James Cullen Bressack, Filmmaker: What do you want to do with your life? and I was like Well X, I think I’m doing it. I’m making movies. X goes No, no, no, no…but what do you want to do with your career?
Film Courage: In terms of getting producers on board, now being an action filmmaker, how hard was this or how easy?
James: I was lucky enough I spent a few years while directing horror movies, producing action films and what I did is I was working within the action realm as a producer of one of 30 producers on a film or whatever. I was on set and I was working with producers and was then slotted in for a lower budget action movie. The first one I did with DMX and Johnny Messner (Beyond The Law with Steven Seagal) and that one was my first action movie and I was able to use the action sequences of that to show that I could do action. That was my first attempt at action and I cut together an action reel which was just like the action sequences from that as well as some action sequences from the horror movies that I had done before. If you take each horror movie I do there’s maybe like somebody gets into a fight in each thing, there’s little pieces where there’s some things that are action based. You cut that all together and then I’m like Hey, look I can do action! So I didn’t really get much pushback. People believed that I could do it based on like showing that but I was I was blessed to be able to have that first opportunity to do an action movie and that was just because I slotted in with the company after producing a few movies for them they’re like Hey, who’s going to direct this action movie? Can you do it? And I was like Oh, great and then from there I used that to get action work…(Watch the video interview on Youtube here).
About James Cullen Bressack:
James Cullen Bressack is an American producer, director, and screenwriter. At the age of 18 he received critical attention from audiences and critics alike when he made his debut feature, My Pure Joy. One to push boundaries, James followed up with the bold and unapologetic Hate Crime which forced audiences along for a brutal home invasion, the first found footage feature ever to be made in the style of having no cuts. The entire film plays out painfully in real time. It was promptly banned in the UK for its fearless story telling, one of three films to be banned in the last 25 years and remains so to this day. The prolific filmmaker refused to slow down completing seven more features including Pernicious, 13-13-13, and Blood Lake, starring Shannen Doherty and Christopher Lloyd, which made James the youngest director to ever direct for television.
After writing and directing the haunting Bethany, James shifted his focus to producing. He has now produced forty-eight features including releases for Lionsgate and Cinedigm and is a member of both the PGA and SAG/AFTRA. His impressive body of work has won him numerous Best Picture and Best Director awards on the film festival circuit. James has achieved all this at the age of 29 and refuses to slow down as he continues to push the envelop and make films no one thought possible. His most recent features include Beyond The Law, starring Steven Seagal and DMX along with Survive The Game and Fortress which star Bruce Willis and Chad Michael Murray. He also just completed photography on the feature Hot Seat starring Mel Gibson, Kevin Dillon, Shannen Doherty and Sam Asghari.
MORE VIDEOS WITH JAMES CULLEN BRESSACK
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FORTRESS featuring Jesse Metcalfe, Bruce Willis, Chad Michael Murray, Kelly Greyson, Ser’Darius Blain, Shannen Doherty. Directed by James Cullen Bressack. Written by Alan Horsnail. In Select Theaters, On Demand and Digital on December 17, 2021.
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