Today we’d like to introduce you to Jeff Prahl.
Hi Jeff, we’re thrilled to have a chance to learn your story today. So, before we get into specifics, maybe you can briefly walk us through how you got to where you are today?
I haven’t done one of these before, so hopefully this helpful!
I was born and raised in the Pacific Northwest, an only child of a single mother. She was super supportive and really encouraged my interest in creativity, and in junior high / high school my friends and I made two (and a half) features. At 13, we made a fifty-minute James Bond movie that took itself *very* seriously, followed by a two-hour-plus Bond movie (sorry to all the adults who sat through that). Then, in senior year of high school, I directed my first original feature and we rented the largest theatre in town and held a sold-out black-tie premiere. We were on the radio and given a full-page feature in The Seattle Times.
I moved down to SoCal and went to film school at Biola University in La Mirada, and after graduation, moved up to LA, where I’ve remained.
I am incredibly grateful and lucky to have been a working director for the last ten years. I primarily direct documentary shorts, often human-interest pieces, but this has given me the opportunity to travel to many places I never would have been to otherwise. I’ve directed across five continents, and amongst my narrative work is a short, La Deuda, that we shot in a small colonia outside Tijuana, Mexico, which was later purchased by HBO and played on HBO Latino and Max for two years.
My ultimate goal (surprise!) is to direct features, so I also write. One of my scripts, The Niihau Terror, which tells the remarkable true story of a WWII Japanese fighter pilot who crash landed on the most remote of the Hawaiian islands after the Pearl Harbor attack, placed in a number of competitions and reached the Top 1% of scripts on Coverfly. I’m currently working on a feature working-titled Suicide Island, a fictional police drama in the vein of True Detective, set on the remote US island of Saipan, deep in the South Pacific.
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?
I think being met with such ‘success’ in my high school moviemaking kind of gave me a false sense of how easy life / our industry is. I’d assumed I’d be making my own movies straight out of college – and was surprised to learn that many of my friends from university & my early twenties felt the same way – I think many of us were the prototypical ‘big fish in a small pond’ when it came to the niche of high schoolers who made movies.
It took me a number of years to recalibrate my expectations. Plus, project after project has arisen that has forced me to work harder and improve further than I’d previously known possible. And I’m grateful for that. If I had made a feature at twenty-two it surely would’ve been pretty rubbish.
It’s just a part of the sharpening and refining of our personhoods that we all go through. I think I’ve come to terms with that, and so I just keep going, keep working, keep striving, keep growing. And enjoying and appreciating the experiences I’m blessed to have along the way.
As you know, we’re big fans of you and your work. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about what you do?
Having a film on HBO was definitely something I’m proud of. Similarly, last fall I led a small team on a challenging seven-week overseas assignment, filming eleven separate videos between Guam, Saipan, Fed. States of Micronesia, Malaysia, and India. Most of that work is not out yet but I’m definitely proud of how we were able to adapt and what we accomplished.
Authenticity is something I strive for in every project I lead, whether a short doc or a feature script. I love exploring peoples and characters in obscure industries and underrepresented places. There’s a shared humanity to be found everywhere in the human experience. I mean, most every culture or industry has been ‘unsellable’ until someone does it well, right?
I hate 555 numbers and fake computer interfaces. I hate characters saying, ‘as you know,’ and not saying ‘bye’ when they hang up.
I love realism.
Are there any books, apps, podcasts or blogs that help you do your best?
ShotDeck, Artemis, Coverfly, and Afterlight are great apps / programs for work-related stuff.
Hardcore History and The Rest is History are just the best, in terms of podcasts.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://jeffprahl.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jeffprahl/
Image Credits
Graham Skinner (img 3, 4)
Dennis Noack / Eric Bautista (img 6)
Xander Herman (img 7)
