James Cullen Bressack, Filmmaker: “What do you want to do with your life?” and I
was like “Well X, I think I’m doing it. I’m making movies.” X goes “No, no, no,
no…but what do you want to do with your career?”
Film Courage:
In terms of getting producers on board, now being an action filmmaker, how hard was that how easy?
James: I was lucky enough that like what I did is I spent like a few years while I was
directing horror movies producing action films and so what I did is I was working within the
action realm as like a producer of one of like 30 producers on a film or whatever like I was
but I was on set and I was working with producers and then what happened was I then slotted in for
like a lower budget action movie for the first one that I did that was the one I did with DMX
and Johnny Messner Beyond The Law Steven Seagal and that one was my first action movie and I was
able to use the action sequences of that to show that I could do action so that was like my first
attempt at action and what I did is I cut together an action reel which was just like the action
sequences from that as well as like some action sequences from the horror movies that I had done
before because if you take each horror movie I do there's maybe like somebody gets into like a fight
in each thing like there's little pieces where there's some things that are action based you
cut that all together and then I'm like hey look I can do action so I didn't really get much pushback
people believed that I could do it based on like showing that but I was I was blessed to be able
to have that first opportunity to do an action movie and that was just because I slotted in
with the company after producing a few movies for them like they're like hey who's going to direct
this action movie can you do it and I was like oh great and then from there I used that to to get
action work how do you feel about being an action director at this stage in your career I love it
I think it's great I mean obviously I'm covered in horror tattoos like I mean like I've got like
Freddy I got Chucky by the way the Chucky tv show is great you should watch it I'm super into
to horror movies but I I've really enjoyed like playing in the action world and I've just really
enjoyed making movies that I think are are fun and I've had fun doing it so I don't really look at it
any different I if I'm being honest I felt like I was kind of a little burnt out in doing horror
just because like I didn't really know how I could do anything new from what I had already done
I kind of touched down on like every sub-genre of horror at that point and so I was like okay well
let me try something new so like I made a kids movie which was like that animated kids film I
did with my dad and then I was like okay well let me try action so I started like kind of shifting
genres anyway I kind of wanted to move around doing that and really I mean it's been kind of
a longer time coming than I than I would expect just because like I remember back when I did
Bethany I was talking about how I was wanting to kind of start to move away from horror and
I think I even said in one interview I was like this this is going to be my last horror movie
so but I eventually maybe I would definitely go back to doing horror like I enjoy the genre but I
like being able to have like a budget to actually do the things I want a lot of the horror of what
I experienced was finding creative ways to pull off things that were beyond the budget and it's
it's we still do that but I still am able to if I want to have a car explode in the
movie and it's in the script we actually can explode a car if it's a horror movie
I got to figure out a way to shoot the car explosion without it happening
at least in my experience I'm sure people have had other experiences but I wasn't really getting
budgets in horror and I feel like horror there's like only a few companies that are making like
bigger budget horror movies and those companies were not hiring me so I was like okay well
I've done what I can at this I gotta find a different way in to the next level and that's
what I was I kind of structured a plan of how to get to the next level as a filmmaker and that was
going through action and I really have I've always loved the genre when I watched the movies when I
was a kid growing up as well as just in general and I kind of think that it's it's been like a
fun journey inside of it and how can you expand within the action genre what are the sub-genres
of action figures well I mean you have like action thriller you have like just pure action
but for me like how you expand is you just get bigger talent like the bigger the talent
the bigger the budget of the movie the bigger the names that are involved the more stuff you
can pull off inside the genre my ultimate goal is to get to a level of doing like really expansive
thrillers that have really good cast because then I can kind of have like action and and horror in
something with like a drama element but I really just kind of more so just enjoy doing stuff that
like is like I like the stories on the films that I'm making so it's just like interesting
stories as well as like being able to work with interesting people I've really been blessed to
be able to work with really cool casts do you feel that action films there's more room for
a script that has a full arc whereas with horror we we all pretty much know at some point what's
going to happen with each character well no not necessarily I think I think creativity within
the confines of anything can can can exist so it's the same with an action or horror you can
you can pretty much be as creative as you want within that and you can kind of have different
arcs and bigger arcs within both genres I don't think it's as as as necessarily confined to one
genre I mean I know like people like to confine things to like boxes in our business but I kind
of like to float outside of the box and kind of like go hey what's in this one okay all
right what's in this box like I like to move around instead of just sticking in the specific
area and and it actually reminds me so when I first met DMX DMX I was I was talking to him
and and he he he looked at me and the very first time I'm meeting him and he goes what do you want
to do with your life and I was like well X I think I'm doing it I'm making movies he goes no no no no
but what do you want to do with your career and I go well I mean I want to make like Marvel movies
or something at some point he goes no no no no not that not that who do you want to be
and I said well I want to be like the next Steven Spielberg or Robert Rodriguez and he goes well
that's beautiful dog but how about you just be the first you I said damn that was like our first
conversation I was like boy he just like dropped like a massive truth bump on me and it's okay
that I did the voice impression because he's hurt well he had heard me do it before he passed away I
told this story quite a bit around him and he thought it was funny but
but I will say that that that really resonated with me and stuck with me because
I feel like everybody in this business is trying to emulate somebody else
and really like you could take the good parts of different things and from other people's careers
and create your own path you don't have to follow somebody else's path especially nowadays with
the accessibility of cameras and stuff like that I mean I made a movie on an iPhone and
now I've directed a movie starring Bruce Willis in a movie starring Mel Gibson like
that that can happen so I think what people need to do is look at stuff as as okay not necessarily
a path that you follow but like an affirmation that what your dream is is possible
and once your dream is possible build your own path towards that dream
do people say to you how did you get your start like you're so young
did you just you just came out of film school I said Red Bull and Cheerios no I'm joking no
so what I what I normally what I've done as people have asked me like how I got my start and I was
like it's I was straight out of film school I was there for like a week in film school and I
was out of high school and i'd written this like script and I was like Robert Rodriguez
only needed seven thousand dollars that's all I need for my first movie and I made that movie
and it's horrible it's unwatchable nobody should ever see it but I learned from that and but even
before that like I was I was I was a I was a kid watching movies like I grew up watching movies I
remember I would come home from school my dad would like watch a movie with me and pause it
and he'd ask me like okay well why was the camera moving like that like how I was shot this way so
like I was being asked all these questions and drilled into my mind and I I was I was
the kid who would get a book report and I would make a short film about why I didn't want to do
the book report because I was like this is this is I remember I almost got kicked out of school
because I was failing chemistry and my my parents were like this is horrible I knew it was serious
because it was the first time I had seen both parents in the same room at the same time since
they got divorced and I was like oh boy what's going on and they're like he's going to flunk out
of chemistry and my mom's like why would you not take chemistry seriously and I'm like I'm never
going to need chemistry when I'm making movies so I feel like I have like a one-track mind and
I feel like that's just like the thing like when I was talking to wes craven before he passed away
wes said that the people that make it in this business are just the ones that don't give up
and I feel like that's true to a degree if you have a singular focus and you're focused on
getting your project made hell or high water you're gonna I don't care if I've got to make
it for 500 bucks I'm gonna go out there and make it and then the next one i'll make for a thousand
bucks and you just keep going and going and going those are the people that don't give up and the
people that build and grow and can and can learn from okay this is what didn't work on this one
now the next one it'll be better because I know that I made this mistake on this one like that's
those are the people that are gonna make it and I think like yeah you hear about the guy who
made some short film that went to Sundance and then they got a Marvel movie or this or that
and like those exist for sure and find your own path but I think the people that really don't give
up are the people that that will succeed but when people say they want it so badly whether they were
raised in la or they came from somewhere else why do they give up
that I don't know that I don't know I mean it's the the maybe maybe maybe family maybe pressures
of of of money maybe pressures of outside world I can't directly say why but I can say I
for those people that are thinking of giving up if you really really want it bad I beg you not to
give up because I would like to see your movie so when people say wow you just got your start
and now you're directing Bruce Willis and Mel Gibson you say well I found that one funny because
it feels like a whirlwind and it feels like I just got started for sure but I also feel like
I've been directing I've been directing features feature films since I was 18 years old I'm 29.
so it's it's really surreal to say that like I'm an 11-year veteran before I'm 30. but like
we could shave off some years because maybe the first few were not professional movies because
I would also say please don't watch them so maybe like I’d say it's still it's a whirlwind it's it's
everything it's amazing because everything feels so fast and yet so slow and I try to not focus on
that type of stuff and I try to just focus on making the best movie possible in what
I'm doing because I'm hoping that every time I make a movie that will lead to the next one.
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