Day Jobs and Creatives

Why Is It Getting Harder To Find Work? – Jason Satterlund

“Moving from city to city (that’s not a hub city) that’s the biggest difference. It’s really just, What industry is here?”

Filmcourage

Published

June 10, 2023

Watch the video interview on Youtube here.

Film Courage: How is finding work in Los Angeles as a director different from other places?

Jason Satterlund, Filmmaker: That’s a good question. I’ve lived in quite a few different places around the country. I grew up in Portland, Oregon. I lived in Nashville for many years. I lived in Eastern Washington. I lived back in Portland and then to LA. Every single city in the country if you do film has their own little interesting hub. For the most part most cities have some sort of industry that keeps it going. In Portland and Seattle, there’s Microsoft, Nike, and Adidas, there’s a bunch of ad agencies there, so for the most part, a lot of the work that people do is in that realm. You can have a great career just doing Microsoft videos, and there’s no shame in that. And that’s sort of the industry that it’s going to be. The only difference between that and, like, in Nashville, replace Microsoft with music videos. It’s the same kind of thing, probably a smaller, more tight-knit film community doing similar stuff, and also great careers can be had by doing that.

I’ve recently been doing a lot of work in Florida and Tampa. Their industry is HGTV, I believe it’s based there, so they have a lot of people that work there doing that. I think Ashley Furniture makes a lot of their commercials there so almost everyone I’ve worked with usually has spent some time working in that little realm. Moving from city to city (that’s not a hub city) that’s the biggest difference. It’s really just, What industry is here?

If you’re talking indie film, the indie film markets in those towns look identical, which is kind of funny. And there’s almost this funny little divide between those who are doing the corporate work, like doing the Microsoft stuff or the ad agency world, and then there’s the indie filmmakers over here. Usually, those two worlds don’t intersect that much in a weird way…(Watch the video interview on Youtube here).

Jason Satterlund on location for his latest film THE ABANDON (written by Dwain Worrell)

BIO:

Jason Satterlund is an award winning film director who has been working on films for over 25 years. He has extensive experience in all areas of production including directing, producing, writing, cinematography, and editing. He works all over the world directing, commercials, documentaries, music videos, and feature films.

Early on he developed his skills as a storyteller and uses them to this day on projects as diverse as sci-fi steampunk action films, high end commercials, underwater sea life in the tropics, television shows, top country music artists in Nashville, Tenn, and feature films. He is the only person ever to conduct a night shoot in the ancient city of Petra, and the first person in America to use film lenses on an HD camera.

Satterlund has done extensive work for clients such as Warner Brothers, Bon Jovi, Amazon, Microsoft, Jack White, CNN, Hallmark Entertainment, ABC, and the country of Jordan.

He is creator and director of the award winning feature film, “The Record Keeper,” which premiered at the Raindance Film Festival in London, and won the first annual Geekie Awards.

Satterlund’s latest film THE ABANDON (written by Dwain Worrell) features a wounded soldier awakening in a strange cube that tests his physical and mental limits as he attempts to find a way to escape against a ticking clock.

Miles Willis [played by Jonathan Rosenthal] and Jason Satterlund on set for THE ABANDON

ABOUT THE ABANDON MOVIE:

U.S. soldier, Miles Willis, is shot and wounded during an intense firefight in Iraq. As he tries to radio for help, a sudden blinding light surrounds him, and he awakens to find himself trapped in a strange, colorless cube with nothing inside but his own combat gear. As time passes, the cube begins to change: fluctuating extreme temperatures, random shifts of gravity, and strange writing appearing on the walls. His only communication is with one person — a mystery woman who calls him on his satellite phone, claiming to be trapped in a similar space. As the clock ticks, the two of them must figure out who has them, why they were taken, and how to escape.