Today we’d like to introduce you to Ian Melamed
Hi Ian, we’re thrilled to have a chance to learn your story today. So, before we get into specifics, maybe you can briefly walk us through how you got to where you are today?
I grew up in New York, but I moved to LA for college. I’m an actor, and USC was the best program I got into so it was the obvious choice for me, but I also always had this “faraway dream” feeling of wanting to be on the west coast. USC was an interesting time. The pandemic hit my sophomore year and obviously derailed everything. By the time things went back to normal, though, I was able to salvage something thanks to my friends and classmates. Particularly my involvement with Aeneid Theatre Company at USC was the absolute highlight of my time there. I was lucky enough to eventually become president my senior year, and I got to work with some of the best people in the program on, in my opinion, the best theatre at USC. I also got involved with Some Dude Productions, a film company run by my friends, and ended up producing a feature film with them. After college I spent a summer galavanting around the UK. I did a summer acting course at the British American Drama Academy, and then had a surprise premiere at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. After my adventures I decided to go back to New York for a bit. My grandfather was sick, and I wanted to spend as much time with him as I could. I also hadn’t really had a break in a few years. I’m still in NY now, but I’ve been trying to make the bicoastal career work, so I’m in LA pretty often.
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?
Ahhh, no, it hasn’t exactly been super smooth. There’s the obvious challenge of moving across the country to a place you’ve never been, and you don’t really know whether or not you’ll be able to fit in, or even do what you came there to do, and I definitely felt that. Honestly, the biggest challenges I’ve faced are very internal things. I’m a pretty anxious person, and I’m naturally very shy, so social interaction isn’t always easy for me. I used to get really bad panic attacks at just the worst times. I remember one time I just fully shut down in front of an entire class and literally hid behind the liquid nitrogen tanks near the bio-science building, not my proudest moment. Thankfully those have become less frequent, and I have a great support system of friends, and my family has been really supportive of me. I’m really lucky I have them in my life.
Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
Well I guess what I’m most known for now is Serov, the feature film I produced with Some Dude Productions. It’s a fictionalized account of the rise of the KGB. It was a pretty crazy process. We had maybe eleven days to shoot the whole thing, and I had to transform my DTLA flat into a 1930s Soviet-era apartment. But I had the best cast and crew. Everyone was super disciplined, and I’m really proud of the work they all did. I spent the latter half of 2023 editing and composing music for the film, and we released it in February of this year. It’s gotten nearly 100k views on YouTube, which I absolutely didn’t expect for it being a film about an obscure Soviet war criminal. I guess I like making art about really obscure and niche things that interest me, and if other people like it then that’s a nice bonus!
Aside from acting, I’ve got a lot of divergent interests. I’m a musician. I’ve played cello almost all my life, and during college I taught myself how to play guitar. I’ve made it a bit of a personal goal to learn as many Elliott Smith songs as I can, I’m a bit of a moody person if that wasn’t already obvious.
I also recently founded a non-profit theatre company in New York called Psykout! We specialize in producing shows that focus on themes of science, and technology. We’ve got a secret project coming up in the fall that I can’t quite talk about yet, but we’re excited to announce it soon!
What does success mean to you?
Success, for me, is being able to tell stories with my friends.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://ianmelamed.com
- Instagram: @ianmelamed
- Youtube: https://youtube.com/somedudeproductions
Image Credits
Ashley Raymer, for image 1.
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