Life & Work with Preston Jeter of Los Angeles

Today we’d like to introduce you to Preston Jeter.

Hi Preston, so excited to have you with us today. What can you tell us about your story?
I was born in Norfolk, Virginia, and grew up primarily in North Carolina. I was heavily inspired by the Rough House team—Danny McBride, David Gordon Green, and Jody Hill—and was fortunate to grow up just an hour and a half from the film school they attended. I eventually earned a spot there myself, where I studied directing. Since graduating, I’ve called Los Angeles home for the past thirteen years.

Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
Try thinking of the opposite of smooth. Imagine a country road so far outside the county lines that it’s filled with cracks, potholes, and loose gravel—so neglected that if you tried to drive across it, you might bust your transmission, blow out all four tires, and dislodge a few discs at the base of your spine.

I think that’s a pretty accurate description of the road I’ve taken trying to “make it”., whatever that means, in the film industry, especially as a writer and director. But hey, enjoy the ride. We only get one of these lives.

I’ve come to believe that success in this industry comes down to three things: preparation, persistence, and luck. Preparation and persistence are the only two I can control, so I keep showing up and doing the work, hoping that eventually luck finds me again. Or, at the very least, that I’m prepared enough to recognize an opportunity when it’s standing in front of me. But I’m human and often I’m not.

I’d say the biggest struggle is simply continuing. When you go nearly a decade without a major success, or even a piece of driftwood, my little term for those occasional glimpses that maybe you’re getting somewhere, it can be incredibly difficult to stay persistent.

Eventually, I think you have to take your mind out of all of that: the milestones, the timelines, where you thought you’d be by now. You have to keep doing it because you love it, and hope that one day, that’s enough.

Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
I make movies! I love movies. The reality is, I make indie movies that I mostly self-finance. But I also have that bread-and-butter job to pay the bills because, well, you gotta.

You take a group of absolutely crazy people, because you have to be a little crazy to do this, and you all get together, take some words written on a page, and try to turn them into something real.

And it constantly feels like the odds are against you. You never have enough time. You never have enough money. You’re running on exhaustion, and by the end you feel like a cigarette butt soaking in a shitty puddle filled with oil residue.

But then the dust settles, and somehow all of you made something. Something you can sit in a dark room and watch on a screen. Something that can make someone laugh or cry or feel something they weren’t feeling before.

That is magic.

Do you have any memories from childhood that you can share with us?
The whole thing? I had a good one. Two great parents and a great brother. We had a little cabin in Virginia, and I spent most of my childhood weekends driving the winding roads of Dugspur, Virginia, working on this old cabin and slowly fixing it up with the fam.

I learned a lot from my parents about how to be scrappy and how to make a place nice all by yourselves without a lot of resources. You figure things out, make do with what you have, and put in the work.

And at the end of the day, there’s nothing better than riding down a river in an old car tire inner tube.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/prestonljeter/?hl=en

Image Credits
Adrian Correa
Isaac Taylor