Meet Jared Skolnick

We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Jared Skolnick. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Jared below.

Jared, so happy to have you with us today. You are such a creative person, but have you ever head any sort of creativity block along the way? If so, can you talk to us about how you overcame or beat it?

I’ve always been plagued by the romanticized image of the writer simply dictating his masterpiece from his head onto the page fully formed, and it has no basis in reality. My work has become better and more prolific when I accepted and embraced that I have to make the bad thing first. If you wait for the circumstances to be ideal or that moment of pure inspiration, it’ll never get done. If you muscle through and make something flawed that no one has to see but you, then it becomes easier to refine and perfect, and the burden of the blank page becomes infinitely less cumbersome.

Great, so let’s take a few minutes and cover your story. What should folks know about you and what you do?

My main source of work has been as an editor and assistant editor, but since moving to LA I’ve been establishing myself as a writer and director. I love all genres and hope to make something in each one, but my main focus so far has been in the realm of horror. I love the opportunity that horror gives to give an audience a communal experience and push the creative boundaries of visual storytelling. Currently I’m creating shorts with the horror collective Just Scare Me, selling a horror/comedy with my writing partner Jacob Davison, and making a microbudget feature with my other collaborator Matheus Macedo.

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?

Persistence, open-mindedness and good humor will get you through the worst that the industry has to offer, and prepare you for the best when opportunity finally comes.

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’m always looking to meet new creative partners. Filmmaking lives or dies on the success of collaboration, and being in LA has given me the opportunity to meet countless talented people that I wouldn’t have been able to work with otherwise. It’s an embarrassment of riches, and I’m thankful that I’ve been able to meet and work with so many in the short time I’ve been here.

It’s important to me to find people who are incredible passionate about their work and can provide a perspective or even a voice that I couldn’t on my own, and through the collaboration synthesize something wholly new and unexpected. In an ideal world I’d be the least skilled person on the set.

My social media profiles are all public, and I’m more than happy to talk to people if they contact me.

Contact Info:

Image Credits

Cori Kim mxjae.mov

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