Meet Jasmine Reid of North Raleigh

Today we’d like to introduce you to Jasmine Reid

Hi Jasmine, can you start by introducing yourself? We’d love to learn more about how you got to where you are today?
I have always been a creative writer. I have been writing since I was in the 3rd grade, around 8 or 9 years old. I have had people who read my writing tell me that I had a gift for storytelling, and they could see and feel everything I had written on the page. In middle school, I got a book about the TV show Frasier, which had a sample of the pilot episode script. So I used it as a formatting tool to write my first script. It was not good. However, this captured my interest and I began to venture into screenwriting and practicing.
I continued to write over the years and in 2018 I stumbled upon FilmRiot on YouTube. I watched their channel, then many other filmmaker channels, and became inspired to pursue the career path of filmmaking finally. So I enrolled in film school via Art Insititute, which closed before the end of the year. So I transferred to Living Arts College in Raleigh and graduated in 2022. Soon after, I founded my LLC, Ladybug Productions.
During my time at Living Arts, I produced and released my films, Hunter’s Song (2020), One Nite (2021), and my student film Cradles (2021), which won a screenwriting contest at the school. It was the prequel to a movie I released in 2022 called Chaos Awakens.
During my time as a filmmaker, I have noticed that there is a lack of creativity and originality, OR more creators pushing for quantity over Quality. So my company, my vision, became to push out quality, original content that comes from a place of pure imagination. This became the main motto of my company. Inspired by Willy Wonka and his original outside-the-box thinking, Pure Imagination is somewhat our theme song in our YouTube tutorials and any BTS and non-film content.
Today, Ladybug Productions LLC is a family business. I am the creative director; writer, producer, and editor. My son is the sound guy; he works the audio at my shoots, whether it is a film or interview. I have a few friends who come to help with the camera. And a very small roster of actors and filmmaker friends who I work with. I do advertisements, music videos, interviews, edits for reels and graphic designs as well as the films I write and shoot. All with quality in mind. My goal is to make it as high quality as possible, and to make all involved look good, from the client to the talent and everyone in between.
I wish to change the face of entertainment, as well as the way some perceive independent films as lower quality than our Hollywood Big Brother, for independent films to be taken as seriously. As well as that central NC is a wonderful place to film. Not just Wilimgton and Ashville. Not just select places in Central NC but the area as a whole. I would love for NC to be seen as one of the top places for Quality independent film.

Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
In the years since 2022, there have been a few setbacks. The biggest production at the time had a series of roadblocks and bumps, which began to play on my mental illness and began to place stress on myself, and my inability to trust others came to light. Several problems came to surface behind the scenes that I wasn’t informed about and at the point it was brought to my attention, I couldn’t do anything about it. So I took note, did my best at damage control, and pushed forward. It was near the end of the shoot and the team I worked with, shut down the production without my consent, I wasn’t in the discussion to decide that. And I took the brunt of the fallout. I will never speak poorly of the team if asked, I will never name them by name. However, my company and I took a hit I am still recovering from. Many other companies have gone through the same type of treatment, and they are working thier way out of it I will no longer talk negatively about anyone, which there is no point in doing because honestly we are all in the same boat and have the same goal, I see no reason why we shouldn’t work together as a community because we are so small we all know of each other, if not KNOW each other. I had a rough rest of 2022 and early 2023. I released small projects done in After Effects, spent 2023 writing, and released a short comedy film, Knick Knacks near the end of 2023. This gave me the motivation to move forward and begin to come back to what I love doing. And 2024 started slowly because of my shoulder surgery, but is now picking up all be it during a horrible heat wave.

As you know, we’re big fans of you and your work. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about what you do?
I specialize in narrative work, creative stories that are designed to invoke emotion and change within the audience. To give them insight into themes presented to the audience in a way they can digest and take away something beautiful.Perhaps a lesson of how sometimes your chosen family is more protective and has better intentions than the one you were born from. Sometimes testing your relationship or readiness to commit could have dire consequences. I have been known for my writing thought-provoking works, or invoking feelings, emotions, and visualization of events in scenes causing the reader to immerse themselves so deeply they become part of the scene in which they are indulging. This I am also very proud of, though I don’t see it very well, I take my reader’s words for it. I trust them when they say it is amazing.

What’s next?
Plans for Ladybug and myself are to continue to create original works. And to focus on quality vs quantity. I am working on designing products to be sold featuring the Ladybug logo and slogan. As well as renderings of iconic symbolism from my films to help with funding the company. I hope to gain more clients, mostly on a retrieve basis, and work with more people in my local community to make more films of quality and creativity to release and elevate the independent film scene, especially in the area of Central North Carolina. I hope in the future I can get a building I can turn into a studio, an actual proper studio. We have a film that is currently in production that will be released sometime in 2025 and we have other projects in development as well.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://ladybugfilmproduct.wixsite.com/ladybugproduction
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ladybugproductionsllc/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/LadybugProduction
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCGqbrKktOg-LbZ1QQwW_ZyQ