Today we’d like to introduce you to Samuel Jones.
Samuel, we appreciate you taking the time to share your story with us today. Where does your story begin?
I’ve always been in love with visual storytelling. Movies were a big part of my life growing up and my career as a professional ballet dancer further solidified this interest for me. Creating films was always something I aspired to but for a long time the barrier to entry was just too high. In the past decade camera technology has become so much more advanced and the price has come down so significantly that I now feel that nothing is holding me back from pursuing filmmaking any more.
I started off filming my friends and colleagues in the ballet studio and during performances and slowly increased the scope of my work as I became more advanced. Ballet is a strictly visual medium so I think it lends itself particularly well to filmmaking. For my entire career I was telling stories in a purely visual sense without being able to depend on dialogue or other aspects of traditional storytelling and I really think that has served me well.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
I don’t think there is any such thing as a smooth road. Any pursuit that is worthwhile has struggle built into it and I believe it’s through that struggle that value is created. The biggest struggle to me is finding space to tell the stories I want to tell. Being so busy really forces me to be choosy with which projects I want to create and while I think that helps filter out some of the less worthy ideas I do wish that I had time to be more frivolous with my creativity and experiment on ideas that may not work.
As you know, we’re big fans of you and your work. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about what you do?
Filmmaking is my main focus with a specialty in dance. I think the project I’m most proud of is my short film “Moloch” simply because the entire project was choreographed, rehearsed, filmed, and edited in about two weeks. I think it’s safe to say that not many people have the proficiency in multiple disciplines to be able to achieve something like that in a timeframe like that.
What were you like growing up?
I’ve always been more reserved in my personality. I think that’s part of why movies were such a big part of my life growing up. It’s such a private experience to watch a film even if you are doing so with other people. So that enabled me to live in my imagination a little bit.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.samueljonesmedia.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/samuel_jones_media
- Other: https://www.instagram.com/samjones_ballet
Image Credits
John Kilkullen
Emma Castor
