Striving for inclusivity in film

This article was originally posted on my Linkedin profile. I wrote this article while working for GE's Nuclear Power business in Wilmington, North Carolina.

With the objectives “Imagine, Dream, Create,” Village Kings Entertainment strives to envision the essence of the human experience within and beyond our present realities.

Script in hand, Terrilyn makes his way through the sea of hungry film producers, directors and agents that fill the conference hall, scouring for their next big hit.

Terrilyn approaches a clean-cut man with pristine demeanor to ask him for a moment of his time.

It’s a fellow producer who just had his script produced by HBO, and Terrilyn has a story pitch for him that’s going to make him think twice about any of the thrillers he’s seen before.

Hopeful that the accomplished producer can help Terrilyn make it big, he hears the words he has never heard before: to stop trying to sell his ideas to a producer for a psychological film series and instead write and produce the film himself.

“You’re a technology guy,” Terrilyn recalls being told. “You’ll figure it out.”

After years of attending countless film festivals in the 90’s, those were the words Terrilyn needed to hear. On the plane ride home that evening, he decided to take a risk.

He wanted to create his own film production company. He knew in the age of digitalization, he could use his existing relationships in the film industry and his IT knowledge from his 9+ years’ experience as an IT Manager at NC Dot to make his dream a reality. Thus, Village Kings Entertainment was born.

When Terrilyn stepped off the plane in Raleigh, he resumed his daily life. However, in his free time he began joining film lovers’ groups on MySpace and speaking to local acting clubs to find actors and producers who wanted to volunteer their time to work on his first self-produced film.

He knew the film had to be a thriller. Terrilyn loved the movies that made you think. His obsession started the day he saw The Six Sense and grew with hits like The Twilight Zone and Alfred Hitchcock.

Over the years, Terrilyn’s film business took off and he decided to take a job with GEH and move to Wilmington. He was excited to relocate to Wilmington, which at the time was considered a large film hub in the country.

But soon after his move, N.C. sold their film incentives to Atlanta and the talent pool and interest dropped significantly. Terrilyn decided to stay in Wilmington to revitalize the film industry, along with other local organizations like Cucalorus Connect and the African American Film Festival.

Once his three children found their groove at their new schools in Wilmington, Terrilyn set out to build his film empire. With a goal to one day find an old building and turn it into his own film studio, he took small but mighty steps putting together a diversified team, learning digital editing software and creating his own film equipment.

Terrilyn credits his success as an entrepreneur in film to his valuable experience from GEH. Currently, Terrilyn works for Tammy Orr’s organization as a Process Improvement Specialist, but recently has held positions in IT Quality and Program Management for GEH’s Supply Chain.

“My ability to be realistic comes from my experience in quality and being a Six Sigma Black Belt,” he credited. “Getting down to the root cause, understanding problems and creating lean processes to improve it all comes from my experience at GE.”

When Terrilyn couldn’t afford to buy a huge rail system to create a motion scene for his film, he engineered one himself prided on the principles of lean process improvement.

He took a wheel chair, put on two plastic slats and hooked it up to his camera equipment. He even went on to make his own Jib.

Nick, Terrilyn’s cinematographer, prepping the scene for Village King Entertainment’s latest film Crow’s Harvest. The jib, which Terrilyn self-made, can be seen on the tracks. 

Crow’s Harvest is a psychological thriller about a mental health administrator who takes on a homeless patient pro bono, but gets far more than he bargained for.

The actors and actresses in Crow’s Harvest are all local to Wilmington. These scenes show the actors and actresses playing doctors who served on the medical review board.

Terrilyn won’t stop inventing anytime soon. Now with 11+ years’ experience under his belt, he continues to pursue his film dream writing a new thriller series.

And when Terrilyn is not writing, he is enjoying his time as a father, taking his boat out on the Intracoastal Waterway and supporting his GE colleagues in African American Forum (AAF).

Terrilyn has been a member of AAF for six years and is passionate about helping his colleagues achieve their professional and personal goals in a supportive environment. He aspires to elevate his coworkers as successful role models because he believes that real change happens when people can see those who are being discriminated against – whether it be gender, culture or background – succeed and rise to new opportunities.

Terrilyn hopes to further challenge these stereotypes outside his AAF involvement by working on story lines that address lack of equality.

He looks to industry films for best practices, like Jordan Peele’s “US.” The film has a basic premise (a horror movie centered on a cloning experiment gone wrong) but is casted with an all African-American cast. Terrilyn strives to achieve the diversity and inclusivity portrayed in his own film by working with and casting people from all walks of life.

“I want to shine light. Although we are different, there is a ton of likeness between all of us,” he said. “Stereotypes will only change when people can change and see others persevering. People will stop questioning whether we fit when we start to be seen.”

And with his film studio dream close to becoming a reality in just a few years, Terrilyn continues to stay vigilant of the trends shaping the film industry. He knows his next big hit will make a difference for African American film makers.