Today we’d like to introduce you to Alexia Dickson.
Hi Alexia, so excited to have you on the platform. So before we get into questions about your work-life, maybe you can bring our readers up to speed on your story and how you got to where you are today?
Today, I am in a place that younger me could not have fully imagined.
I graduated from Webster University in 2025 with my degree in Film, Television and Video Production, and I now work full-time at FOX 2 / KPLR in St. Louis as a Broadcast Engineer. I also work with Studio STL as a field producer, photographer and editor, which gives me the opportunity to leave the station, enter the community and help tell the stories of the people, businesses and organizations that make this city what it is.
Television has stretched me far beyond simply knowing how to operate a camera. I have learned how to troubleshoot under pressure, work in live production environments, understand audio, lighting and broadcast systems, produce in the field, communicate across departments and make decisions quickly when there is no opportunity for a second take.
And while I have built a career inside of television, I have never stopped building outside of it.
I am the founder of Renegade Lenz Media, the company that began when I was a young woman with a Canon Rebel T7i, no perfect roadmap and an overwhelming desire to create. What started as freelance photography has grown with me into a St. Louis film and production company focused on narrative, commercial and creative media. A major part of the vision now is supporting local stories and storytellers because I believe the people in this city deserve to see their lives, neighborhoods, businesses and experiences treated with the same cinematic intention we associate with larger markets.
I have also stepped deeper into entrepreneurship as the co-founder of Hard Launch Media, alongside my business partner Desirae. Through Hard Launch, I have been able to explore another side of media: branding, strategy, social media, content systems and helping businesses understand how storytelling can actually move an audience to action.
I have directed my own narrative work, including The Universe Can’t Stop Us, and I am continuing to develop films and new creative projects of my own. I am especially interested in what happens when traditional filmmaking meets the speed and resourcefulness of modern content creation. I do not believe filmmakers always have to wait for the perfect camera, the largest crew, months of preparation or someone else’s permission before they create. I believe in using what is available, learning through repetition and actually finishing the work.
That philosophy has also become a major part of the filmmaker community I am beginning to build online. More and more aspiring filmmakers ask me, “How do I get started?” My answer continues to become simpler:
You practice.
You shoot. You edit. You watch your work back. You discover what you missed. You shoot again. You tell the story with what you have until you have access to more.
I am also becoming increasingly intentional about using my personal platform to talk openly about what it looks like to be a young Black woman building a career in film, television, entrepreneurship and media at the same time. I want other creatives to see not only the finished projects, but the uncertainty, experimentation, mistakes, long workdays, breakthroughs and relationships that exist behind them.
I still have much larger goals.
I want to make films. I want to develop productions that originate here in St. Louis. I want to help create more opportunities for Black creatives and local storytellers. I want my work connected to initiatives that strengthen financial independence within Black communities and expand conversations and resources around mental health in communities where those needs are often overlooked.
And I want to continue building a career that allows me to move between television, film, business, technology and whatever new forms storytelling takes next.
There are moments when I look at everything I want to accomplish and think, “That is bigger than me.”
And the truth is, it probably is.
My life has continuously reminded me that I was never expected to build everything through my own strength.
God has placed people throughout my story at moments when I could not yet see the next step. My mother created the foundation. My grandmother saw my eye. My teachers exposed me to possibilities. Peggy Hull helped prepare me for my future. Brock Seals opened my eyes to another side of St. Louis. Lisa Martin and Jay Gill recognized potential in me at FOX 2. My professors, coworkers, friends, collaborators, clients and family have all contributed pieces to the woman and filmmaker I am becoming.
Sometimes other people saw something in me before I had the language to describe it myself.
Today, I finally have more language for it.
I am a filmmaker.
I am a broadcast professional.
I am a producer.
I am an entrepreneur.
I am a storyteller.
And I am still a student of all of it.
I am trying to let God use me, fight through fear and doubt, take care of myself along the way and remain open to wherever this camera takes me next.
When I think back to the girl who left college, worked at Panda Express and had absolutely no idea what was coming next, I realize she actually had more than she thought.
She had curiosity.
She had people who believed in her.
She had faith.
And eventually, she had a camera.
That was enough to begin.
Years later, so much has changed, but I think the principle remains the same:
Use what you have. Pay attention to the people God places in your life. Tell the story. Finish the project. And keep moving.
Because so much of the life I have today began with one very simple realization:
I’m here. And I have a camera.
I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
Has it been a smooth road? Absolutely not.
One of my biggest challenges has been learning to trust myself.
For a long time, a lot of my momentum came from motivation rather than discipline. When I felt inspired, I could move mountains. When that feeling disappeared, maintaining the same level of consistency became much harder. I am still actively working on that today. I am learning how to build a life that does not require me to feel motivated before I follow through.
There were also very real logistical obstacles along the way.
I attended UMKC from 2017 to 2019, originally believing I was going to pursue nursing. I was young, still figuring myself out, and I made financial decisions I would handle very differently today. I eventually owed the university money, which resulted in my transcript being held and made transferring schools difficult for roughly two years.
During that period, life did not stop while I figured everything out.
I worked at Panda Express, became a patient care technician and later worked as a server. For a while, my plan was somehow to become both a nurse and a photographer. I knew I loved the camera, but I did not yet trust that creativity could become the foundation of my career.
Then COVID changed a lot.
My healthcare employment eventually ended after I chose not to meet a vaccination requirement. At the time, that was frightening because it removed one of the paths I thought I could depend on. Looking back, though, that period forced me to seriously reconsider what direction I was actually supposed to be going in.
Eventually, I was able to resolve what I owed, regain access to my transcripts and start moving forward academically again. I attended community college, earned my associate degree and later transferred to Webster University.
Choosing film school was scary because I still could not completely see what I was building.
That may sound strange. You would think that someone enrolling in film school knows they want to become a filmmaker.
I didn’t.
I knew I wanted to become technically skilled. I wanted to understand cameras, editing, lighting, sound and production well enough to build a business around those abilities. I was never chasing the image of being the stereotypical “film kid.” I wasn’t doing it because I wanted to look cool standing next to a cinema camera or prove to people that I belonged on a set.
I genuinely wanted the skill.
And somewhere in the process of acquiring the skill, I became the filmmaker.
While I was attending Webster full-time, I also landed an internship at FOX 2 that eventually became a part-time job. It was an incredible opportunity, but it also introduced another challenge: trying to live multiple lives at once.
I was an adult. A student. An employee. A business owner. A filmmaker still trying to understand herself.
Balancing all of that was difficult.
There were periods of burnout, emotional highs and lows, exhaustion and frustration. College honestly felt like boot camp sometimes. I would become upset with myself because I felt like I wasn’t absorbing everything the way I should have or taking advantage of every resource available to me.
After graduating, my perspective changed.
I kept my notes. I kept relationships. I kept learning.
And I realized that education does not necessarily end when the semester does. Sometimes you do not even understand the importance of what you learned until you’re finally outside of the classroom and have a real problem that requires you to use it.
I also realized that while access to equipment was valuable, the network was even more valuable.
Today I may not have unlimited access to every piece of equipment I once had through school, but I am slowly building my own equipment catalog. More importantly, I left with relationships, experiences and people I can continue learning alongside.
When I look at the bigger picture, I think my biggest obstacles have really been life management and self-trust.
I have spent years moving forward while simultaneously questioning whether I was moving in the right direction.
That’s a strange place to live.
You can be scared and still make progress.
You can doubt yourself and still enroll.
You can feel lost and still pick up the camera.
You can have no clue what all the pieces are becoming and still keep collecting them.
That is essentially what I did.
Even now, I sometimes have to remind myself that although I look accomplished on paper, there are areas of my personal life that I am still learning how to manage well.
I am working on discipline. Focus. Organization. Sustainability. Boundaries. Health. Taking care of my body. Going to appointments. Moving my body. Eating better. Resting before I completely burn myself out.
For a long time, I lived more according to what I felt like doing in the moment. I would follow the craving, the mood or the burst of inspiration and then sometimes struggle emotionally with the consequences later.
Now I am learning that the next level of my life requires something different.
It requires me to take care of the woman responsible for carrying all of these dreams.
That means I cannot only be disciplined with the camera, the business or my career. I have to learn discipline with myself.
And spiritually, one of the hardest lessons has been trusting God when I cannot see the entire plan.
Looking backward, there were so many moments that felt like interruptions, failures or detours while I was living through them.
Dropping out.
Working jobs I did not want to stay in forever.
Being unable to transfer immediately.
Changing career paths.
Going back to school later than I originally planned.
Trying to manage work and college simultaneously.
Burning out.
Questioning myself.
But many of those moments redirected me toward the life I have now.
So when I think about the bumps in the road, I do not think my story is about overcoming one giant obstacle.
It has been about learning how to keep moving through uncertainty.
Today, I am learning to replace motivation with discipline, fear with self-trust, depletion with sustainability and the need to understand every detail with faith.
I am still working on it.
But maybe that is part of the testimony too.
I don’t have to become perfect before I can acknowledge that I have already come a very long way.
Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
I think what I am becoming known for is my ability to move between different sides of media without losing the heart of the story.
Professionally, I work full-time at FOX 2 / KPLR in St. Louis as a Broadcast Engineer, while also producing, shooting and editing field content for Studio STL. I sometimes describe myself as a Corporate Creative because my career lives somewhere between the technical and creative worlds. I can troubleshoot a broadcast system, work a live production, pick up a camera in the field, edit a story and then turn around and think about the strategy behind how that story reaches an audience.
Outside of television, I am the founder of Renegade Lenz Media and co-founder of Hard Launch Media. Renegade Lenz gives me a home for filmmaking, photography, narrative, commercial and creative production. Hard Launch allows me to combine production with branding, social media strategy, consulting and content systems. Together, those experiences have taught me that I do not have to choose between being an artist, a technician, a strategist or an entrepreneur. All of those skills can serve the same purpose.
My camera has also taken me into a lot of different rooms throughout St. Louis. I have provided event and behind-the-scenes coverage for Brock Seals, including Art, Mimosas & Pancakes; worked with Future In Action on photography, video and social media; produced campaign content for State Representative Marlene Terry; worked on a music-video project with Alexia Simone; and created my own narrative work, including my Black romantic-comedy short film, The Universe Can’t Stop Us.
One of the experiences I am especially grateful for was providing full coverage when Sherri Shepherd brought her show to St. Louis. Experiences like that have allowed me to be in rooms with people I grew up seeing on television and in entertainment, including Jayne Kennedy, Tommy Davidson, Finesse Mitchell and Elise Neal. Those moments are meaningful to me not simply because of celebrity, but because they remind me how far a camera and genuine curiosity can take you.
Some of the relationships I am most proud of are actually the ones I have built through consistently showing up and doing the work. At FOX 2, I have developed strong relationships with people such as anchor Shirley Washington and Brittany Kyles, host of Studio STL. Those relationships matter to me because I have learned that this industry is not built on technical ability alone. Your character, communication, reliability, curiosity and the way you treat people follow you from room to room.
I have photographed portraits and events, worked on music videos, covered community initiatives, produced political campaign content, worked in live television, created social media campaigns, directed narrative work and helped businesses and nonprofits communicate what they do. On paper those may look like completely different lanes, but I see one consistent thread:
I tell stories.
I specialize in figuring out what matters about a person, organization, business or moment and finding the medium that communicates it best.
What sets me apart is probably my curiosity and resourcefulness. I was raised with the philosophy that if you do not know something, you do not stop at “I don’t know.” You say, “I’ll find out.” That has followed me throughout my career. I ask questions. I experiment. I learn new systems. I am willing to be uncomfortable long enough to become capable.
I am also deeply community-minded. Some of my earliest opportunities came from working with people whose missions were bigger than themselves. That is still the kind of work I naturally gravitate toward. I love entrepreneurs, nonprofits, artists and community leaders who genuinely care about the people they serve.
My personal philosophy has become:
I want to use my powers for good.
Whether those “powers” are a camera, an editing timeline, broadcast technology, social media, strategy or simply connecting the right people together, I want my skills to shed light on stories that deserve to be heard.
I am proud of the range I have built this early in my career, but I am even more proud that I have remained curious enough to keep evolving. I do not necessarily want my name to become synonymous with one job title.
I want Lex Dickson to become synonymous with thoughtful storytelling, resourcefulness, community, creativity and the ability to walk into almost any media environment and figure out how to make the story work.
Same storyteller. Different canvas.
And I still feel like I am at the beginning.
If we knew you growing up, how would we have described you?
Growing up, I was definitely a floater.
I was never the kid who had one thing that completely defined me. I did not really get into organized sports until my junior year of high school, so most of my childhood was pretty free. I was outside, hanging with friends, riding around, passing notes in class and probably talking way too much. I was very social, very goofy, sensitive, lovable and definitely the kind of kid who could get in trouble for being too distracted by everybody around me.
I was born in 1999, so I also grew up right before everything became so digital. I had a minute phone before smartphones became what they are now, and a lot of my childhood was still very hands-on.
My grandmother Janet played a huge role in that.
She really brought creativity into my childhood. We painted rocks, colored, played with toys, gardened, searched for interesting rocks outside and made crafts together. She even had this Ernie puppet that used to crack me up. She taught me how to make potholders and encouraged me to explore things just because they were interesting.
Looking back, I think that is where a lot of my creative curiosity came from.
I was also practically an only child. My mother only had me, and although my father later had other children, I did not grow up in the same household with them. So I became really comfortable entertaining myself and spending time alone too.
I was interested in everything and committed to almost nothing. 😂
At different points I wanted to be a drummer, try sports, make things, explore something new. I was always bouncing toward whatever caught my attention.
Nothing really stuck for a long time.
Then cameras found me.
Photography was probably the first interest that made all of those random parts of me make sense at once. I could explore, observe people, be creative, work independently, be social, tell stories and constantly learn something new.
So when I look back, I do not think I was unfocused as a child as much as I was curious.
I just had not found the medium that could hold all of my interests yet.
Eventually, I did. 🎥
Pricing:
- Advisory / Coaching: Starting at $850/month Strategy, consulting, content planning, accountability, CTA development, and social media coaching.
- Collaborative Growth: Starting at $3,500/month Strategy, short-form video production, coaching, content support, lead capture, and automation.
- Managed Growth: Starting at $6,500/month Full-service strategy, production, publishing support, lead automation, analytics, and campaign management.
- Creative Production Day / Custom Project: Starting around $1,500–$2,500 Good catch-all starting point when the concept still needs to be scoped.
- One-Time Strategy & Consulting Sessions: Starting at $300 Available for businesses needing focused support with social media strategy, campaigns, content, or lead-generation systems.
Contact Info:
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/renegade.lenzllc/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61583789323273
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexia-dickson-225b68223/?isSelfProfile=true
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@Renegade.Lenzllc
- Other: https://renegadelenz.myportfolio.com/
