[Watch the video interview on YouTube here]
Film Courage: Zimran, when did you decide you were going to go to film school?
Zimran Jacob, Screenwriter: I decided I was going to go to film school around the time I was 17. I had a lot of good college counselors and a lot of support at my high school. I loved films and television but it was mostly films back then. I guess the first film school that I went to was USC. I did the screenwriting summer seminars there and it was good. I kind of fed my passion.
One of my professors at USC wrote me a letter of recommendation and I was able to transfer my credits to Chapman University in Orange County which was an amazing film education as well.
I did a semester at NYU during the summer in 2009 and then graduated from Chapman and then did my post graduate at UCLA.
Film Courage: Was your initial goal to become a screenwriter?
Zimran: Yeah, the whole time I wanted to be a writer and I wanted to get the best education that I could. I’m Indian-American and I think there’s a culture of believing in education.
Film Courage: You had a teacher at NYU who kind of gave you a reality check. Can you share what happened?
Zimran: When I was at NYU I had this teacher that was so passionate and would go through every single line of my scripts and would be critical in a way that nobody had been before. It inspired me because I took that criticism as a challenge to make my script better. I remember that summer, I was inspired and I went back home and I wrote my first feature. I wrote my first feature script after that class and I appreciated that…(Watch the video interview on YouTube here).
About:
Zimran Jacob is an Indian American drama television writer originally from the San Francisco Bay Area. After graduating Cum Laude from Chapman University with a B.A. in Screenwriting and studying at NYU, USC, and UCLA, he moved out to Los Angeles where he began to work in the finance department at Gaumont Television, which released Narcos, Hannibal, Hemlock Grove, and F is for Family during his tenure at the company. Zimran’s job at Gaumont led him to Marvel in the writer’s room on the Netflix show, The Punisher where he was able to contribute to the story in his role on the support staff as the Showrunner’s Assistant. During his time at Marvel, he pitched two stories which became produced episodes. Zimran sold his feature SWAG to 19f Productions where Kevin Pollak is attached to direct. He was a PGA Diversity Workshop Fellow in 2019 and was a Semi-Finalist in both the 2018 and 2019 Austin Film Festival. Most recently, he brought enthusiasm to his job as Showrunner’s Assistant for October Faction on Netflix. He writes dark Shakespearean dramas featuring Machiavellian characters, tribal power struggles, and is addicted to crime stories.
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