Nationwide — It’s not about who you see in front of the camera anymore, it’s about who’s doing business behind the scenes. This is the mantra at Four Screens, Black-owned management, and production company helmed by CEO Messiah Jacobs.
Messiah, a successful Los Angeles-based Producer, is not new to the challenges of creating content in Hollywood for the African American audience. For the last two decades, he has been integral in developing content celebrating Black culture. He has worked with the most successful names in the entertainment industry including Tiffany Haddish, Vivica A. Fox, Billy Dee Williams, Monica Calhoun, Robert Townsend, and the Estate of Ol’ Dirty Bastard.
Inspired by the Black Lives Matter Movement, Jacobs realized that, for a lasting change to take root in entertainment, he had to pivot the mission of Four Screens: The company went from simply producing projects to providing full-service management.
“It isn’t enough to make diverse content, we must change the way deals are financed, greenlit, constructed and how under-represented talent is managed,” Jacobs says. “Black talent in front of the screen is not always being managed and represented by entities with the same goals of inclusion and diversity in mind.”
“The social uprisings of the BLM movement made people finally start seeing the inequalities in Hollywood,” continues Jacobs. “When you look at under-represented talent, you do not see strong African American management companies in Hollywood. We are doing just that.”
