Check Out Jon Salmon’s Story

Today we’d like to introduce you to Jon Salmon.

Alright, so thank you so much for sharing your story and insight with our readers. To kick things off, can you tell us a bit about how you got started?
I had almost no friends as a young kid. My imagination was overactive to the point of being weird, I was obsessive and prone to fixation, and I imagined far too much what others were thinking. It was a lot for a seven-year-old. But as a filmmaker, those are now my greatest strengths. It’s a big hack in life to turn your flaws into your instruments.

I escaped loneliness by biking to the local Blockbuster to rent as many movies 6 movies per weekend. This became a course of study, but eventually the gateway drug of watching movies wasn’t enough. When I was eight, I borrowed my dad’s MiniDV camera and started making little movies, which also helped me finally make friends. Ten years of practice got me into USC Film School where I met Brian Firenzi who essentially set the course of my life thus far. Brian founded 5 Second Films, a pre-Tiktok micro sketch comedy website. I wound up pitching, shooting, directing and acting in hundreds of them, which eventually lead to my current career as a commercial director, as well as co-directing the satirical slasher feature Dude Bro Party Massacre III.

Also, while at USC, I made a fan-made music video for MGMT for a class. I filmed it in my backyard using a table lamp and some Christmas lights as my only sources, then posted it online while tipsy over New Year’s. It blew up to over 50 million views, and MGMT and their label embraced it, inviting myself and my cast to appear in their next music video. This led to a really fun music video career. Now I shoot a music video show called MTV Push, where we film real live vocal performances with artists like TXT,  Armani White and Olivia Rodrigo.

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?
Though I’ve contended with all the usual tropes of nepotism, idea theft and culture’s fickle nature, my worst enemy was myself for about ten years. My work/life balance was out-of-wack – I was either slamming impossibly hard on a shoot, devoting myself mind, body and soul to whatever the project-of-the-week was like a devoted father to his children, or I was escaping reality itself partying with my friends on the weekend. I was missing something vital in the center of that sandwich.

I eventually realized that I wanted to be happy and not forever avoiding real life in one way or another. A series of really amazing friends helped me escape my very hustle-culture coding that work was the purpose of life. Once I shifted my values, prioritizing time with family and friends over my work, I found my work improved dramatically because it wasn’t the center of my universe. I felt more free to play with it. I was the master of my work and not the other way around.

Now I feel unavoidably present. Real life is awkward, lacks context and resolution, is poorly written and bizarrely paced. But it’s also beautifully, hilariously surprising for all its oddness. I’m now here for every minute of it, and there’s nowhere else I’d rather be.

Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
My niche is satirical horror. My favorite thing we ever did with 5 Second Films was a series called Bummer Week where the whole point was to bum you out in 5 seconds and very much NOT make you laugh. It was such a delight to try to convey a strong feeling in so little time.

I like it when movies make you a little uncomfortable. When you can’t see where something is going, or you can feel the seams in your seat coming undone a bit. I don’t enjoy pure escapism, I want something that makes my mind spin around and look for safety. And as a filmmaker, I like a challenge.

In Dude Bro Party Massacre III, the idea of the film was to unearth and turn on its head the sexist tropes of 80s slasher movies – a celebration of classic horror for all its gory relish, but also an indictment of the treatment of female characters by putting the men under the same lens. We had a horror actress at a recent Alamo Drafthouse screening approach us afterward with tears in her eyes, saying she felt truly seen by the film, which was amazing since it’s a movie where a guy kills himself because he’s terrified of puppies.

I recently directed a horror short called Fudgie Freddie about a Twitch streamer who sells his soul and gets turned into a giant ice cream cone. It’s a proof-of-concept for a horror feature called Ice Cream Man that Brian Firenzi wrote and Alexis Jacknow is producing. It’s one of the best scripts I’ve ever read and is tautly on the pulse of the exact cultural moment we’re in right now. The short will play at Cinequest in August, and we’re going to be seeking out cast and financing for the feature as soon as our brilliant writers get what they deserve in these strikes.

So maybe we end on discussing what matters most to you and why?
In your thirties, you realize you’re gonna die one day. So a lot of life for me is about recognizing and being grateful for what I have. Savoring every bite, if you will. In my work, I just want to be challenged and be challenging. I think anything you make, even if it’s only 5 seconds long, owes you three things: 1. It should leave you thinking afterward. 2. It should give you at least one chuckle and 3. It should allow you to escape your own infernal mind for a brief period of time.

Contact Info:

• Website: jonsalmon.net
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jonsalmon/