Jeanne Jo

Jeanne Jo is a Los Angeles based filmmaker and visual artist whose award-winning films and artworks have been shown in festivals and galleries around the world. She has an MFA from the Rhode Island School of Design and a PhD from the University of Southern California’s School of Cinematic Arts. She currently has a half-hour comedy show in development with her collaborator Keenan Coogler, she is producing a documentary on Redwood tree activists, and she is directing a proof of concept for a feature film for Paul Feig's Feigco/Powderkeg.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity. It took place in January 2022.

GM: What was your path to becoming a filmmaker and visual artist?

JJ: I found visual art very early, but I took a roundabout path into narrative filmmaking. After getting an MFA from the Rhode Island School of Design, I was living and working in New York City when I got accepted into a PhD program at the University of Southern California’s School of Cinematic Arts. I accepted and moved to Los Angeles, truly believing that I would remain in art and academia for my whole life. My new program at USC was called Media Arts & Practice, and it is unusual in that it is a combination theory/practice doctoral program. Meaning that you both write and make media and, ideally, your written and practical work are part of the same investigation. I was not only encouraged, but required to take classes in “ practice” as well as “theory. ” During my first year at USC, I opted to take a class called CTPR507: Production I, which is the intro class for the Master's students in Film and Television Production. That class changed everything for me. I made a lot of new friends and found filmmaking to be much more collaborative than artmaking; this suited my personality well. After that class, I took every class in Production that would have me. My fellow students are still some of my closest friends and collaborators.

GM: How do you balance having a practice where you make films as art, that can also be shown in a gallery, and narrative films that are screened or streamed?

JJ: When I made the decision to study filmmaking, I knew that my artistic practice was going to suffer for a few years while I focused on learning how to be a narrative writer and director. I wanted to do it

the right way and really learn how to make films. I knew that it was going to take time and took a break from making art for a few years. But since 2019, I’ ve been making art again and it has been wonderful. Film and television work takes a really long time. I like having an art practice that I can always go to whenever I’d like, on my own time.

Courtesy of Alan Michnoff

GM: What was your experience creating and shooting your short films Tampoon (2015) and Punch Me (2018)?

JJ: Tampoon was my first ever try at making a traditional narrative – something with a beginning, middle, and an end. Before that, my film work was very experimental and designed to be shown in a gallery space instead of a theater space. I loved every minute of making Tampoon. We shot it in a friend’s apartment, and the crew was made up of fellow USC students. Mike Fink, who at the time was the Chair of Film and Television Production at USC, helped us figure out how to do the practical FX – the moving tampon, the tampon string, and the guy getting eaten. It was a blast. Punch Me was filmed in Atlanta. I was working as an assistant on Marvel’s Black Panther and we had one day off, so we decided that we would shoot a short film. All of the Black Panther PA’s became my Department Heads – the Art PA was my Production Designer, the Camera PA was my Director of Photography, etc. I cast my buddies, JoJo Eusebio and Keenan Coogler, and some friends from the Stunts department, Daniel Graham and Niko Nedyalkov. The Special FX guys on Black Panther gave me some fake blood and rigged some furniture so that it would break apart easily during the stunts. Both of those shoots were very low-budget, fast, and gritty. We worked with what we had available to us, we hired our friends, and we had a great time.

Jeanne Jo, Still from Tampoon (2015). HD video, 7 minutes Jeanne Jo, Still from Punch Me (2018). HD video, 5 minutes

Behind the scenes of Rachel From New York (2019). Photo by Adela Tobon Behind the scenes of Go Getters (2021). Photo by Camille Shooshani

GM: In your opinion, what are some common roadblocks that female filmmakers deal with in the industry?

JJ: There are roadblocks, yes, but I don’t think it’s a great idea to get hung up on them. The most important thing you can do is keep making stuff and be ready to pivot. Always have more than one project going at a time so that if one gets blocked or stalled, you can work on the other.

GM: What are you currently working on in your practice?

JJ: I’m attached to direct two films and am in development on a TV show with my collaborator, Keenan Coogler. I’m also getting ready for a solo show of my performance art and film work at the Southern Utah Museum of Art this summer. I’ ve also been directing a few music videos here and there, which is really fun to do.