Today we’d like to introduce you to Larry Harris and Leonard Martin. They and their team shared their story with us below:
ArieCan Productions was founded in 2016 by Larry Harris and Leonard Martin. The name came about because I’m an Aries and Leonard is a Cancer. Leonard introduced me to a web series he saw on YouTube and after watching a few episodes I became a fan.
That particular production company put a post on Facebook stating that they were looking for extras. Since the production was filmed in PA, I wanted to just be a part of it because I love the series. Long story short they saw our messages about wanting to be extras, but they never responded. So, I told Leonard, “Hey let’s just do our own thing.” He agreed but only if I completed college and got my degree so that’s what I did. I got my associate’s degree, and he bought the camera.
We had no clue what we were doing lol. I knew how to create stories, but I had never created a script. We had no money, and no one wanted to help us. We reached out to so many people, but no one responded. So, we looked everything up on YouTube and Google. We got our friends to be our actors and we paid them with pizza. And on December 16, 2016, we had a premiere party for our first series called, Chapter 2. It was about a guy named Jonathan who had just broken up with his longtime boyfriend. And the ups and downs of starting over.
Our premiere party consisted of 12 friends in our living room (which by the way was also the set for Chapter 2). We premiered at 8 pm on YouTube. We prayed that at least 100 people would see our show. But within the first hour over 1,000 people had watched it. We were over the moon with excitement. The show started to garner a big fan base by episode 4 and I told Leonard, ‘I think I want to do this as a career now.’
Fast forward less than a year of our season one premiere in our living room with 12 people to season 2 opening to a sold-out crowd at the movie theater. From the attention we had gathered at that point, Amazon Prime reached out to us and we’ve had a streaming relationship with them ever since. We’ve been blessed to have so many articles written about us and our company.
To date, we have 4 series under our belt. Chapter 2, Secrets, Dear Diary & The Braxton’s: The First Family. We’ve won multiple awards with Secrets and The Braxton’s. We signed with a PR agency and have high-power entertainment attorneys representing us. Life is great right now.
Leonard says, “Baltimore has a wealth of talent and potential. We were disappointed at how little recognition there was. So, we decided to create our content.
Larry continues, “It was a huge adventure” – we didn’t know what we were doing when we started, but then we “learned by doing it and making mistakes along the way” and it has become a great success. We are a dream come true because we’ve learned everything on our own and in just 6 years we’ve accomplished so much. And just like our slogan says, “It starts with a dream.”
We all face challenges, but looking back, would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
Oh, it wasn’t a smooth road because we had no idea what we were doing. All we knew was our stories were unique and fresh.
We struggled with basic stuff like what type of cameras to get, battery packs, microphones, etc. We reached out to so many other creators, and no one responded. It was frustrating the first couple of months into filming.
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
In our personal lives, we both have office jobs working Monday – Friday. So, having the weekends off was a blessing because that’s when we film our shows. Leonard is a manager; he works in the accounting field and I’m a supervisor.
I work with juveniles. At my job, I’m known as the next Tyler Perry and so is Leonard at his job. That’s a huge compliment because Tyler Perry is someone, we both look up to and are inspired by. We would love to work with him one day. To be honest, we’re both so proud to have started ArieCan Productions from the bottom with no experience. We are living proof that if it’s for you nothing and no one can stop your blessings. The thing that sets us apart is we are constantly creating and trying to build this company and make it bigger and better. Our goal is to become a household name all across the country.
We’re also proud to be working with Baltimore City Public Schools. They reached out to us about a program they had just initiated and wanted to know if we’d like to be a part of it. We loved what they presented to us and from that we created a 6-week program called, “Introduction to the Film Industry”. In the course, we shared our knowledge and experience with the students. They learned everything from budget management to starting their own production company. We loved teaching our students and the parents loved it as well. We had so many rave reviews that BCPS asked us to extend our program.
We would love to have our production building one day so that we could teach the students even more than what they’ve already learned. But finding a building and funding for a building hasn’t been easy. But we have faith that it will happen one day.
Before we go, is there anything else you can share with us?
We would like for your readers to know that ArieCan Productions is a production company that loves our city. No matter what we do you will always see the influence of Baltimore in our work. Most of our actors are local.
That was important to us because we know it’s so much talent here and we want to be the company that showcases that. We’re also currently filming season two of our award-winning series SECRETS and we’re always looking for new talent. Follow us on social media and reach out to us we’d love to work with you.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.ariecanproductions.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ariecanproductions/
- Facebook: https://m.facebook.com/ArieCan-Productions-
- Linkedin: https://linktr.ee/ariecanproductions
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/ariecanproduct1
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/c/ArieCanProductions
- Other: https://www.ariecanproductions.com/donations
Image Credits
ArieCan Productions
