Daily Inspiration: Meet Jessee Clarkson

Today we’d like to introduce you to Jessee Clarkson.

Hi Jessee, can you start by introducing yourself? We’d love to learn more about how you got to where you are today?
As a kid, I was always into monster movies, sci-fi & fantasy movies (and of course Halloween), so as a young teen, I was always haunting halloween & costume stores to find anything I could use to create my own characters & makeups. After seeing the movie “Legend” (the one with Tom Cruise & Tim Curry in an AMAZING devil makeup), it finally occurred to me that making those creatures, characters & makeups was actually someone’s job…like, they got paid to dream up these characters & bring them to life.

I’ve always been reader, so I started scouring local libraries & bookstores for any & all books I could find on Stage Makeup, Prosthetic Effects, Mold Making & Sculpting – Anything that I could learn tips & techniques etc.

I was on the east coast at the time (I was born in San Francisco, to hippie Parents, so we moved around quite a bit), and the east coast wasn’ nearly the filming mecca it’s become in the last decade or so, so the movie projects were few & far between. While in Atlanta, the skills I’d acquired as a sculptor, mold maker & eventually, prop designer allowed me the opportunities to work on several feature films like – Road Trip, Sweet Home Alabama, Scream 2, and also cutting my teeth as a Production Designer & Art Director on several indie films, but they didn’t really make the kind of movies I really wanted to work on.

So in 2006, I decided to return ‘home’ to California where I was hired to oversee the Mold & Casting department that provided assets for Imagineering and worked on several Disneyland Attractions, most notably the Finding Nemo Submarine Adventure & many more…but STILL wasn’t working on the big “effects driven” films that I had always wanted to do.

Eventually after doing some short stints in many of the Special Effects shops in LA, I was hired on at New Deal Studios, an award winning Miniature/Model Fabrication studio to oversee their Mold Shop for the first Iron Man feature, which led to working with them for nearly 2 years working on all kinds of amazing projects with great people, Including The Dark Knight, Watchmen, Tropic Thunder, Inception and many more.

During a slow period in late 2009, I was hired by Janelle Monae’s creative team to co-design & fabricate a miniature city, to worn as a crown for her first album cover “Archandroid” (Which was later displayed in the Smithsonian Museum in 2023).

I had rented a small space within an existing cabinet/furniture shop in Glendale to build all of the individual parts for the Archandroid Crown, thinking it would only be a temporary space to and then I would be back at work at New Deal sometime in the spring of 2010…But then, I was hired to Art Direct (as well as design & build the sets & miniatures for a music video Broken Bells – The Ghost Inside (which was nominated for an MTv VMA)…and the phone kept ringing and the projects kept coming…

Eventually, the cabinet shop closed & I took over both of the workshops & became Nascent Perspective Studios Inc; Offering Production Design/Art Direction, and Design & Fabrication of Sets and Scenery, Miniatures,
Custom Props, Prosthetics & Makeup effects, Creature & Puppet effects, Mascots & Body suits…just about anything our clients can dream up, we make it for them…

I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
Any road worth traveling is gonna have its twists & turns and bumps along the way (anything worth having, doesn’t usually come easy), and being a small, independent shop certainly has it’s challenges, but fortunately, over the years we’ve built a fairly large & diverse client list that keeps us relatively busy year round.

Of course local issues- like lulls in productions, SAG/Union Strikes & work stoppages and universal issues – like Covid, economic downturns, always take their toll on small (and large) businesses alike, we’ve bveen fortunate to have clients like Insomniac (large scale festivals, like EDC, Nocturnal Wonderland), Red Bull & many other ‘non-film’ related clients that hire us to make all kinds of things like custom costumes, stage props, tradeshow & convention displays, that allow us to keep busy when many other shops are slow.

Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
I’m a Production Designer & Art Director for Film, Television & Commercial productions, Live Events, Experiential Installations, Tradeshows & Conventions

I’m also the Founder, CEO & CCO of Nascent Perspective Studios in Glendale/Burbank Area specializing in design & fabrication of sets & scenery, miniatures, props, prosthetics, animatronics, creature & makeup effects, puppets, bodysuits, armor & mascots.

I would say that I’m most proud of the group of like-minded artists & technicians I’ve worked with and become friends with over the years, and that I’m able to make cool stuff with my friends that we’re all proud of, and make a living doing it!

I think that what sets us apart from other shops, is that we’re a relatively small shop, but work with many major clients and that our core group of artists & fabricators are very well versed, have worked for many years for some of the larger shops on huge productions, and are able to bring that experience & level of problem solving to smaller, indie projects; Ultimately we’re able to do more for the smaller productions to give them a “big budget” look for an indie project budget.

How do you think about luck?
Admittedly, I’m not much of a believer in good luck / bad luck, you roll with it as it comes. What may seem like something bad happened, oftentimes can turn into a positive…

That said, I do believe in the mantra “luck favors the prepared”

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.nascentperspectivestudios.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jessee_clarkson
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@jesseeclarkson9894
• Other: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm1560796/

Image Credits
All images were taken by myself or crew member of my shop

All content within those images are the IP of NPS inc (and the respective client, with permission to use for promotional purposes)