Meet Jolee Mallmann

We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Jolee Mallmann a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Jolee, looking forward to learning from your journey. You’ve got an amazing story and before we dive into that, let’s start with an important building block. Where do you get your work ethic from?

I really love work that doesn’t feel like work. My first job I ever had was called “Chore Staff” and I was tasked with driving boats, making meals for hundreds of campers, maintaining an island and doing a variety of laborious tasks throughout the day to care take for a summer camp on an island. This was such a hard job physically, it had me awake at 5 am many days and the pay wasn’t notable. When I thought about other kids my age and the summer jobs they were working, I had some awareness that the work was a lot more than I necessarily had to be doing but the passion I had for it made the sweat worth while.

My work ethic is so greatly dependent on the project at hand. So many jobs I’ve had before falling into the filmmaking industry didn’t command my attention or passion the way that first job working for a summer camp did, so finding work ethic in those environments was actually very hard. Compared to a project or a film I genuinely have a connection to, working an 11 hour day doesn’t quite feel like the same load as even a four hour shift behind a computer in a cubicle to me. I think when I can something to love sincerely within a job, it becomes another adventure in life not a shift to get through.

Thanks for sharing that. So, before we get any further into our conversation, can you tell our readers a bit about yourself and what you’re working on?

I am a photographer, artist and filmmaker, focused on getting into the cinematic magic of life. When I first started making short films, in high school for my senior and summer camp classes, I had no idea or even concept of where that passion could go. I’ve had a love for film my entire life and when you’re from “small town Wisconsin” telling your parents you want to be a movie star, National Geographic filmmaker, a real artist!! You often receive “I really want you to go to dental assistant school and get married soon” back from loved ones. But there is a reality in filmmaking for people that doesn’t have to start with producer parents and a direct connection to Hollywood. If you can handle hard work and you have a passion, it’s always easier for your heart to do what you love than force yourself to do something else that *makes sense* to everyone else.

Today I am a filmmaker and content creator for the Milwaukee Film Festival and two historic Milwaukee theaters, The Downer and Oriental Theatre. I work in local filmmaking on features and shorts as an Art Director and Production Designer. Through working within my local film community I have had the opportunity to work for Bravo’s Top Chef and produce my own short film, Sisterhood. Milwaukee has given me so many opportunities and because of films like Early Bird, Raffle and Corridor, all incredible independent productions, I feel like I have been able to find more than a footing in filmmaking but a genuine foundation.

I plan to continue my work in filmmaking, wherever it takes me. I’m just thankful to have found work I am passionate about, something that’s new but just the same every different project.

There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?

Out of all of the things I have picked up and put down after one try, I am most thankful to have stuck with photography, public speaking/comedy and art.
Starting photography in middle school and never putting a camera down taught me so many lessons as an artist, filmmaker and human that it is hard to know where to start. Starting big, it taught me how to slow down and notice so many beautiful things in life around me. Noticing the moments of life, finding the world’s natural angles and framing, your photos are only as good as your attention to the environment around you. Thinking small, photography taught me about natural lighting and studio lighting in ways that come naturally to me now every single day working on set.
As a child I was so in love with theater, doing plays in middle school made me feel like I could be characters I was too embarrassed to be in the halls. I was such a weird kid I just loved that outlet and I wish I was never too embarrassed to continue all the way through high school. But I am thankful I found improv comedy in high school… as if that’s not more embarrassing. But genuinely performing in front of crowds of my peers, writing skits and doing sketch comedy was so good for my confidence. Making people laugh or failing to and bouncing back from that taught me a lot about myself. After I gave my high school class commencement speech I really did feel like, who honestly cares what people think of me if I can be proud of myself and that is a very valuable feeling to take through life.
Taking my passion for art through life has been easy. Just as easy as sticking with the thing you love most, why would you ever let it go? I took art electives in high school, minored in studio art in college and now as an adult art is a part of everything I do. I think it’s such a beautiful thing to be an artist because you can stick with a medium that matters to you, change with the seasons of your life and go back to anything at any point. I have always been a painter and studying painting in college was just one of the greatest opportunities I’ve ever had in my education, you don’t always appreciate an 8 am 2 hour long painting class at first but when I go back to those techniques when I am painting as a 27 year old adult I am so thankful to have had that time. Learning more about art has allowed me to become a better makeup artist, art director, filmmaker and person in every facet of my life.

One of our goals is to help like-minded folks with similar goals connect and so before we go we want to ask if you are looking to partner or collab with others – and if so, what would make the ideal collaborator or partner?

I am looking to collaborate with new filmmakers all the time. Working with women and lgbtq+ folk has only opened doors for me and I am hoping to do the same for new collaborators. I am very close to wrapping my short film Sisterhood, in sound editing now with UW Oshkosh professor Beth Hubbard and I would love to meet new filmmakers for my next project.
I would also… love to be involved in more film projects locally as an actor. I feel like it would be a good way to learn more as a filmmaker and I really just love new adventures.

Either way you can always contact me for film work at my email: joleemallmann@gmail.com or on Instagram: @jolee.jpg

Contact Info:

Image Credits

First portrait taken by Krystyna Nicole Photography.

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