From time to time, we will be featuring other filmmakers on our blog to try and get the word out about all the talented filmmakers we’ve met.  This week, the featured filmmaker is Jared Isham.  I met him through a friend while networking my way around LA and we’ve become good friends.  Check out our interview with Jared.

1. How did you get into filmmaking?
I have always had a fascination with movies, from the first movie I saw in the theaters, Benji The Hunted, to even today.  My first taste of the entertainment world was in acting where I was casted as the lead in the first play I auditioned for in High School which quickly developed into me wanting to create movies, but it wasn’t until I started school at Azusa Pacific University on a drama scholarship that I discovered that you could go to film school, it didn’t take long for me to begin taking classes and change my studies to film.

2. How does your faith influence your craft?
My faith plays a huge role in my craft, as with anyone.  What you believe inherently ends up in the work that you do whether you do it on purpose or on accident.  The trick, I believe, with incorporating my beliefs or faith into my craft is to not make the story specifically about it.  Story is always number 1, and if what I believe comes out in it then it is because I was involved in making it, whether it was in the end product or during the process of making it.

3. Favorite Director
I always feel that is an unfair question because I have more than one favorite director so here are a few of mine.  Paul Greengrass, Peter Weir, Frank Darabont, Peter Jackson, John Ford

4. Favorite Film
The same for this one as well, so here are a few: The Bourne Supremacy/Ultimatum, Once Upon A Time In The West, 3:10 to Yuma, Lord of the Rings Trilogy, Dead Poet Society. The Green Mile.

5. Favorite scene in a movie
This is a tuff one, for the same reasons as having a favorite Film or Director.  One scene that stands out to me a lot for dramatic purposes would be in The Bourne Supremacy when Jason Bourne meets with the daughter of one of his victims to apologize, it is simple and very raw while drawing a high impact of emotion.  On a lighter note, I would have loved to be able to say I directed the Wheel of Fortune fight sequence from Pirates of the Carribean: Dead Man’s Chest, it was packed with awesome triangulation and non-stop action.

6. Last film to make you cry
I’m not sure exactly, but if I remember correctly it was probably “UP”.  The Pixar people have story nailed down.

7. What advice do you have for someone looking to break into filmmaking?
A thing I see with a lot of independent filmmakers is that they are more interested in the technology used to make movies and forget the most important thing in films — story.  The script is the guide map to your completed project and if it doesn’t work on paper it wont work in the final product, also don’t be closed minded to criticism, people have issues with things for certain reasons and if one person has a problem with something then there is bound to be others.

8. Tell us about your recent work.
Recently, my feature film “Bounty” was released nation wide on DVD
and BluRay. It was a western made in true indie fashion, no money and no time. I say that “tongue in cheek” while at the same time being totally truthful. I’ve always been drawn to the western genre, having grown up watching and reenacting all the old Silver Screen westerns, so I guess it was only appropriate that my first feature was one.

9. What are you currently working on?
I am currently working on a couple different projects but my next one is another Western.  I can’t reveal too many details yet as it is still in development but the hopes is that it will be released in theaters.

You can purchase Bounty here.  Visit Jared’s website here.

Post any questions for Jared in the comments section below.