Gone Hollywood

What does success sound like? For Cape Girardeau native-gone-Hollywood Jeremy Ford it's a family member screaming at him over his cell phone.

"My sister called me yelling, 'Your movie's on TV!'" Ford said from the set of a reality TV show where he is working. His sister, who lives in St. Louis, had stumbled across his movie "Road 2 Sturgis" on pay-per-view while flipping channels.

"It's almost like the sound of 'You made it,'" he said. "It's a good feeling."

Ford released "Road 2 Sturgis" for a special screening in South Dakota in 2005 and in December 2007 signed his first distribution deal with Liquid Vision Pictures.

"And then coming back from the new year they told me they had a deal," Ford said.

His film was ready to go with cover art and a case for the disc. "So that impressed them. And they loved it, as well," he said.

"Road 2 Sturgis" follows The Randall Zwarte Band's tour across the country that ends in Sturgis. It is available on digital cable video on demand.

Ford graduated from Cape Girardeau Central High School in 1994. He went to Los Angeles for film school in 1999 and started making Sturgis in 2004.

Since then, he has landed work on the sets of reality TV shows like NBC's "The Biggest Loser" and "Beauty and the Geek" on the CW.

He recently started post-production of his second film "Mischievous Souls," about three skateboarders in Los Angeles.

"I hope to come back [to Cape Girardeau] and have like a sneak screening," Ford said.

The screening depends on his next movie move. Ford wants to come back to the area to shoot another movie. He said he may put "Souls" on ice to film in Cape Girardeau this summer. The new working title is "College," about a young couple who goes to a small college to stay together, but the first semester puts them through trials.

"You know when you think you're in love in high school, and you get to college and it's a whole different world," Ford said.

He wants local people to work as cast and crew for it and wants Southeast Missouri State University to be the college in "College."

"The idea behind it is to get the whole community involved," he said.