sets vs just being told what to do and not really getting true hands on experience. It sounds like a slower way of getting to where want to be but i think it will actually get us to our end goals faster. It’s definitely going to be more difficult but we can grow faster because we have control over what we are making.

Let’s say your best friend was visiting the area and you wanted to show them the best time ever. Where would you take them? Give us a little itinerary – say it was a week long trip, where would you eat, drink, visit, hang out, etc.
If I had a friend come visit me for a week I would take them on a tour of the film industry. Do the basic stuff first like the Warner Brothers studio tour, maybe a trip to Universal Studios or visiting the Academy museum. For food we would definitely visit Leo’s Tacos for lunch one day, Cafe vita in downtown culver for breakfast and dinner in century city west field mall at Terra.

Who else deserves some credit and recognition?
Lot1 Productions’ mentor, investor, and biggest supporter is Rickerby Hinds, Film Producer, Writer, and Professor of Theatre, Film, and Digital Production at the University of California Riverside. His support and guidance has shape what Lot1 Productions is today.

Website: https://www.lot1productions.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lot1_productions/

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/23745825/admin/dashboard/

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@lot1