There's a lot to be written on the mayhem the COVID-19 pandemic brought on creative industries. From job loss, to job pauses, and at-home-job-relocations, the quarantine of 2020 made almost everyone feel as though they were starting from ground zero. My issue: I was already at ground zero.
My name is JeanJacques, and I'm a nonbinary Black Chincano independent Filmmaker who started their career in a pandemic. This past year, I've been fortunate to produce two independent short films, receive a grant to produce two more shorts in 2022, work on a handful of BIPOC lead independent productions, and was chosen for The Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences 2021 Gold Rising Program where we were deemed "The Future of Filmmaking".
I'm not exactly at my "Issa Rae selling Insecure to HBO for the big bucks" moment, but my career is moving faster than I ever could have imagined before the pandemic. And I have working virtually to thank for that.
I'm not a person who likes to sit still, so when my final semester in college turned into Zoom University, my mind began to wonder. First, it was my normal cycle of anxiety over choosing an art career: Did I choose the right career? How will I make any money, virtually?, Maybe the pandemic is a sign I should quit and work at the county office with my mom. They're always hiring. Can I make it as an artist, virtually? I quickly realized NOBODY WAS HIRING!
The quarantine just hit California, and there was no way offices were about to hire a college drop-out when they couldn't even get their staff to work. Everything was going virtual, so my anxious mind started to wonder how my industry (film and TV) was going to adapt.
Two weeks into the pandemic, I pitched my first virtual project to classmates, a romantic-comedy web series called "Infections Love: A Quarantine Inspired Romantic-Comedy" (I know, the title is very on the nose, but Infectious Love was already take by an adult doctor-nurse love novelist).
The premise: a group of people, over a series of Zoom hangouts and virtual parties, finds the value of friendship and love, virtually. Two of my characters had an amazing first date right before quarantine, and decided to keep dating over web chat. There was also a lesbian couple
whose relationship was seemingly perfect before the pandemic (mega Marceline and Bubblegum vibes) but now they were struggling. Another character was a struggling TA adapting to virtual classrooms, and lastly, there was an out-of-this-world bff who dreamed of being the next sexually candid black female rap star like Lizzo, Cupcakke, and Doja Cat.
I think most of my classmates signed up to help because they were curious about these oddball characters I had created. Some straight-up told me they were just bored and wanted something to do. Either way, I took them! After working through weekly Zoom writer's rooms, Zoom rehearsals, and filming on cellphones while listening to each other over Zoom, my team of virtual filmmakers, actors, and I completed our first series in June of 2020! It was released on Youtube, with 0 views.
Well, not zero. My friends and family watched the series, but it still didn't go anywhere enough for me to build a career with it. I was devastated, thinking this web series would be my "Issa Rae selling Insecure to HBO for the big bucks" moment. However, it did get me noticed by one of my
professors who was working in the industry. Jobs still weren't opening up to new hires yet, well, unless you were a remote editor which I was not, so he wasn't able to get me work. But he did give me a TON, and I mean a TON, of encouragement to keep working virtually, so I did.
By winter of 2020, I produced eight virtual short films and was geared up to start another virtual web series when my professor shared a possible opportunity: The Gold Rising Program at The Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences. Only 100 students would be chosen from
across the nation to participate in an eight-week intensive program, working for elite Hollywood companies, networking with industry professionals, and being crowned "The Future of Filmmaking". I did not think my virtual-shorts-2.5-GPA-butt had a chance competing for spots with USC, NYU Tisch, and Stanford students who had reels and resumes full of in-person, industry-quality work. Everything I made had Zoom glitches and iPhone 11 video quality at best! But somehow, my professor convinced me to apply, so I did.
I think what got me noticed is that I treated my virtual experiences as if they were the top of my school's performance during quarantine because, in truth, they were. Our school's production classes were canceled, and we had no access to our equipment room. Unless students already had film-grade equipment, one-man videography skills, and talent living with them at home, they weren't producing films. So I bragged BEYOND THE LIMIT! I even bragged about my low GPA, writing in my cover letter, "I'll be the best intern candidate you'll receive for this position, despite my 2.5 GPA." I was FLOORED when I got the email saying my application made it to the next round and that The Black List would interview me to work for them.
The Black List was a company I followed my entire time in college, having written multiple pages on how their script-hosting site was instrumental in bringing new, unknown talented writers into the industry despite all the racist, sexist gatekeeping. Their annual list featured life-changing scripts like Slumdog Millionaire, Juno, Argo, and The King's Speech and has started the careers of writers who might have never been discovered because they had too few Hollywood connections. I knew, if I would have any chance to make it in Hollywood, especially virtually, this was it.
So, when it came time for the interview, I did exactly what I had been doing all year long during quarantine: being 100% myself on the Zoom screen. All of my virtual productions reflected true aspects of myself: my Latinx heritage was integral to my "Latinx Virtual Thanksgiving" short; my love for cheesy horror comedies was present in our horror comedy short "Swipe Right If You Dare" (winner of the Best Quarantine Film award in small Colorado festival). My original web series even had an episode dedicated to Black people involved in the various protests of Summer 2020.
I pitched myself, my virtual stories, and my self-made job as a virtual producer candidly during that video-chat interview with The Black List, and they loved it. I got an email that I was chosen for the Gold Rising Program and would be interning with The Black List as their first round of interns a month later. During that waiting time, I just kept being me on the Zoom screen, virtually show running a new romantic web-series that would focus on my nonbinary identity in the virtual workplace. From there, my career continued. I used my Academy knowledge and resources to self-produce two short films over the summer, financed by my stimulus checks no less (Thank you Biden for making adult students qualify for them!). Then from there, my fellow Academy Interns and previous alumni, who were working for variety of elite Hollywood companies like A24, NBC, CAA, or who came from big schools like NYU Tisch, USC, Chapman, started asking ME to produce THEIR independent projects! I was suddenly known as a producer to this circle of both established and entry-level Hollywood filmmakers.
There are cons to my way of going about getting discovered. My reels are still mostly virtual productions and I haven't practiced enough in-person production paper work (you don't exactly need to color-grade or think about location permits with Zoom productions). But the biggest
pro is I kept my family safe while starting my career. I live with my 65+ year old Abuelita who is prone to getting sick very easily (my grandma refuses to allow me to write out her real age online). Both my parents were deemed essential workers, so they already had immense fear of
getting my Abuelita sick with COVID-19 from their jobs. I didn't want to add to that stress in any way, and I'm proud of myself for making the most of my situation. Truly, being myself on the Zoom screen-- my loud, awkward, proud half-Black and half-Latinx, nonbinary self on the Zoom screen-- is what got me started as a producer, virtually.
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Note From Tongal: This blog is part of a series of Tongal Community-written blog posts that were originally sourced in the Tongal Blog Open Call Project. The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of Tongal. Read more Tongal Community-written posts here!
