BUDDING Jamaican film-maker Kevin Herman has been making waves on free video sharing website YouTube with original feature length films through his company, Prolonghd Films.

According to Herman, who says he is eyeing a bright future, the journey of his love for films started when he just entered college and a friend introduced him to recording videos on a cellular phone.

“I had a friend Dwayne ‘Genie’ Jennings and he was the one who gave me my first video camera where I started to record, pause, and play on my phone and I was very interested in venturing into film-making at that point,” Herman told the Jamaica Observer.

Herman said he wanted to teach visual arts at first and enrolled into the Edna Manley College of Visual and Performing Arts to make this a reality, but he dropped out of school as he fell more in love with filming.

“I was mostly interested in drawing and painting and teaching kids. I started studying for a diploma in fine arts in painting and then moved from the diploma to the bachelor’s in fine arts. At that time, I would venture into hotel work, videoing events to earn a few extra dollars. I dropped out of college in 2011 and started making films on my own,” added Herman.

The Kingston native said he moved to Westmoreland in 2014 and the parish would be the backdrop for his many films.

“I came to Westmoreland to visit my uncle who was very into film-making, so I ended up staying here with him to try to venture more into the business. It didn’t exactly work out, so I started working at hotels and video parties and stuff like that. I didn’t start filming movies until way after,” Herman explained.

He recalled his first project which was a short film he did with his cousin. The reactions, he said, motivated him to continue filming.

“When we first did it, it hit the streets and people started to call it Man a pop skull and that film also inspired me to keep going. So that’s how it was, I recorded my cousin and then he would video me and it was fun so it kind a motivated me to keep going,” stated Herman.

He made the transition to YouTube in 2019 with his film Finding, the story of a young man trying to find his father. This started as a web series and evolved into Herman’s first feature film. A move he made to monetise his films.

“I used to video my stuff and post them on Facebook, but I needed to earn something from my videos. So instead of selling them, I started posting them on YouTube. This was also a good platform to promote my stuff and let people know that I’m making movies,” Herman pointed out.

Apart from his impressive filming repertoire, Herman has also dabbled into the music industry by filming and editing videos for several artistes including dancehall recording artiste Chronic Law’s Nuh Like Road which was premièred in August 2021.

Currently, Herman is focusing on making more films and putting out more quality Jamaican content that the whole family can enjoy and learn from.

“Most of my films are educational where I try to teach life lessons and show people that positive things can happen. I always want to try to do good and I think others can be inspired by what I’m doing,” declared Herman.

Though he is the primary producer for Prolonghd Films, Herman does not work alone. In most of his films, viewers can see his partner Tajahney Drummond, a 21-year-old actor, taking on the lead roles.

Drummond joked that he was an actor who occasionally holds the camera but is very much passionate about acting. Something that was instilled in him the day he met Herman when they began sharing a living space in 2018.

“We are close friends now. We met back in 2018 when we started sharing a place. I made the decision to become an actor the day I met Kevin and I’ve been a part of Prolonghd Films ever since. From mi born mi just feel like mi supposed to do some form of acting and it enhance now, and my goal is to keep on acting and to become a spectacular actor,” Drummond told the Observer.

“It has been a great experience working with Kevin, I’ve learnt a lot of life lessons throughout the journey, and I love it. Filming has become like life to me. I have the drive to continue because our movies are educational and that inspires people and I want to keep on inspiring people,” he continued.

Drummond can be seen in Prolonghd’s latest project, a film set to début on February 14, called Love and Time.