Long before he was orchestrating Florence Pugh’s death-defying stunts for Marvel in Thunderbolts*, Jake Schreier was a commercial director with dreams of making the leap to the big screen.
He took a stroll down memory lane in Malta on Tuesday morning during a masterclass appearance at the Mediterrane Film Festival to recall how he made the difficult transition to feature films, and, in the process, he dished out some advice to aspiring auteurs in the audience.
The wide-ranging conversation — hosted at Malta’s historic Fort Ricasoli just steps away from where films like Gladiator and its sequel were shot — was moderated by filmmaker Joshua Cassar Gaspar, whose film The Theft of the Caravaggio is screening in competition at the fest. The 75-minute chat covered nearly all aspects of filmmaking as Schreier got quizzed on stunts (yes, that one), camera angles, visual effects, color grading, music selections, sound design, post-production, casting, editing and more. The career advice portion seemed to be the only thing he hasn’t talked about in the recent global press tour.
“My whole career, I’ve just been trying to work,” he explained, adding that during film school (where he was roommates with frequent Spider-Man franchise director Jon Watts, who is due here in Malta later this week), he zeroed in on making short films with friends before discovering another medium. “We sort of found out about commercials at the end of film school and were like, ‘Oh that’s something we could do.’ Because, again, it just was totally unclear how we were going to get to make a movie.”
Cassar Gaspar, left, and Schreier are pictured in conversation.
Courtesy of Mediterrane Film Festival
Schreier said commercials weren’t the most obvious training ground for feature films; however, the education of being on set prepared him for what was to come. “We never became very exalted commercial directors because we were very conceptually driven [asking], ‘What’s the story and how do we tell it?’ The function of commercials is a little bit more a stylized exercise and if you have a strong, enforced style that tends to play better in that medium. That was something I never really felt like I had.”
That said, he found plenty of work and it eventually paid off. “I can’t think of a single commercial that I did, even the really embarrassing ones that I don’t want to talk about, where I didn’t learn something. If you’re on a set and you’re doing something, there’s always some kind of thing that you can take from it,” said Schreier, whose other directing credits include Beef, Minx, Skeleton Crew, The Premise, Dave, Kidding and Paper Towns as well as music videos for Kendrick Lamar, Kanye West, Selena Gomez and Benny Blanco.
For example, when an opportunity came to make his directorial debut on 2012’s Robot & Frank, financing mixed with the availability of lead actor Frank Langella forced a quick two-week prep time before shooting commenced. “The only reason that felt possible is every commercial you get is about a two-week prep, and then you go make a thing,” he said. “And that kind of repetition of doing it quickly and putting things together [was] very, very, very valuable.”
Looking back on it now, he said that two weeks seemed “crazy” and if he had been more successful in his commercial career, he would’ve requested another option. “Even though I genuinely thought when I said yes that it was probably going to be a disaster, I went for it,” Schreier said. “However you get in or whatever opportunity you’re offered, it’s not going to be perfect the first time, that’s for sure, and it might not be perfect any time.”
Schreier added that it’s important to be discerning but not too discerning.
“I have spent quite a few times my career saying no to things and being really choosy, and then I ended up on my couch a lot,” he explained. “That doesn’t mean you should just do anything that comes your way. I feel like I have learned so much more from when I’m working than when I’m not. This is something that I’ve had to learn about myself to kind of keep moving. If there is some opportunity in the thing to go for it; accept that there’s always going to be some compromises or some things that seem daunting. That doesn’t tell you how to get that big break but it just means that when it comes it’s not going to look great necessarily, but you have to figure out where that line is and decide sometimes to kind of take that leap of faith and go for it.”
His other piece of memorable advice came when asked about casting: “If you can just get Florence Pugh, you should do that.”
Audience members are pictured during the masterclass.
Courtesy of Mediterrane Film Festival
Audience members are pictured during the masterclass presentation.
Courtesy of Mediterrane Film Festival
