Today we’d like to introduce you to Jon Jacob Turner.
Thanks for sharing your story with us Jon Jacob. So, let’s start at the beginning and we can move on from there.
Since I was a little kid, I’ve loved telling people stories.
Mine began in 1990 in Amarillo Texas. A mid-size city in the Texas panhandle that is famous for precisely three reasons: hosting America’s last remaining assembly plant for nuclear weapons, being the epicenter of the beefing industry, and that time we sued Oprah.
Growing up I wasn’t what you might call a popular child. My chronic allergies, “exercise-induced” asthma, and overall lack of physical dexterity led to a severe aversion of all things requiring me to venture outside. So while the kids in my neighborhood spent their summers building makeshift ramps to jump their bikes off of; I happily sealed myself away inside of my well-stocked toy room, and used my imagination to create exciting new worlds, through which I could go on epic adventures.
My grandparents, who I lived with during the first few years of my life, so that my single young mother could finish college, move to Dallas, and become established: found themselves tasked with helping raise a hyperactive child who hated going outside and never stopped talking their ears offs. It was sometime around my fifth birthday that my grandpa Jeff; an operations officer at the assembly plant, and a part-time artist who by that point had long since settled into the family life after giving up on his dreams of drawing for comics: bought me a tape recorder in an effort to help me focus my creative energy.
I was hooked!
I would spend hours talking into that thing. I created a weekly sketch show, “The Rushaw Renegade Hour,”: comprised of short stories that I would first write, and then breathlessly recite into the recorder’s microphone. Stopping every thirty seconds or so, to bring my non-existent listeners “a word from our sponsors.” Because even back then I knew that advertising was you how got the big bucks.
Fast forward a couple of years, after the corporate overlord known as Granny, pulled me off the air; and I found myself searching for a new platform.
I would come to find it on November 7th, 1997, inside of a darkly lit movie theater on the south side of town. After my grandfather “accidentally” took me to watch what he mistakenly thought was a kids movie: Starship Troopers!
The greatest film there ever was, or ever will be.
Having up until that point, been raised on Barney and Rugrat; my seven-year-old mind went BONKERS as I watched Johnny Rico and the heroes of the Federation duke it out with the intergalactic menace known as the arachnids. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. I couldn’t believe that these adults were getting paid to do what I was doing for free everyday: playing pretend. They just had a bigger budget.
“You apes wanna live forever?”, My favorite line of the movie, and the thing I kept shouting over and over as I forced my grandpa to follow me around the house with his shoulder-mounted camcorder. Recreating all of my favorite scenes from the film.
We had a blast! The memory of that night will always be a special one to me. Because that was the day that I figured out exactly what I was going to do with the rest of my life: make movies.
Has it been a smooth road?
Far from it!
Life is easy when you’re seven, and the 90’s were wild. Thanks to a little thing called ADHD, my hyperactive mind, found it difficult to focus on subjects that it deemed uninteresting. So I struggled my way through high-school with a C-minus grade point average and was therefore unable to gain acceptance into any of the prestigious film schools that I had been lusting after.
So dejected, and still asthmatic: I entered what can best be described as my emo phase. I toiled away for nearly a decade, listlessly moving from thing to thing, picking up a new hobby just to turn around and drop it. I knew I wanted to make movies, but I didn’t know how to get started. More so I was afraid of what would happen if I tried and I failed.
It wasn’t until the death of my grandpa, the architect of my imagination, and bookend of my childhood that I came to the realization that life was indeed finite.
Shortly before he passed, I remember a conversation I had with him in his back yard. It was the only time I had ever seen him cry. He was a humble and gracious man and had lived a good life. So it shocked me to see the pain and regret in his eyes when he realized that this was it, the end had come, he had finally run out of time to do all of the things he said he would get back around to do. To take that big chance and swing for the fence.
Several days after his funeral I swore to myself that no matter what, I was gonna take my chance. I was a swing for the fence and do whatever takes to see my dream of making movies become my reality.
For myself… and in honor of his memory.
So let’s switch gears a bit and go into the Rushaw Renegade Studios story. Tell us more about the business.
My company, “Rushaw Renegade Studios,” named after my childhood talk show: is a full-scale production house capable of not only producing high-concept narrative content; but also providing our commercial clientele with production and consulting services on original audio/visual works. Works that are expertly tailored to their needs, and draped in a cinematic aesthetic that’ll draw attention.
The thing I’m proudest of personally, is that my business partner, and Head of Development, is my mother: Rachelle Turner. Who thanks to my grandparents having taken me in during my earlier years was able to finish her degree, and spend the last twenty years working as a technical writer and project manager in the corporate world. Having her agree to join me on this journey was one of the proudest moments of my life.
As a company, the Renegade family is very proud of our recently wrapped short-film entitled “The God Man,”: a psychological horror-thriller about a man with supernatural abilities who takes over a late-night talk show. That I wrote, directed, and starred in.
We were lucky enough to have assembled a highly talented cast, and extremely knowledgable crew, nearly all of whom are based in the DFW area. We’re currently in post-production on the film, and we plan to take it on a festival run later this year.
We also just recently optioned a fantastic script from an exciting new writer named Matthew Jay Giannini, that we are looking to start production on in the Fall. In Eastern Europe.
How do you think the industry will change over the next decade?
I think that as our relationship with how we ingest knowledge becomes increasingly more atemporal, thanks to the internet. We will see more and more self-taught filmmakers rising to prominence. A good example is Fede Alverez, the director of the Evil Dead remake and Don’t Breath, who learned how to do complex VFX shots, by watching videos on YouTube.
I also believe that with Disney’s recent acquisition of Fox, and the company’s announcement that it will be launching its own streaming service. We are on the verge of the “Streaming Wars.” A perpetual arms race that will see the industry’s giants, shelling out millions of dollars on original content, from emerging creatives.
Contact Info:
- Address: 5830 Granite Pkwy #100, Plano, TX 75024
- Website: https://www.rushawrenegade.com/
- Phone: 4693530199
- Email: jon.turner@rushawrenegade.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jonjacobturner/
- Other: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm9458451/?ref_=fn_al_nm_1
Image Credit:
All images are owned by Jon Jacob Turner and/or Rushaw Renegade Studios LLC.
Getting in touch: VoyageDallas is built on recommendations from the community; it’s how we uncover hidden gems, so if you know someone who deserves recognition please let us know here.
