Today we’d like to introduce you to Deante’ Gray.
Thanks for sharing your story with us Deante’. So, let’s start at the beginning and we can move on from there.
As a 25-year-old freelance filmmaker, a lot of different decisions I’ve made growing up has obviously dictated the current journey I’m on now. To understand a little more about myself and why I am who I am, I have to first start with the foundation that I grew up under as a kid.
As a youth, I grew up in a very supportive household. Growing up in Texas and especially in Houston, sports was naturally a huge part of my life. I was a natural in sports like football and track and really pushed myself to excel in those two sports.
During those early years of figuring out what I was interested in both, my Mother and Father were my (and to this day still…) biggest supporters. They preached education first and foremost and embedded a seed in me at a very young age, “You only get out what you put in”, and if I wanted to achieve all my dreams and aspirations, I had to take my education seriously. The desire to chase my dreams (which initially was to make into the NFL) is what lead me to my love of learning.
At age 10, however, my youthful ignorance first got cracked when my parents got divorced. Now living with just my mom and younger brother, who required a lot more attention than the average five-year-old because of his autism. I was forced to grow up faster and rid my mom of any stress that I could. Those years, I forced myself to approach life in a more mature manner, which ultimately led to above average grades and above-average athletic results. This earned me a football scholarship at Texas Christian University.
My time at TCU is when I first knew I wanted to direct movies. Although football was my life in college, the best decision I made while in school was declaring as a Film, Television and Digital Media (FTDM) major. I had never been so interested in learning as I was in learning about the filmmaking process. Though I was one of the few minorities in the program, I often excelled in the classroom even more than my non-athletic peers. The actual moment when I knew for a fact that I wanted to direct movies was during my Sophomore year in school. We had required screenings to attend for a grade, and we had just so happened to be watching an Independent film from a young director out of Oakland. After the movie, I stayed in the screening room for an hour afterwards trying to process what I just saw and why I felt so emotionally triggered. Ryan Coogler’s, Fruitvale Station impacted me so much, that for the first time in my life I was overly conscious, to how films can make us as humans feel. I knew then and thereafter football this is something I wanted to do.
After a successful college football career combined with an array of injuries, I signed with the Houston Texans as an un-drafted free agent. What began as a promising start to camp ended prematurely when I torn the same Acl I tore in college a 2nd time the week before our first preseason game. After a long year of rehab, I decided to listen to my body and retire from the NFL and football, with hopes of pursuing a second dream, filmmaking.
What that injury allowed me to do, being on bed rest for majority of that time, is read, write and watch a ton of movies. I began re-teaching myself screen-play format and began writing script in my spare time. (A lot of early scripts were similar to Aaron Mcgruder’s, “The Boondocks” (My favorite show ever). But I began venturing into other genres of writing. Once I made up my mind to attend Graduate School for filmmaking the scripts I wrote while rehabbing were the ones that ultimately help me get into school.
Currently, I am about to graduate from New York Film Academy (LA) with a masters degree in filmmaking. I’m in post-production with my Thesis Film “Loving Byron”, that stars fellow Houston native and NAACP theatre award winner, Omete Anassi, that will be in the film festival circuit during the year 2020. And of course what I am most proud of in my short time being in LA is my Production Company, “Gray Area Productions.”
The journey for me is forever continuous, I’m always learning and always growing, and I’m eager for the world to see my vision through the many films I create.
Has it been a smooth road?
Definitely not, the physical injuries that happened to me in football required a ton of mental toughness.
The hardest part also about pursuing this profession and even deciding to come to a city like LA, is being bold enough and confident enough to bet on yourself to come a decision to leave the comforts of what you know as home.
So, as you know, we’re impressed with Gray Area Productions – tell our readers more, for example what you’re most proud of as a company and what sets you apart from others.
Gray Area Productions LLC, is a production company founded by Deante’ Gray that specializes in narrative short films, music videos, commercials, weddings and other types of avenues that require videography services. As a company, we plan to collaborate with other artists who have unique inspiring ideas that they would like to share to the world. With content specifically targeting a minority audience. Gray Area Productions, in time will be a leading independent production company in innovation and creativity.
Our current roster of Directors, including myself are my fellow friends Omete Anassi and Astin Beal who each bring a unique and different approach to the art of filmmaking.
As the head of the Production company and as a full-time freelance filmmaker, what separates Gray Area Productions from other start-up independent companies is how collaborative we are as a whole. We are very diverse in the things we create and always want to be the ones pushing the edge in creativity.
Let’s touch on your thoughts about our city – what do you like the most and least?
What I love about Houston is its comforting vibe of it being home. Whenever I return home the vibe just feels right, everything feels familiar and the calm nature of the city really embodies my own personality.
In the same breath though, that is what I like least about Houston, from my perspective its calming nature can lead to too much comfortability in my opinion. I love Houston for all that it is, but I think in my time just growing up there my entire life, there is a stagnant energy to Houston that I knew I had to get away from for a period of time for my own overall growth.
Contact Info:
- Phone: 7135042377
- Email: productions.grayarea@gmail.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/grayareaproductions_/
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