Mother's Death Motivates BHS Grad to Build Career in Film

Rarely has a youngster's TV habits translated into such success. 

Fresh out of kindergarten, Jerome Strickland's father gave him a camcorder after Strickland—also known as J.R. (pronounced Jayare)—showed a keen interest in TV, or more specifically, what happened behind the scenes.

Strickland, a future graduate and homecoming king, was 6. Today Strickland has cultivated that gift into an artistic passion and a profitable career.

"The only instruction my father gave me was to play news and make movies." Strickland said. "He didn’t force me to use it, but from that point on, I can’t think of a time I wasn’t videotaping my friends and family."

Fascinated with the camera’s capabilities, Strickland treated the video recorder as if it were an extension of himself, earnestly capturing every nuance of life as it unfolded.

With three years of filming under his belt, he felt ready to take his skills to the next level.

"I wrote a script and had my best friends—Randall Brown, Winton Moss and Kenneth Moreland—act in it," Strickland said. "I was the director and my grandfather was supposed to be shooting the action but he never took the lens cap off the camera."

Undeterred by the faux pas, Strickland continually worked to develop his creative, conceptual and technical skills.

"I got my dad into filming sports," he said. "My three sisters and I are athletic. Dad was always involved coaching somebody and it was a family thing to do."

Understanding that his son was serious about filmmaking, Strickland's father, Jerome Sr., began to seek ways for his namesake to express himself.

"His hobby is my hobby," Jerome Strickland Sr. said. "I really knew he was serious around 4th grade. At that time, I would buy a piece of equipment and tell him I don’t feel like reading the manual.

"J.R. would read it and teach me how to use it. He had gotten so good that the vice president of the Bolingbrook community basketball league used to ask us to work on the championship games. I would announce and J.R. would help direct, shoot and work on graphics."

While Strickland was in 7th grade, he did a traveling game for Bolingbrook Community Television and interviewed Mayor Roger Claar and former Illinois Gov. George Ryan.

Jerome Strickland Sr. said his son breezed through the interview. 

"That confidence I saw is the reason I don’t worry about him," he said.

Later the father-son duo realized an even more important reason to shoot together when Jerome Strickland Sr.'s wife—J.R.'s mother—died. 

Video work surprisingly provided an outlet for both father and son to work through their grief.

"My mother passed when I was 12. It was really sudden." J.R. said. "She was very supportive. Even now, her voice is in the back of my mind saying anything you want to happen can happen. She’s like this great influence that I’ll always carry with me."

Driven by a desire to make his mother proud, J.R. Strickland carefully hatched a plan—he would first attend a college that prepared him to work in the film industry with the goal of producing uplifting projects.

Eager to launch a career, Strickland and a friend dabbled in record producing, founding the company Four-Sixteen in 2003, which led to the creation of a CD called "The Outcome."

Unbeknown to many, the company’s name has huge significance, representing the date of his mother's passing on April 16, 1999.

"I felt my mom’s presence had a lot of control over what I wrote," J.R. said. "I still feel it now. I really think that’s the reason I feel there’s a way to entertain and have a good message. Like, I won’t show women in a bad light because I won’t lower my credibility as a director.

"That and the fact that my sisters would kill me."

Strickland graduated from Chicago’s Columbia College in 2008 with a bachelor's degree in film and directing. Along the way, he met his producing partner Alijah Hamilton, who only goes by the name "Villian."

Strickland also incorporated the business and recruited a professional board to assist in making financial decisions.

To date, Four-Sixteen has produced a documentary, a variety of film and music video’s as well as interactive websites.

Among their high profile clients are NBC, Leon Rodgers of WGCI,  WNBA basketball star Candace Parker, as well as Atlantic Records recording artist Will of Day 26 and Malik Yusef on Kanye West’s label.

Albeit an uncertain economy, Strickland and Villian have exhibited a true entrepreneurial spirit, reinvesting profits to build a studio for Four-Sixteen. Although a risky gamble, Strickland believes he has nothing to lose and everything to gain.

That supreme confidence appears to stem from the knowledge that God and his mother are gently guiding his steps and not only is he blessed to live his life, but he he is blessed to be able to live his art.