Today we’d like to introduce you to Savvy Jaye.
Hi Savvy, please kick things off for us with an introduction to yourself and your story.
I am genetically predisposed to being artistic. My Mom toured and performed on Broadway and my dad acted, wrote, and directed plays as well. I grew up on the edge of Griffith Park and K-town but was often in Hollywood and Burbank for auditions– mine and my parents. I wrote short books on the back of scrap paper, which I glued and folded them together and then stapled. I did school plays, theater summer camp, sang in choir, and took dance class. I was incredibly lucky they involved me in all of these extracurriculars, as it helped me find what I loved for myself and the type of art I wanted to create. As a preteen, I liked making goofy YouTube sketches, and then I realized that I had the power to make a movie.–something fantastical, weird, with stop-motion animation, campy, musical–just everything that I loved, I could make on my own. My interest pivoted from predominately acting and singing (which I still love) to filmmaking. This followed me from graduating Hollywood High (go Sheiks!) to moving to New York City and going to New York University.
As a lifelong West Coaster, it was a giant change moving to New York. I’d been there quite a few times as a kid but living there was a whole new experience. I was accepted into the NYU College of Arts and Sciences, which meant I had to transfer into the Tisch School for the Arts later. In that time, I went from being lost for a little while to hustling gigs from Craigslist to make my own content for people and learned to edit. In my junior year, I transferred to Tisch and started making short films. I studied abroad in Sydney, Australia, and shot sketches at NIDA, falling in love with a part of the world I always wanted to go to. I’ve traveled throughout the South, the Northeast, and even Iceland. With luck and gratitude, I’ve been able to travel so much in my leisure time as well as work. For a while, I was a dance photographer at kids’ competition events, and I traversed the country with very little sleep and very long hours for a very challenging and memorable time. I moved back to LA two years ago after struggling for work for so long in New York. It was hard to go, as I made so many life-changing friendships and experiences, but I needed to change.
Within a couple of weeks, I got an interview with America’s Funniest Home Videos looking for a curator for their Facebook pages, and I started my first real, stable, bona-find job. (Fun fact: They still accept hard videotapes as submissions, so if you want to bust out the VCR and send in an old classic, they will watch it.) I’m now an editor for their Facebook page, and I spend all day making memes that thousands of people see. It’s a dream job, and I can’t stress enough how grateful I am to have a job right now, stability for the first time in my adult life, doing what I love. I’m writing more than ever, and even throughout, well, everything going on, I still have goals and hopes for the future with it. I would also like to take a place to say I just passed year 5 with my boyfriend, who is wonderful and funny and amazingly creative and I love him.
I’m sure you wouldn’t say it’s been obstacle free, but so far would you say the journey have been a fairly smooth road?
I was diagnosed with Autism at three years old. My early childhood is covered in a dissociate fog; it took some time and behavioral therapy to get me to look people in the eye and be “in the moment.” Acting threw me into a world where I had to empathize and helped me in my interactions with people and blending in. I forced myself to stop rocking, stimming, to look people in the eyes when they’re talking to me (or at least the bridge of their nose), and to actively listen. I also learned how to fight intrusive OCD thoughts and actions, though I still struggle with to this day. I’ve always been social, but the learning curve was steep as I was being heavily bullied throughout Elementary School (and much less so as time went on.) It created an anxiety and fear of failure, which has often means I don’t challenge myself or take big chances. I can be self-destructive, but I have an amazing net of incredible people who lift me up and whom are funny, talented, and brave throughout all their adversities; I’m eternally grateful to them. I often remind myself of how I’ve progressed, from my insecurities of my weight and appearance to my management of my Bipolar disorder and “life-ing.” That perspective is important to break out of a self-loathing cycle and be able to assess how to change for the better.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
Comedy and fantasy are my primary influence in my work. I have multiple sketches where an inanimate object comes to life in some capacity. Short form comedy and “meme-y” videos are my specialty, as well as in how I perform. I don’t take myself too seriously even with a guitar. The short that got me accepted to Tisch was a stop-motion love letter between two live-action stick-women. I did another sketch where a mother wears a giant milk carton and waterboards her son with milk. I helped co-produce a show on New York public access with interviews of a diverse crew of NYC comedians, artists, and unabashed weirdos. In my photography, I like to focus on stylized portraits of people and unexpected captured moments. I want everything I do to be a little offbeat and strange, whether I’m acting as an extra in a Troma movie, doing Zoom comedy, or making sketches with my friends. I’m currently co-writing a vampire movie with a friend and a web series with another crew. I have many high-concept film ideas waiting to be written (and waiting quite a while), but hey, at least they’re outlined. My goal within the next five years is to make a short or even a feature and finally go through with one of my many ideas.
Can you tell us more about what you were like growing up?
I have a “big personality.” According to each version of the Meyers-Briggs I’ve taken, I’m a strong ENFP. I’m an erratic social butterfly and make intense lifelong friendships. When I let go, I can grab an entire room’s attention and get a few laughs. As a kid, I was brave in some respects (no fear of public speaking or performing here) and also a fraidy-cat. My Autism made it difficult often for me to relate or seem “natural,” but my propensity to wanting to socialized helped me break out of that. I wanted everyone to like me, which I learned over time isn’t possible. This want of respect and attention leads me to exploring multiple creative avenues. When I was a little kid, all I ever wanted was to write a children’s book for kids like me who found most children’s books to talk down to kids. Later this wants to write moved from books to sketches and short films. I did theater throughout my childhood, in summer camps and at school. I’m a mezzo-soprano with a loud belt, and they loved casting me as old women and boys (despite being very short.) Musical theater has always been a passion of mine passed down from my parents (mostly my Mom, for obvious reasons), and I loved performing and watching it. My dad would take me to the DGA and we’d watch screeners of films, which is how I saw “The Incredibles” seven times. Animation, especially the Disney classics, were most of what I watched. Watching “Yellow Submarine” as a toddler definitely had an influence on my naturally psychadelic style. As I got older, I got more into cynical, surrealist films and filmmakers, such as Terry Gilliam. “Back to the Future” was the movie that made me love movies, but “Brazil” was the movie that made me want to make movies.
Contact Info:
- Email: [email protected]
- Website: www.savvyjaye.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/therussianlunchlady
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Savvy-Jaye-Photo-and-Video-1941130922870919/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC3_IdlqyLW3v0wDYt-NDArg
- Other: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm6931397/
