While actor, writer and producer Emil Pinnock got an early start in Hollywood with a recurring role as a child in the U.S. public television series “Reading Rainbow,” another major acting gig was landing the role of Oprah Winfrey’s character’s son in the film “Beloved.”
With Jonathan Demme directing that film, having won an Oscar for “Silence of the Lambs,” the “Beloved” novel being a bestseller and Oprah Winfrey being at the top of her game at the time, “it had all the right pieces and to be hired to not only be in that film, but to play the special role of her son was really good for me,” he says.
INSPIRATION FOR ‘UP NORTH’
Pinnock’s time in jail at 19 years old was the inspiration for his TV series “Up North,” which chronicles a young black man’s incarceration for a crime he did not commit and the changes being in jail brings to that character.
“What I wanted to do was I felt the responsibility to tell our story and to educate our community and audiences on what happened to us, but also to use it as a learning lesson on how to deal with the system, exposing things that we encountered in the system,” he says.
“Up North” is a popular term for jail in the U.S. state of New York.
For Pinnock, who grew up in Harlem in New York City, hearing violence and gunfire outside where you lived was the norm.
“You don’t even duck,” he says. “I’ve seen stabbings and things that me and my mother just walk past as almost as if it doesn’t happen. It desensitizes you, growing up in that community.”
What Pinnock’s mother and other older relatives tried to do was to continuously put him in programs like acting, writing, speech and debate or even basketball to keep him away from the seediest parts of the community.
“A lot of parents decide to do that when you have to be raised in those communities, but you still are seeing things, you’re still impacted by it,” he says.
While he was in jail, “there was a lot of kids crying and scared because of stories that they heard,” Pinnock adds. Ironically, in a sense he wasn’t that scared because there were no firearms in there.
I’ve seen stabbings and things that me and my mother just walk past as almost as if it doesn’t happen. It desensitizes you, growing up in that community.
“I know I might sound crazy to somebody else, but I had grown up in a community where a gun is a normal thing, so I was like, how bad could it be?” he says. “They’re taking us from the projects with these murders and putting us in a place where there’s no guns.”
COMMUNITY TIES
That said, one still has to survive in an institution that houses violent individuals.
“We had to stick together and we had to be willing to do anything that we needed to do to stay alive and to protect each other, to not be bullied, to not become prey because once you do that there’s extortion, there’s physical harassment, it could even be sexual harassment, so there’s a lot of things that you got to do, and so that’s what we did,” he says.
Luckily, the other five friends that were with Pinnock when he was arrested were also all there.
“We had people that we knew from the community that was there, and we just banded with each other so that we could protect ourselves until we were able to get out of that situation and have our case be heard,” he says.
Even then, being in jail tends to force people to become criminals, “because no matter what you’re doing, even if you’re protecting yourself, you still breaking the law at some point,” he adds. “You gotta acquire a weapon. That’s illegal. You got to use the weapon in a way that they’re saying is illegal, whether it’s self-defense or not.”
We had people that we knew from the community that was there, and we just banded with each other so that we could protect ourselves until we were able to get out of that situation and have our case be heard.
The opposite of that would be to decide to become a victim, either choice of which can be “traumatizing,” according to Pinnock.
SELLING HIS STORY
Once he was acquitted and had decided to tell his story through the arts, at that time Pinnock had never written, directed or produced anything — he had only been an actor.
“Just like they told [basketball star] LeBron James, ‘Shut up and dribble,’ there’s that same mantra in Hollywood, right?” Pinnock says. “It’s like, ‘Shut up and perform.’ For you to be the lead writer, director, producer or something, they’re just not going to let you walk in to do that from an actor’s perspective.”
As Pinnock went through Hollywood trying to sell his story, no one wanted to buy it, especially not with him as the writer, director and producer.
We had to stick together and we had to be willing to do anything that we needed to do to stay alive and to protect each other.
“I had some interest in just selling the rights of the story, but that just really didn’t interest me because I felt like this was my story to tell,” he says. “I didn’t want to hand over the rights to someone else to tell the story that I’m so passionate about that I believe I’m the best authentic voice to be able to tell it.”
Through his wife Rashidah Pinnock’s encouragement, Pinnock decided to produce the series himself.
“She was like, ‘Just do it yourself. Just like try to make the show yourself,'” he says.
Consequently, Pinnock went on a journey to raise $150,000 to “shoot a concept” that would help him pitch the show and ultimately ended up raising $500,000, which allowed him to produce the entire pilot.
‘YOU NEVER KNOW WHO YOU’RE TALKING TO’
The way he raised the money is a story in itself.
“I always tell people, you never know who you’re talking to and you can’t underestimate anyone because you never know who that person is and you never know who they have connections to,” Pinnock says.
Alysha Jweinat, a young woman in her early twenties who worked at a production company Pinnock was doing business with heard him speaking to her boss about his project. While the deal to finance the pilot fell through with the company, Jweinat approached him and told him her best friend’s father was an investor.
“Now this young girl is like almost an intern or an assistant at this place,” he says. “I was like, is this really real? But she seemed very passionate about it. And I was thankful that she took interest in our project.”
Consequently, Pinnock was able to connect with telecommunications mogul and entrepreneur Louis Arriola.
“I traded calls with him for almost three weeks, could never really reach up with him,” Pinnock says. “He’s always out of town. And then one day he calls me. He’s like, ‘Yo, if you can meet me here, I have a few hours before I take my next flight out.'”
Pinnock subsequently met with Arriola and made his pitch.
Not only did Pinnock want to do make the series from entertainment perspective, he also wanted it to be done from a place of education so that people could see what the criminal justice system is doing and then feel compelled to be a part in changing that system.
At the end of the presentation, Pinnock says Arriola appreciated the younger man’s enthusiasm but wasn’t sure he wanted to invest in a television program, something he hadn’t put his money into before.
Before he left the meeting, though, Pinnock says he told Arriola: “I said, ‘Well look, I would rather not wait to hear from you. What else do you need to know and would like to know now? Even if [Arriola’s final answer] was no, I want to answer every question that you have.'”
I didn’t want to hand over the rights to someone else to tell the story that I’m so passionate about that I believe I’m the best authentic voice to be able to tell it.
The passion in Pinnock’s tone changed Arriola’s mind.
“He just said, ‘You know what, I’m going to do it,'” Pinnock recalls. “He said, ‘I’m leaving the country today and I won’t be back for a few months, but I’m going to give you the money. How much money were you trying to raise?’ And I told him a certain amount and he committed to giving me more.”
Arriola told Pinnock that the younger man was underestimating how costly just producing the pilot would be.
While Pinnock walked out of that meeting with a handshake, he wasn’t quite sure Arriola would come through with the money.
“I remember just calling my wife, I’m like, ‘Yo, this is crazy,'” he says. “Could you believe this is going, this is like a possibility? All my friends was like, ‘Yo, there’s no way that’s happening, bro.
He’s just telling you that to get you out the house.”
Pinnock and his wife stayed up late that night, constantly checking the Chase app on their smartphones, and fell asleep with the money not there.
“I just remember that day like, you ever had those days you could remember how it smelled, how it felt? I remember the sheets, I remember everything about my house that day,” he says.
That morning, Pinnock’s wife woke him up “and she had the phone in my face, she was like, ‘Can you believe it?! The money is there.’ And so that’s how we began our whole process.”
“So thank you to Louis Arriola, Alysha Jweinat and Keith Patterson because without them that project would have never been made,” according to Pinnock. “I’m forever grateful for their belief in me, for sure.”
Parts of the pilot were shot in the very same jail where Pinnock was held. Once shooting finished and the episode was edited and complete, he submitted it to the SeriesFest independent television festival in Denver, Colo., U.S.A., where it won multiple awards and launched his producing career.
“The advice that I would give is you gotta believe in yourself and take a chance,” Pinnock says. “Bet on yourself and not this blind faith, but know your skillset. I knew I was a really good storyteller. I knew I had an eye for talent. I knew that I possessed that from not only the stories that I had written, but the education I had received outside of the classroom, because a lot of times people were saying, ‘Well, you didn’t graduate from USC,’ or ‘You didn’t go to this particular school.’
“But it didn’t mean that I wasn’t educated in storytelling, I just learned from a nontraditional perspective,” he says.
All that success has prompted Pinnock to give back to the next generation. His production company, Unleashing Giants, goes into schools in mostly underprivileged neighborhoods to provide students with an eight-week program where they’re taught how to write, direct, produce and star in their own movie.
“The students do it all completely themselves,” he says. “We can provide them with all their camera equipment that we would provide any independent project that we produce.”
It didn’t mean that I wasn’t educated in storytelling, I just learned from a nontraditional perspective.
When the film is actually done, it’s then premiered in a local movie theater in their community, where the students walk an actual red carpet.
“We have a ton of press that comes out. There’s an award ceremony for these students,” he says. “It started with me recognizing how blessed I was from people like Malcolm [Spellman] and Daymond [John] and then now being responsible, right?”
Unleashing Giants’ student filmmakers program has produced over 70 different films in various different communities in California, New York City, Atlanta and still is expanding.
“Most of the kids in our community aren’t told that they’re giants,” he says. “And they definitely aren’t unleashed. There’s a cap. There’s a ceiling. The same ceiling that they put on my head when they told me I couldn’t write, direct and produce my own television show is the same ceiling that these kids gotta look up at, because people are placing them right above their heads. And so what we’re coming to do is to set them free. We’re coming to unleash that mentality and let them stand tall as the giants that they are.”
