The local filmmakers, painters, sculptors, and multimedia artists - all of whom he considers entrepreneurs in their own right - are now his business partners.įerra is on a mission to spotlight untold stories and D.C.’s rich creative culture, one that’s a far cry from the purely political swamp that it’s perceived to be. “The stories that we're telling today in documentary film, screenplay, short-form film, all of those experiences that we curated for the public n D.C., are now being transformed into written screenplays, or written into our scripts that are written into our documentaries.”įerra, as a full-blown documentarian, is staying close to his roots and to the experiences of his early days in the District by telling stories that celebrate the community of emerging creatives who made his success possible. “It had a natural progression, whether we knew it at the time, to where we are today,” Ferra admits.
Working closely with filmmakers and local film groups to capture the events inspired Ferra and sparked the evolution of their company. “That's when I met a bunch of great designers and producers, gallerists dealers, art dealers, people that were engrained in this space, not just locally, but who had national and international influence I wanted to learn about and absorb as much as I possibly could.”įerra describes his initial company as a hybrid between Airbnb and Eventbrite, where they put on a melange of ticketed creative events in private homes, on rooftops, in backyards, and even in community gardens – all unique spaces that showcased the local scene. “I started to network within the creative community,” Ferra remembers. He jettisoned the suit and tie to start his own company and threw himself into nurturing the relationships that would forward his business. In the District, Ferra’s creative itch resurfaced.
After fleeing to Corporate America - where he soaked up everything he could about the particulars of starting, running, and growing a business - he landed in D.C. This experience unknowingly set the foundation for Ferra’s eventual foray into documentary production. “Seeing that whole process develop, as a 19-year-old kid that had no exposure to that beforehand, it was incredible.”Īt the theatre, Ferra became a “Jack of all trades,” taking on a bartending role, serving as front booking manager for bands hosted at the venue, to doing the setting up and breaking down of concert equipment for visiting bands. “It was enlightening to see things go from ideation to something that was mixed, cut, and then put into an album,” Ferra recalls. It was there that he interned and received a crash course in production and the recording process in a greenroom underneath the stage. He was introduced to the owner and producer of a local community theatre, which hosted a rich diversity of national acts. This led him to pursue a minor in liberal studies, where he was first exposed to music, theatre, and acting classes, before ultimately catching the theatre bug. We call ourselves reverse Beverly hillbilly.”įerra described the environment as a beautiful Amish area that is void of any real outlets for expressing or cultivating creative talents.įast forward to college, where Ferra, eager to make friends, leaned into his natural inclination to seek out new creative experiences. that breeds a lot of producers and creatives in the film space. “One side of my family was in the creative industry, but we left too early to be in a place like L.A. “My parents had me in Los Angeles,” Ferra says. Born in Los Angeles - Tinseltown to the initiated - and bred in the “countryside of Pennsylvania,” in Wagontown, an Amish area more than 90 minutes from a major city, the trajectory of Ferra’s life is anything but predictable, yet ironically inevitable. This deposition is likely the product of his upbringing. Ferra prefers to be an off-camera maestro, tasked with bringing a creative vision to life.įerra is a talented yet wholeheartedly humble storyteller who is passionate about human-centered narratives. Conversely, like many producers and filmmakers, Emmett Ferra tends to shy away from center stage. Actors and thespians often crave the spotlight.
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