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

Hi Jan, what principle do you value most?
A single line between thought, word, and deed is what I strive for. That idea is at the center of the culture ReelwUrld is building to counterbalance the toxicities that we are all aware of across Hollywood and media. In my observations, those toxicities have led our society to a behavior of over-valuing things and titles over the reality of the human spirit. For example, Hollywood was built on a small group of people having access to tools. This caused people around the world to over-value the positions of folks in Hollywood from actors, to producers, to directors and more. Now that the tools are more accessible than ever – with a smartphone essentially being a studio in your pocket – it’s time for us as a society to reevaluate our principles and the behaviors we’ve accepted out of fear and lack that no longer serve us (if they ever did). From that perspective, I think the greatest achievement any person can have is being consistently good and helpful to their environment. This has to start with practices in the home to train ourselves to think good thoughts, so we speak good words, and do good deeds. If we do that, then all the tools we use to communicate will amplify that goodness. That’s really the true purpose behind ReelwUrld making movies and shows with everyday people around the world – you have the power to tell a story that impacts us all. In that sense, my work in cinema, technology, and martial arts are all part of the same goal for humanity. Of course, the path for us achieving this single line between thought, word, and deed is a great challenge, and one that I struggle with daily, but every person who does so creates a victory for us all.

Alright, so let’s move onto what keeps you busy professionally?
My life’s work is what I’m doing right now with ReelwUrld’s first community-made show, Justice For Hire, by creating a crowdsourced cinematic universe with people around the world. This process takes all of my experience across film, comics, music, gaming, and even martial arts and ties them together into one robust narrative experience. I’ve honestly struggled with my art across the aforementioned disciplines for years. My biggest issues in each of these arenas has been seeing others that came before me, and feeling unenthusiastic about the fruits of their labor and how they present themselves to the world. I simply didn’t want to be like them or do what they did. For example, the film festival circuit is a convoluted path for a filmmaker to gain recognition and a steady job – it works for some, but is it worth it? In music, I rap with some of the world’s finest emcees in New York, and I even walked their music into the biggest record label at Universal, but the path to breaking an artist never truly resonated with me, and I could see my future self being depressed by it. Gaming was so full of angry nerds, and as a nerd myself with my own anger, that was too much to bear (LOL). I even backed away from my professional fighting career in college because the corruption was so overt. I’ve felt like I’ve had a tidal wave of creative energy inside me for as long as I could remember, but the predetermined paths never resonated, which made me look like a flake that couldn’t commit to any one discipline fully. It’s taken all the courage in the world for me to walk on my own with the ReelwUrld vision and unite my passions into something new. That’s not to say I don’t have massive help. It is to say that no one has done anything quite like this before. It’s a new form of art. Funny, writing this response makes me feel like I’m finally making good on how the late comic book legend Neal Adams described my creative position on a podcast with iFanboy years back. At ReelwUrld, we like to call my position a “wUrld-Builder”, and the reason we’re currently running an equity crowdfunding campaign on Wefunder is so that we can expand our technology so that countless other people can become wUrld-Builders too.

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
Places to go:

– The Academy Museum

– Little Tokyo

– Chinatown

– Shaolin American Self Defense Academy (for our regular workouts)

Places to Eat:

– India Sweets & Spices (Los Feliz Blvd.)

– Merkato (Ethiopian food)

– Tian’s Dim Sum

– Gokoku Vegan Ramen

– Lotus Vegan

– Cafe Gratitude

– Mashtie Malone’s Ice Cream (La Brea)

– Honest Restaurant (Artesia)

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?
I have to shoutout my father, Jan C. Childress. He was divinely inspired when he gifted me my first company when I was in film school at NYU. Raising me around comics, anime, action films and action figures, running my own company was the natural progression from consumer to creator to owner. I aim to help everyone make the same transition as we work together to build a world of community creativity and ownership through ReelwUrld’s cinematic social network.

Website: reelwurld.com

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

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/janlucanus/

Other: Learn about ReelwUrld’s first equity crowdfunding campaign on wefunder.com/reelwurld.

Image Credits
Photos by Thais Aquino.

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