A profile of Long Island native Jordan Crafton, a self-taught filmmaker who has produced two acclaimed documentaries and holds a senior position with a popular Nickolodeon natwork TV show.

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BRUCE GILBERT
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coverstory
Lens on LI & success
Documentary
filmmaker
endures friend’s
loss, fulfills both
of their dreams
BY MORGAN LYLE
T
BRUCE GILBERT
Special to Newsday
JEREMY BALES
NEWSDAY, SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 2, 2014
newsday.com
Above, Jordan Crafton edits
at home. At left, Frank Abel,
Uniondale High’s former band
director, is featured in
Crafton’s film about the band.
ON THE COVER. Jordan
Crafton, 26, went from the
hospitality business to the
director’s chair, without any
formal training.
he first time Jordan Crafton entered a movie in
his college’s student film festival,
he bombed.
Crafton’s short film, “This Is
What Happens,” about a claustrophobic ninja avenging his
abused mother, earned a score
of just 30 out of 90 from the
judges at the University of
South Carolina in a 2006 contest. The Baldwin native could
have chalked up the low score to
the fact that his major was hospitality management, not film, and
given up any serious ambitions
about show business.
But by then, the sophomore’s
longtime interest in film had
become a passion. So he took the
score sheet to Kinko’s, blew it up
to 24-by-36 inches and hung it on
his dorm room wall for motivation. He submitted another entry
the following year and came in a
very respectable third out of
more than 30 entrants.
“I was the only kid at the
festival who wasn’t a film
student,” Crafton recalled. “It
gave me credibility.”
That determined focus has
gotten Crafton where he is
today: director of photography
and editor for Nick Cannon’s
“TeenNick Top 10,” on the
Nickelodeon TV channel, and
producer of two documentaries about life on Long Island.
It sustained him through long
nights of working after work. It
gave him the nerve to pester his
way into the company of one of
the top names in entertainment.
And along with a strong faith
instilled by his parents, it helped
him deal with the heartbreaking
loss in 2009 of his childhood
See COVER STORY on G6

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‘It’s Showtime’ marches across the big screen
JORDAN CRAFTON
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A scene from Crafton’s latest movie “It’s Showtime,” featuring the marching band from his alma mater, Uniondale High School. Crafton is a 2005 graduate.
JORDAN CRAFTON
NEWSDAY, SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 2, 2014
JORDAN CRAFTON
newsday.com
Above and at right, scenes from “It’s Showtime,” which began as a
tribute to Uniondale High School’s now retired band director.
Ⅲ More photos and video: newsday.com/lilife

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Filmmaker keeps focus
COVER STORY from G4
friend and film company partner, Tyrell Spencer.
“I release a new video every
year on the day he passed away,”
Crafton said, referring to Nov.
24 and the car crash that killed
his best friend. And he said the
“D” in the name of his production company, JDC Films, no
longer stands for his middle
name, Dexter, but for Spencer’s,
which was DeVaughn.
NEWSDAY/KAREN WILES STABILE
NEWSDAY, SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 2, 2014
newsday.com
Encouraged from the start
Filmmakers and friends Jordan Crafton, left, and Tyrell Spencer outside their alma mater, Uniondale High School, in June 2009,
before their 75-minute film, “My Block: Strong Island,”was screened at the school. Spencer died later that year.
Crafton, 26, who now lives in
Mahwah, N.J., is the youngest of
three sons of John Crafton, a
retired deputy superintendent
with the New York City Transit
Authority, and his wife, Jeanette,
a retired teacher. He also has a
sister, Susan Harper, 48, who
lives in Hempstead and is a
minister at a Brooklyn church.
Her mother, John Crafton’s first
wife, died a few months after
Harper’s birth.
Crafton’s brother John, 36, is
a Manhattan real estate agent
who lives in Amityville. Jason,
31, lives in Nyack and is head
coach of the Nyack College
men’s basketball team.
The brothers were raised in
an atmosphere where hard
work was encouraged and
support was freely given.
“As a teacher, I didn’t tolerate
nonchalance,” said Jeanette
Crafton, a lifelong educator who
last taught at PS 251 in Springfield Gardens, Queens. “We
established excellent morals.
You have to realize there are a
lot of sacrifices to make in order
to achieve excellence.”
Crafton was a good student at
Uniondale High School, and
returned in 2009 to give the
commencement address. In
college, even after his father said
it would be OK to change his
major to film, Crafton stuck
with hospitality management,
reasoning that a steady job
managing a restaurant would
help finance his film career.
Indeed, it was his mother’s busy
schedule — she also was a tutor
and led a weekend reading program for children, among other
things — that turned Crafton into
a once and future hotelier.
When he was 8, he would
set up his bedroom like a hotel
room for his mother to relax in
after work. She could order

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‘Strong Island,’
revisited
Filmmaker Jordan Crafton (back row, right) with his family. From left, brother Jason, mom Jeanette,
father John E. (back row) brother John, sister-in-law Michelle and sister Susan Harper.
See COVER STORY on G8
JORDAN CRAFTON
Crafton met Spencer in a
seventh-grade Spanish class,
and the two became fast friends.
“I had my older brothers who
I looked up to the most,”
Crafton said. “But Tyrell was a
tougher kid than me. I think
that’s why we mixed so well. I
‘My Block: Strong Island’
Three young men from Crafton’s 2009 documentary “My Block: Strong Island,” which profiled 15
youths and young professionals from predominantly African-American communities on Long Island.
Crafton will release a sequel this summer, “My Block: Strong Island Part II,” featuring older generations.
NEWSDAY, SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 2, 2014
The perfect partnership
was tough, but I was the smarter
kid. Tyrell was gifted, but he had
the street smarts and the savvy.”
It was Spencer who had the
idea for what would become
JDC Films’ first big project.
“He said, ‘We should do a
movie about the town. We’re
gonna be heroes.’ ”
Crafton borrowed money
from his father to buy the last
two Sony Handycam hi-definition video cameras at a Best Buy
near campus that was closing.
He worked at a restaurant to pay
back what he owed, and eagerly
returned to New York in the
summer of 2007 to start work on
the project. He had no formal
training then or since, so he
learned the basics of shooting
and editing film from books and
YouTube tutorials.
The result was 2009’s “My
Block: Strong Island,” a
75-minute documentary following 15 youths from Uniondale,
Freeport, Hempstead and other
predominantly African-American communities on Long Island
as they negotiated obstacles and
struggled to build lives and
careers. One of them, Nick,
— MORGAN LYLE
newsday.com
room service through the
“intercom,” which was actually
an old baby monitor.
“He acted as if he was at the
front desk,” Jeanette Crafton
said, chuckling at the memory.
“And he said, ‘When you check
out, please remember to refer
me to your friends and tell them
what a nice time you had.’ ”
Crafton’s grand plan is to
again one day cater to his mother’s relaxation needs, but right
now he’s focused on laying the
foundation to achieve that goal.
These days, he still doesn’t own
a couch and doesn’t have cable
in his apartment.
“When I come home, I have
to work,” he said. “That was
the biggest ingredient in my
success after college, keeping
my life intact — and I hate to
say it this way — but not to
allow myself to enjoy myself.”
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JORDAN CRAFTON
J
ordan Crafton plans to release a
sequel to “My Block: Strong
Island” this summer, which will
include older generations and
take a broader look at what the
young filmmaker said are the
“unique characters and ingredients
that helped build the culture of our
home.”
The project is being funded by the
National Center for Suburban Studies at Hofstra University in Hempstead, as part of its Oral History
Project.
“My Block: Strong Island Part II”
will “use our oral histories and the
other materials we have gathered for
either inspiration or as source material, and have it inform the story of the
more diversified suburb we have
today,” said Lawrence Levy, the
center’s executive dean.
“The one thing that I’m sure of is
that it will be interesting, because
Jordan Crafton is a very interesting
young filmmaker,” Levy said. “One
day he’s going to be a thought leader
for his generation.”
Meanwhile, the Long Island Studies Institute and Hofstra University
Archives will sponsor a Feb. 19
screening of “It’s Showtime” at 7
p.m. in the school’s Guthart Cultural Center Theater, Axinn Library,
First Floor, South Campus. Admission will be free. Details will be on
jdcfilmsonline.com.