Open the First Door

In Fes, a simple door can hide an entire world.

You can be standing in the noise and movement of the medina, then step through one threshold and suddenly everything changes. Light softens. Water echoes. Tile catches the sun. Cedar, plaster, shadow, and silence start telling you a story older than you are.

That feeling is where Riad Revival begins.

Riad Revival is a documentary restoration and cultural-travel series about searching for, restoring, and honoring a historic courtyard home in Fes, Morocco.

The riad gives the series its spine, but the people give it its soul: the artisans, owners, neighbors, historians, architects, cooks, craftspeople, and cultural voices who understand what these homes mean beyond their beauty.

This is not a glossy makeover show with a perfect before-and-after waiting at the end. We have not finalized the hero riad yet, and we are being honest about that because the search is part of the story.

Which door opens? Who grants access? What can be restored? What should be left alone? Who gets to tell the story of a place?

Those are the questions we want to follow.

Each episode will explore one part of the house and one piece of Moroccan life connected to it: architecture, climate, food, hospitality, neighborhood rhythm, craft, and the delicate choices involved in bringing an old home back without stripping away its soul.

Fes is not just beautiful. It is alive.

It is layered, ancient, spiritual, complicated, and full of people who carry knowledge in their hands. The medina is not scenery for this series. It is a living place, and we want to approach it that way.

Historic riads hold more than gorgeous tile and carved doors. They hold generations of intelligence about heat, privacy, family, water, hospitality, craftsmanship, and how people lived together around a shared center.

But places like this are also fragile. Buildings change hands. Skills disappear. Details get replaced. Stories get flattened into pretty images. And too often, the people who know the work best are treated like background.

We want to slow down and look closer.

Riad Revival asks one question at the center of everything:

How do you bring a historic home back to life without losing the culture, memory, and human hands that gave it meaning in the first place?

We are not coming to Morocco pretending to be the experts. We are coming with curiosity, respect, and a desire to listen. The goal is to build a series where Moroccan voices are not decoration — they are authority.

We are raising $18,888 to open the first real door of this project.

That number does not cover an entire series. It covers the beginning — the careful, necessary beginning.

It helps us move from research and planning into original filming, local coordination, permissions, footage organization, and a professional proof of concept we can use to pursue larger grants, partners, and buyers.

In other words: this campaign helps us stop just talking about the series and start building it properly.

Your support helps fund:

• local production planning in Fes

• cultural access and coordination

• participant and location permissions

• camera, sound, media, and backups

• production insurance and legal review

• translation and media organization

• proof-of-concept editing and captions

• campaign visuals and supporter materials

• outreach, processing costs, and contingency

Where the Money Goes

• $4,000 — Local Production and Cultural Access

Local coordination, participant access, location arrangements, translation support, and careful preparation in Fes.

• $3,000 — Camera, Sound and Media Protection

Production support, recording media, hard drives, backups, and secure organization of what we shoot.

• $2,500 — Permissions, Insurance and Legal Protection

Participant releases, location permissions, production insurance, and legal review so we can move forward responsibly.

• $3,000 — Proof-of-Concept Editing and Captions

Editing, story assembly, captions, and early picture and sound finishing for a professional proof of concept.

• $1,250 — Opening Montage Polish

Edit, sound, color, and music polish for the new opening montage so viewers feel the world of the riad right away.

• $950 — Campaign Visual Assets

Branded graphics, visual headers, and formatted images to make the campaign page feel cinematic, personal, and easy to explore.

• $688 — Fes Visual Research

Sourcing and crediting Fes, riad, and Moroccan design references to help show the tone, texture, and world of the project.

• $1,000 — Outreach Materials

Digital badges, email graphics, social posts, and campaign updates that help supporters pledge, follow, and share.

• $2,500 — Campaign Costs and Production Reserve

Payment processing, possible fiscal-sponsor administration, and a small cushion for access changes, currency shifts, and unexpected production needs.

Stretch Goals

If we pass the initial goal, every extra dollar helps us go further and do the work better.

• $20,000: Expanded filming capacity and stronger buyer-sizzle post-production

• Above $20,000: Helps close the remaining gap for the larger Fes production and buyer-sizzle phase

Seed&Spark allows the campaign to keep raising until the campaign closes, so reaching the goal is not the end. It is the beginning.

Jamison Shults — Creator, Host and Executive Producer

I’m Jamison, the creator, host, and executive producer of Riad Revival.

I’m a Louisiana-based creative entrepreneur and storyteller, and I have always been drawn to places with soul. I love rooms that feel like they remember things. I love old buildings, imperfect beauty, hospitality, design, and the way a place can change how you feel in your own body.

This project comes from that part of me.

I do not want to make a show that simply points a camera at Morocco and says, “Look how beautiful.” I want to follow a real process with real people, real questions, real permissions, and real respect for the knowledge already there.

My job is to guide the story, ask better questions, and help create a series where the house, the city, and the people around it all have room to speak.

Marla Emory — Design Lead and Co-Host

Marla is the design engine for Riad Revival.

She brings a sharp eye, a warm presence, and a natural curiosity about how spaces work — not just how they look, but how they hold people, history, function, beauty, and change.

As design lead and co-host, Marla helps us look closely at the choices that come with restoring a historic home: what to preserve, what to repair, what to adapt, and how to make sure the final result still belongs to the place it came from.

Together, we are approaching this as a real journey, not a pretend transformation with a neat ending already written.

Additional Moroccan production partners, artisans, and cultural collaborators will be announced only after their participation and permissions are confirmed.

RANDY GORMAN

Randy Gorman is a cinematographer, editor, and producer based in Ruston, Louisiana. Born and raised in New Orleans, he has called Ruston home for the past 22 years, where he lives with his wife, Mary, and their three daughters, Sydney, Sadie, and Sophie. Before turning to filmmaking, Randy spent nearly a decade in live television as a camera operator, and later served as a sheriff's deputy. This experience sharpened his instinct for reading a scene and capturing the details that matter most.

Randy has spent the last 10 years coaching elite Olympic weightlifters, powerlifters, and CrossFit athletes. He and Mary own Imperium Weightlifting & Fitness. It was the desire to tell the stories of his gym family that first drew him into filmmaking. That passion grew into Rock Island Films, his production company.

Randy is drawn to stories that tug at the heartstrings, challenge the way people think, celebrate the goodness in humanity, and follow people who live boldly in creative spaces. He has a particular passion for documentary storytelling, whether long-form or series-based, and approaches every project with a commitment to honesty, integrity, and presenting each story as fairly and objectively as possible.