Albert Crane is making waves with Your Everyday Heroes

by Gordon Shelly

Albert Crane has been the Executive Producer of the web docu-series Your Everyday Heroes since it first started airing five years ago. Currently, the show is in Season Three and does not show any signs of slowing down.

Albert loves sharing these stories of the unsung everyday people who are doing inspiring thoughtful work to better their surrounding communities, that might be overlooked by the mass media outlets.

INFLUX: What are you currently working on that you can share with us?

ALBERT: We are preparing to release our documentary on Costa Rica on our domain, with the launch of a new one which is more Netflix style on www.youreverydayheroes.world, along with Season 3 of our docu-series, we have a great mix of stories ready to be released.

INFLUX: Can you tell us a bit about the history of “Your Everyday Heroes?” How did you get started and what was the motivation?

ALBERT: We are currently sitting in Version 3 of the domain and project. We started with a client of mine, who a few years ago came to me and asked what I’d do with approximately 400 videos of personal profiles. I told him, we’d get a domain, license a video player, put ads in and around it and then market the domain. The next day, he said here you go, and handed me all of them. We call those our OG Heroes on the website. 40 we’re pretty good, 8 were very good and 4 were marketable.

At that moment, I knew I had something. I spoke with my wife later that same day, and explained the entire plan, she gave me the green light, and I left my job, started J. Fac Associates LLC with a really great friend of mine, and was introduced to the video production world, trial by fire.

Rocko Productions, along with John Snyder showed me, that everyone’s story has a right to be told, and introduced me to singer and song writer, Carey Ott, who named these people Everyday Heroes, as the song Everyday Heroes was created to showcase these people.

This lead me to finding more production companies like Pangea.tv and the work we do with Ali and his team in Pakistan. To now in Season 3, bringing on Bridges Media, which has now shot 3 of our hero stories. We love working with Alyssa, and her stories are amazing.

INFLUX: How are viewers responding so far?

ALBERT: Incredibly Positive, What I enjoy the most is talking to the hero after their piece goes live. I love hearing how their family and friends enjoyed it, and how honored they feel just to see their story told. The gratitude they share is a wonderful to feeling to experience

INFLUX: What are your hopes for your current project?

ALBERT: We strive to help our “everyday heroes” achieve their goals by sharing their stories with a larger audience. The heroes we featured in Costa Rica specifically are all tied to non-profits that rely on donations to survive. We hope by spotlighting their causes, which the audience likely was not aware of prior to viewing our piece, to inspire others to get involved with their efforts to help protect Costa Rica’s wildlife.

INFLUX: What have been your greatest challenges as an indie filmmaker?

ALBERT: Wearing many hats, luckily we have a lot of people helping us work towards our goal of getting these stories seen. Funding is always an issue, there are so many people/causes we want to highlight, but are unable to due to the constraints of our budget.

INFLUX: What has been your most significant accomplishment as a filmmaker?

ALBERT: I was wearing our beanie with the Your Everyday Heroes logo on it, and someone came up to me and said they love the work that we’re doing. Complete stranger. It still gives me chills.

INFLUX: Tell us about some of your past projects and where we can watch them if they’re available.

ALBERT: All seasons, and stories are available on www.youreverydayheroes.com and will be featured on www.youreverydayheroes.world in the next few months. Highlights include an episode about Damon Lamar Reed, a Chicago mural artist who paints missing women on buildings in their communities to draw attention to their cold cases. Brett Eastburn is another audience favorite, he is a Twitch streamer/comedian who was born without any limbs. We have Spanish-based episodes that spotlight Rodrigo Pacheco, a celebrity chef who built an edible forest, Michel Guerrero, who studies and swims with giant manta rays, and Antonio Polo, an Italian missionary who helped a small Ecuadorian town escape the clutches of their ruthless landlords.

INFLUX: What has been the most rewarding aspect of this show?

ALBERT: Being able to share a few moments in these peoples lives, the release of the Sea Turtles, Macaws and Howler Monkey’s was just unbelievable. They do this all of the time, and we got to see their love of protecting the wildlife. I love it. all of it. everything we do.

INFLUX: Any upcoming heroes you can tease for us? Who’s next?

ALBERT: Did you know, that in 2022, around 48,800 women worldwide were killed by their intimate partners or other family members. This means that, on average, more than 133 women were killed every day by someone in their own family. We found someone who is fighting back. Her Trailer comes out on August 12th & here’s the link to it | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LutyxrLq8XE

INFLUX: What goals to you have for yourself moving forward?

ALBERT: 1. To launch our production company named J. Factory Studios – we are slated to launch this at the end of Season 3.

2. To help more heroes get their stories out to a larger audience in Season 4.

3. To get more viewers on our websites to spread awareness about our heroes’ causes.

INFLUX: What advice would you give to your younger self just starting out?

ALBERT: To persevere in the face of the challenges life throws at you. Nothing that matters comes easily, and there will be times you want to quit, but if you stay on course, you’ll achieve your goals. Lead from the front, don’t be a follower.

INFLUX: What motivates you to keep going?

ALBERT: 1. I tend to fall back on our stories for added motivation, where i listen to Jeremy say “If i was a 10 year old, i’d be my own hero if i did this and said yes.” Or Vick Lee telling me to keep going and not to quit. We have so many great stories from so many walks of life, I find myself re-watching a certain story when I need start to get overwhelmed by life.

2. My wife, much like all of our heroes say when we ask them this question, having a supportive partner makes all of the difference.

3. The team we’ve put together, especially Gina D’Onofrio who heads up the content strategy for us.

4. I love learning new things and how to incorporate them into our daily activities on creating the platform.

INFLUX: You mentioned that you are showing no signs of slowing down. How long do you see “Your Everyday Heroes” lasting?

We have a lot of great people working on these stories, putting time and effort into the vision because they believe what we’re doing is so impactful into these peoples lives, that I hope to be able to continue creating hero stories for awhile, but also finding connections (synergies) between the heroes, much like we did with the Costa Rica heroes and building on top of the amazing foundation we have in place. So that’s a long way of saying, you’ll be seeing our name for at least a few more years.

INFLUX: What has been the best way for viewers to find and be exposed to what you are doing?

ALBERT: Our Social Media have been key, being able to reach a new audience, along with participating and doing well in awesome festivals like Influx has been a huge success.

If I were to pick one though, it’s when we collaborate with the Hero and the Film crew on Reels and Posts through social channels.

Being able to leverage all 3 social media accounts has been huge for us and something we’re doing more of, not only does that show the viewer the content they are looking for, but connects the audience with who created it & the actual hero’s pages.

You can follow Albert at:

Photo Credit: The Cranes

 

 

 

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