Today we’d like to introduce you to Jonathan Hammond.
Thanks for sharing your story with us Jonathan. So, let’s start at the beginning and we can move on from there.
I was that nerdy kid who won Young Authors (almost) every year and I would want to sit and home and watch movies and write stories while the other kids played baseball. The movie theatre was my sanctuary. My mother and father would often cap this and send outside to play baseball with the kids, which I am actually pretty grateful because I happened to have fallen in love with playing baseball A storyteller, which I consider myself to be first and foremost, and baseball are interconnected because both involve play. Conflict and suspense. A goal. Action and moments of simple human behavior. Filmmaking, like, baseball, involved team.
So I am far more grateful for being forced to go outside and play with the kids than for my hours writing (or viewing) because the latter is my natural state of being. I practiced this plenty. Playing on a team isn’t my heart’s go-to, but it’s so damn fun. This would delve into theatre a few years later, but that also became a natural state for me. So I am eternally grateful to my mother for forcing me to do something I really didn’t want to, but please don’t tell her because she will gloat. I would go on to study English Lit and Cinema at the University of Illinois, with the hopes of becoming the next Orson Wells/Kenneth Brannagh/Woody Allen- you know, the actor/writer/directors.
I went to NYU’s Sight and Sound program, which is a sort of like Film Production 101 for students with not enough money to go spend four years at film school. In those days, film editing was done manually, on a splicer. Upon graduation, I did literally nothing with my degree or passion, or at least for a long time. I wrote a little, I briefly worked as a teacher, I briefly in an office, and then I became a server, which I surprisingly took to. I genuinely love working for Karl Strauss Brewery Gardens because it keeps me on my feet and I love meeting people, locally and from the world over. But it wasn’t exactly my heart’s content, nor do I feel it to be my raison d’etre. I make people laugh, I feel, which is something- but I wasn’t exactly creating.
Don’t get me wrong, I love it- it’s Earth compared to the purgatory of administrating benefits in severance packages for IBM. Then, I did a little nothing-commercial for a staged reading my friends and I were putting on. It was shot on my Canon 60D and I didn’t even edit it. It was okay? Then we made a parody video of that stupid “First Kiss,” video that went viral a few years ago- the one where two strangers were made to kiss when they met the for the first time – except it turned out to have been totally canned. Anyway, our parody wasn’t bad. I wouldn’t say it was good, but it wasn’t bad. It had some funny moments and we were sufficiently proud.
I shot it and edited it (it took me forever to learn how edit on iMovie-which is the editing platform because it came with my computer..) We had created something and people enjoyed it. But for a latent artist that is everything. Eve-ry-thing. BUT. It became a one-off. Making these things wasn’t exactly easy. Filmmaking had fallen back into latency. But that seed had been planted, man. I needed something. I needed to keep doing this. I became involved with So Say We All, which is another form of storytelling (Oral Storytelling, check it out sosayweallonline.com), which filled my soul, but it wasn’t enough. I am a big believer in creating opportunities for yourself- but sometimes, you really do need that one little thing.
Like, you know you need to get from A to B and in order to do that you have to have figure out a puzzle. You need one person to believe in you in just a tad. Or perhaps a whole lot. And they do. They give you that encouragement. They give you the much-needed hint to the puzzle. For me, it was a text. A text that would change my life. My friend, the remarkable Katie Harroff, who worked for Diversionary Theatre told me they were in need of someone to make marketing videos for them. I had some history with that particular theatre and I really wanted the job. Bad. I needed to be creating and I needed to be doing it at 24 frames a second- even if the product was two-minute spots that show up sponsored on your Facebook feed. They hired me and BOOM. It wasn’t just some outsourced job.
I was contributing to something. They showed me a chart showing how my videos were directly bringing in ticket sales by a substantial margin. To this day, my gratitude to Matt Morrow and Cara Hanhurst at Diversionary and to what Katie ushered in is boundless. Within months I was working for the top theatre companies throughout San Diego, including Intrepid, New Village Arts, InnerMission, Poway Center for the Performing Arts and now The Old Globe among so many others. Like a monk, I worked and studied the craft, worked and studied. And then worked and studied some more. I branched out into working for various non-profits, for profits, real estate, weddings, bat mitzvahs- you name it. But I am hesitant to put the horse before the cart as I have so much to learn. So. Much.
Though that hasn’t stopped the work from coming in – it was plentiful and it was heavenly. Now, I try to balance marketing videos (Jonathan Hammond Productions- a self-serving name I loathe- I needed to come up with something in the moment and the moment wasn’t an inspired one- but I will probably change the name once I run out of business cards… ) with narrative films (GrooveKo, with my producing partner Carla Nell). Since our inception a few years ago with that “First Kiss,” parody video, we have won numerous awards for my films -all of which have shocked and delighted me. My latest film, ‘Isabel,’ won the San Diego True Film Challenge and will air on KPBS in the next weeks (Check your local listings!) I am always honored when someone asks me to tell their story, and I am particularly honored when they feel it has been told well.
We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
The hardest part was actually doing it. Finding a platform in which I could do the work. I felt lost, like a composer who can hear the music but doesn’t know how to read sheet music. He teaches himself but then he needs a piano but doesn’t know how to play. One can get lost and frustrated and depressed- and I did. It’s sad for a person to feel they are supposed to be doing something in life and not be doing it- and one must fill that void in other ways- which can be unhealthy.
And that spirals down, down, down, inertia begetting inertia, darkness with little light. But there was some light- one day he finds an old toy piano. He learns to play it and people teach him to play it and then the spiral goes upwards. I don’t know if I would have gone anywhere if I hadn’t had that little boost. I like to think I would have, but I don’t know. Probably not. I have had so much help. Remembering that you could hear the music without getting it out wasn’t that long ago, and it was so depressing. Then someone gave me a toy piano and my world had music. All I needed was the toy piano, but I am elated to now be working on a grand.
So, as you know, we’re impressed with GrooveKo/Jonathan Hammond Productions – tell our readers more, for example what you’re most proud of as a company and what sets you apart from others.
I make marketing videos, primarily for non-profits. But also for profits. You would have to ask my clients what sets me apart, but I assume I have a knack for telling the story well. I love what I do and I think people love being around a person who loves what they do.
So, what’s next? Any big plans?
I would love to start working with bigger budgets, bigger crews and with more exposure. And also to work with others like me with whom I can learn. San Diego has an amazing filmmaking community and I hope to work with *most* of them. The plan is hopefully to just keep doing what I am doing now, but just bigger and with some more help.
Contact Info:
- Email: [email protected]
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Jonathan-Hammond-Productions-195235960828470/
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