[O'CONNOR] The story of Steve Jawn, also known as Director Steve, begins in Philadelphia, where he was born and raised with a profound passion for the arts and filmmaking. Now, Steve and his wife, Dani Jawn, run a production company called the 1010 Creative, while he splits his time between his family in Delaware and producing Rolling Stone's acclaimed Nashville Now podcast in Tennessee.
For Delmarva Public Media, I'm Jenny O'Connor.
Director Steve Jawn grew up going to the theater, but not in the way you'd think. He grew up delivering flowers for his family's business that he describes just so happened to be in an old movie theater.
[JAWN] That basement and that flower shop with the old movie theater is probably all to blame. These stupid creative spaces that fill your head with these ideas. I was just haunted by a film ghost.
[O'CONNOR] And that creative ghost started haunting him early in his life, whether it was at seven years old going to career day dressed as Steven Spielberg, later on in high school joining a band during the grunge era, or eventually going to art school. But after his education, he created one of his earlier documentaries about University of Pennsylvania alumni, where his then-girlfriend, now-wife, Dani Jawn, was attending grad school. And it's there, Dani describes, that the door opened for his next career opportunity.
[DANI JAWN] And he met a producer named Mark Platt. He produced Wicked and Legally Blonde and things like that. He offered him a production assistant job in L.A. So we moved to L.A.
[O'CONNOR] And in L.A., Steve began running coffees as an intern — the dream job — and eventually working for some big people and some smaller, like the front of house at the House of Blues. And then suddenly, life got even busier.
[JAWN] I would never have imagined that I'd be in Cedars-Sinai looking at the Hollywood Hills having a baby.
[O'CONNOR] The new chapter was here, and it was time to take their story to a new location.
[JAWN] You're spending every dime we had to get to Nashville. And then we got there. We'll get a gig easily, and nobody was letting me in the door.
[O'CONNOR] After about a half a year scraping by to pay their bills, Dani landed a tech job to help them stabilize their finances. And Steve's L.A. connection with country artist Phil Vassar got him back into the world of production, eventually leading him to a gig making music videos. And after years of delivering flowers for his parents, Director Steve was finally receiving his own.
[O'CONNOR] We were nominated for our first CMT award for Old Dominion's video “Breakup Event.” We have $6 in our business checking account. Again, to me, the kid sitting in a Glenelg basement would never have dreamed that.
[O'CONNOR] This revved up Steve and Dani's production company, the 1010 Creative. The production business was rolling, and they soon met a key person in their story, Joe Hudak. And it seems like it was meant to be. Joe was born on October 10th (10/10). He also lived in Philly, also lived in Delco, and the stars aligned eventually for them to meet and start making business moves, including Dickel-sponsored events like the Writer's Room. And when Rolling Stone offered Joe a podcast, he responded with:
[JAWN] Well, it's 1010 doing it, or I'm not doing it.
[O'CONNOR] So now, Steve is producing the Nashville Now podcast with host Joe Hudak, while keeping up with his many 1010 projects, one of which is about Old Dominion's bar — that Joe Hudak narrates — as well as a docu-style film called You're Still Alive, and a musical film, Gone With the Night, starring Shawn Lacy, which has since taken on a new life since Steve's friend, Philly disc jockey Pierre Robert, took part in the film before he sadly passed in October of 2025.
[JAWN] He is in our movie. He kind of plays a version of himself, and he's wonderful in it.
[O'CONNOR] So Steve has decided to continue the film in Pierre Robert's legacy.
[JAWN] That's the cool thing when you do this stuff. They'll live forever.
[O'CONNOR] Giving him just another reason to continue making art and giving a renewed importance to his work.
[JAWN] I hope I never retire, and I hope I croak while leaning into a viewfinder or something.
[O'CONNOR] Steve Jawn's story to success is a testament to the fact that an unconventional dream — or “vision,” as Steve calls it — is just a reality that hasn't been made yet. And like great artists, even the greatest, most classic films need some time to develop.
For Delmarva Public Media, I'm Jenny O'Connor.
