Today we’d like to introduce you to Emilie Rae Ohanian Svensson.
Hi Emilie Rae, thanks for joining us today. We’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
How I got into the film industry begins with a Twix candy bar. I was 15 years old, attending Dave Ruby’s video production class in Fairfax, Virginia doing an ice-breaker exercise using directing techniques. The game was to partner off in pairs, one being blindfolded and the other using only verbal communication to avoid their partner getting hit with a stuffed animal. You could also guide your partner to grab a stuffed animal and throw it at another blindfolded person. If your partner got hit, you and your teammate were out. Perhaps 30 minutes into playing, my partner and I were the last ones standing, meaning I had won the game as ‘Best Director’ and my prize- a Twix candy bar. It may as well have been an Oscar, for I knew then what I was good at and what I wanted to continue to be.
Fifteen years later, I can say that when I chose to become a writer/director in the dark comedy, I was not naive- I knew that I would be met with resistance, but as I write this, I could never foresee just how much that resistance would be.
I’m originally from the east coast, and from the beginning, I couldn’t afford to go to a proper film school, so I went to a local university with a film theory program and tried to attend indie film sets outside of school. Immediately after graduation, my parents and I moved to Los Angeles so they could retire and I could pursue the elusive American Dream, chasing my passion for telling stories through intelligent comedy. Being half Swedish, I was able to set up an interview with Tori Skoglund to work with Jonas Akerlund, one of the best commercial and music video directors of the 80s, 90s, 2000s to present. He hired me right away as a PA, and suddenly I was on set with A-list talent. I’d worked on set with him for two weeks, running errands, driving a rented car, and using a phone that barely held battery charge. Everything was big, new and scary, but I was resourceful and persistent so I completed every task under the warm care of his assistant, Diana Seerman. Once that job ended, he left to shoot in the EU. Unaccustomed to freelancing, I was suddenly left unemployed. I had no connections and no skills, but I worked every job I came across as a PA, an editor, and sometimes shot corporate videos as I patiently waited for Jonas and his team to return. A lot of my days were empty and terribly lonely, but I was able to freelance with his team on and off for three years. Through this, I was able to acquire a mentor, DoP Par Ekberg. He could see that I had a passion but was really struggling to get my footing. He’d mentored three before me and eventually asked if I wanted to be ‘next in line’.
Suddenly, I was in the action and getting on set with the camera department shooting top-tier talent- Not forced away to run errands all over the city. I was tasked with rigging smaller cameras for coverage, and that pushed me to learn the walkie channels and collaborate independently with other departments. It kept me on my toes, made me think ahead and to think visually for shots and angles. It was really hard to jump into the deep end, but I managed.
After these three years, the reality of paying rent to my family and still surviving in such an expensive city set in. I found a job as an intern at a new media company. I had applied with the intention of being able to practice narrative storytelling at a level that suited me, but the company shifted to something more corporate, seeking viral Internet content instead. I used it to pay the bills, but my heart wasn’t in it and I couldn’t create viral hits so I was let go.
At this point, I applied for unemployment having never done so before, and then immediately got hired back to freelance for the same new media company that had let me go. Everything collapsed when I did my unemployment paperwork incorrectly that created some serious trouble, and my family and I got evicted from our one-bedroom apartment due to an obscure law in the state of California claiming that property owners can take back property for personal use. Suddenly, I had to help my (older) parents look for a new place to live in a city we couldn’t afford; I had to commute from LAX to Hollywood every day to work at a desk job and try to get right with the law to fix my unemployment issues. I was about 25 and couldn’t handle it, so I started abusing alcohol. It was the only way for me to numb myself and cope with the insurmountable stress of feeling so utterly out of control of my life.
Roughly a year later, my parents and I began to see the light at the end of the tunnel. We bought an affordable place in an up-and-coming neighborhood, I paid off my debts, sorted out my unemployment issues and vowed never to rejoin the system, and with savings from my contract job at the new media company, I left to recuperate and backpack for two months throughout Europe, Australia and New Zealand with a couple of my life-long best friends from high school. Finally, at the end of 2019 I decided to quit drinking.
Upon returning from my travels, I went back to freelancing with my mentor and started working on a few indie projects with friends that I had connected with at the new media company. One connection led to another, and I started making friends who taught me how to graduate from Camera PA to AC and operator. Marja Lewis Ryan, Kwanza Gooden, Tony Marquez, Mannon Butt, Jennifer Lai, Salma Loum, Jean Denegar and Daphne Wu have all consistently trained me and kept me fed throughout the last four years. Bigger wins started to happen- I met Jasmine Chiong, Sarah Tither Kaplan, Lulu Jovovich, and everyone at Island Creek Pictures through mutual friends, and we created a nine-part anthology series, all written and directed by 15 female filmmakers, to which I was able to direct a dark comedy short film. It was encouraging to receive several film festival awards, personally and for the series. Shortly after, I’d partnered with DoP Justin Aguirre, writers Autumn Palen and Sophie Lundberg, and producers Dani Adaliz, Jeremy A Pappas and Steven Aripez to shoot dark comedy spec ads and two short films safely through the pandemic, including an infrared music video for Pink Roses with DoP Jean Denegar. And in December of 2020, my mentor saw that I was ready to receive my big break, giving me the opportunity to direct a music video with the legendary Usher.
After years of being unsuccessful in applying to mentorship programs and directing workshops and failing to get representation after working with Usher, I had decided to dust off my Swedish passport and relocate to Stockholm in hopes of finding more gender-equal opportunities in directing. I’d met with Scandinavian ad agencies and narrative management houses, taking meetings for nine months, until I finally landed an ‘Associate Director’ role doing narrative and motion capture in gaming, using virtual reality and augmented reality technology at Resolution Games. And finally, I feel once again hopeful in the future of my career.
The wins, both big and small have kept me going, along with my loving family who supports me even though I feel terribly delayed in achieving every possible ‘life’ benchmark, my mentor who is always so loyally in my corner cheering me on, and my friends who are the most diverse, caring, collaborative, and generous people. I feel like I’d be nothing without my friends, and I’d have made nothing without my friends. Working in the industry can be a real slog, and there’s no justice, rhyme or reason as to how or why some people can achieve greatness seamlessly with short-lived or minimal struggle- Sometimes it’s luck, hard work, and / or simply their time; sometimes it’s nepotism and classism. And sometimes, others suffer through grit and struggle for years to harness their one so-beloved dream with personal stories to share that are likened to mine.
My experiences have hurt me, shaped me, given me a lot of material for dark comedy, but they have not broken me. And living in Los Angeles, I’ve been able to witness first-hand the nepotism, classism, egos, lack of equality in the industry, and what’s achievable through privatized funding but gate-kept from those in outer circles. It still feels like everything is stacked against you- the unions are expensive and out of reach or often don’t return the value, the labor laws in the U.S. need reform to maintain a better work/life balance, getting in touch with a production company in hopes of getting something made is considered submitting unsolicited content and is not legally feasible without having representation. But the Catch 22 will dictate that getting representation means you still need to independently make things on your own time and dime, to which most of us have neither, or not enough of one to supplant the other. Cold-calls and cold emails for representation are most often left unanswered or met with ‘Sorry, but our roster is full’. Sometimes rejection feels like the only constant.
I’ve thought about letting go and changing trajectory in hopes of a happier, more stable life, but I don’t love anything else as much, and I’ve come too far to get this far. It’s not in me to give up even when I’m met with resistance at every corner. I’m half Armenian and half Swedish- both strong ancestors and survivors. I did martial arts for almost 13 years in my youth where ‘discipline’, ‘commitment’, ‘perseverance’, and ‘always finishing what we start’ was rigorously drilled into us daily.
This is a long-winded answer, but I feel that for my answer to hold any weight, it needs context. I once read that ‘Hell is energy without expression’. A lot of us carry on because we simply can’t stop, nor do we want to. We have something we need to say.
Often, in the process of maybe pulling away from the industry, there’s always a project or a phone call that pulls us back in because it gives us hope to move onward and upward. I hope that by getting back to my roots in Sweden, I can pursue my passion because I love telling stories, not because I need to claw my way through survival.
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
Currently, I am an ‘Associate Director’ at Resolution Games in Stockholm, Sweden. I write and direct, and help develop gaming narratives in the Cinematics department using virtual reality, augmented reality and mixed reality with vfx and motion capture technology.
I love that I get to be at the forefront of using new technology and ultimately, developing new ways of telling stories.
My personal ambitions, and what sets me apart, are still writing and directing dark comedy narratives. I’m currently developing a drama series and a dark comedy feature film to pitch to studios.
Is there anyone you’d like to thank or give credit to?
I mentioned quite a few of them in my first answer, but I’d like to give an extra special shoutout to my parents Erik and Carol Svensson, my aunt Nancy, and my uncle Mike. Their support has been invaluable.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.emiliesvensson.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/rae_svensson/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCuhdAIK4n1SWp0FAU1alfpw
- Other: https://blurredculture.com/?s=Emilie+Svensson
