Today on the podcast I’m welcoming Jackson Hughens, a filmmaker and passionate advocate behind the movie, Made With Love and the “Stories Made With Love” documentary series. Listen-in as he shares his own personal story of meeting his friend with Down syndrome, and how meeting Jay has ultimately changed the trajectory of his life!
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You may remember we had Jackson’s dad on the podcast all the way back on episode 16 “Behind the Curtain with David Hughens, Screenplay Writer of Made With Love (the movie)”. In that episode, we heard from David Hughens, the screenplay writer of the movie, as he shared his experience with Jay and why he decided to write the script! Now, today, we get to meet the “son” of the father-son duo behind the movie AND the documentary series, “Stories Made With Love”!
Topics discussed in this episode:
- Hear Jackson’s personal story of meeting his friend with Down syndrome and how Jay has changed the trajectory of his life!
- Understand how Jay opened Jackson’s heart through the love and joy of their friendship, and how Jay ultimately has changed the way Jackson sees and understands people with disabilities.
- Hear Jackson’s story of coming to faith, realizing the unending love of God, and how Jay even had a part in his testimony story!
- Listen to Jackson’s story of walking through anxiety, the self-worth he gained through His faith in God, and how that same faith now propels him to want to highlight the self-worth of others!
- Hear the story of how Made With Love (the movie) came to be, and how you can help support the film and watch Jay become a movie star!
- Learn how Jackson and his dad are traveling around the country to capture the “Stories Made With Love” video series, documentaries of inspiring stories of individuals with Down syndrome — and watch them on YouTube!
David and Jackson flew to Minnesota last summer to film one of the documentaries on my brother, Jesse, highlighting our special sibling relationship and all the joy and love he’s brought to our family. We filmed it at our lake property, doing all the things Jesse loves. We called it “Jesse’s Super Fun Day”, and truly had a super fun day!! After seeing how good Jackson was with Jesse, their instant bond, and how passionate and sincere Jackson is about this work, I knew I had to have him on the show too! I love his unique story of how meeting Jay changed the trajectory of his life, and I’m so thankful he accepted my invite to share it with you!
Links mentioned:
- Follow @madewithlovethemovie on Instagram, and stay up to date with all the happenings!
- Watch the documentary series, “Stories Made With Love” on YouTube!
- Learn more about Made With Love (the movie)!
Jackson’s bio: (as told by him)
My dad made a movie before I was born and worked as the Marketing Director for the school I grew up attending. He always had cameras around. At 6 years old, I enlisted his help to make my first short film. Together we made music video parodies with a Lego twist which reached millions of views on YouTube. But my dad couldn’t keep up with my demands on him as my editor and cameraman, so he encouraged me to learn for myself. By high school I had enough skills to get an internship with Cartoon Network in Atlanta. After high school, I moved to Atlanta to work freelance filmmaking gigs. My dad was then inspired by me and also moved down a year later. My dad’s childhood friend, Dawn, lives in Atlanta so we started to spend time at her house. That's when we grew our relationship with Jay, a young man with Down syndrome, whom she had recently adopted after her daughter met him in high school. Jay quickly let us know his dream is being a movie star, so my dad wrote the script! I was so moved after reading it that I realized my personal mission was to do everything in my power to see to it that this movie gets made. As we work to get this script produced into a major motion picture, we’ve been traveling the world making a documentary series for our YouTube channel all about stories of people with Down syndrome.
Instagram: @madewithlovethemovie
YouTube: “Stories Made With Love”
Website: madewithlovethemovie.com
Watch on YouTube!
Related Content:
Jackson and his dad, David, are the father-son duo behind Made With Love! They've traveled across the country shooting short documentaries, "Stories Made with Love", of individuals with Down syndrome to show the world how much value, love and joy they bring to those around them. They shot a video of my brother, Jesse, and our strong sibling relationship — Watch our documentary story!
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