What do you get when you innovatively fuse West Indian culture and comedy with creative short films featuring puppets? You get one of the leading Caribbean film production companies with an impressive catalogue of short films and series that has now racked up an impressive 66,350,618 collective views on YouTube, and over 238,000 subscribers to date since their first video was posted in 2009. Yes, Lexo TV has become one of the pioneers in the Caribbean film industry whose mission is simply to showcase West Indian Comedy and Drama on an international scale.

So who exactly is the brain behind Lexo TV? Meet Roger Alexis, the creator, writer, voice actor, director, editor; and producer of the popular puppet web series ‘I’m Santana’. Roger, who was born in San Fernando, Trinidad and Tobago stumbled across his passion for film-making as a child when his childhood friend left his video camera at home and Roger decided to take it and made a short video using sock puppets. Later on, while showing the video to his friends, they found it to be quite funny and urged him to make more, which he did. He then started to put the videos on tapes and shared them with his family and friends. This was before the YouTube era. With the interest and attention gained from his friends and family, he realized that he was onto something and decided to become a film-maker.

Meet Roger Alexis

As he got older and his passion for film-making grew, he then decided to team up with some friends, investing in better professionally quality puppets which led him to produce his first series of short films called ‘Herman Tales’ in 2006. ‘Herman Tales’ is based on a puppet called ‘Herman’. The film series was broadcast on local television stations such as TV6, Gayelle, Caribvision and even featured in the Trinidad and Tobago Film Festival.

Herman’s Tales- Episode 1 ‘Banana Robber’

After graduating with his film production degree from the University of the West Indies, Roger started Lexo TV in 2010, where he created and directed the popular puppet series ‘I’m Santana’ (which was initially inspired by a class project). The series, known for its comical and controversial nature at times, became very popular and started gaining a lot of attention online. The success would then gain the attention of well-known entertainment manager, Ian Pantin (who managed some of Soca music’s top stars such as Bunji Garlin and Patrice Roberts), who approached him in 2011 with the idea of creating a movie based on the Santana shorts.

And in 2012, ‘I’m Santana: The Movie’ premiered in the cinemas in Trinidad and Tobago creating history as it broke the box office records the highest locally grossing film ever. The film was also later shown in five Caribbean islands as well as in North America,  London, and the diaspora market (see trailer below).

Sources include: https://www.plentytalent.com, https://www.ronfanfair.com, Lexo TV Social Media platforms

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