Director, Jacob Rosenberg
Interview
This month we caught up with LA based Director, anthropologist, and collector of rare and optical artifacts, Jacob Rosenberg. We explore his thoughts on Los Angeles and his passions, skateboarding, film, and photography.
I feel like the attitude of skateboarding, which partially is, “Let me go over here and have a back and forth with this random block of perfect concrete,” is about being present for the emotions and energy of the moment.
When did you move to LA? What neighborhood did you settle in?
I moved to LA in the fall of 1998 and moved into a three-bedroom apartment with some friends at the bottom of Runyon Canyon. While I love to travel and go places, I don’t necessarily like to move so I stayed in that apartment for 9 years rotating roommates until my roommate was my wife.
Some people end up at the beach and I feel fortunate that I ended up near the canyon because I would just wake up and hike and then drive down into the city to explore the places that I liked. There were so many movie theaters and record stores and places nearby back then, it was great. I still live somewhat close to that area, so I suppose I like it.
What about LA inspires you?
When I moved to LA, I was still a bit of a hater, being from the Bay Area. I wasn’t really the type to go out and paint the town and I was still trying to find my rhythm here. I met this person who said to me, “Los Angeles is the greatest place in the world to try and do what you are passionate about because it is the most competitive place to try and do what you want to do.” That really rang true over time: the expansive size of LA, the culture, the diversity, the good, the bad and the ugly. It’s really a dynamic city that offers something for everyone. And if you want to make films or work in the business, there are a ton of opportunities and challenges that you can engage and creatively react to. It’s inspiring that there is something for everyone and it really puts the burden on your own shoulders about pursuing your passions. And then, of course, there is every type of food, every band plays here, every comedian, every movie (old and new), and amazing museums and a great art scene. And sneakers…
Riding your bike around LA is completely doable on a daily basis .… It’s extremely stupid without infrastructural change … because drivers have an extreme dislike for cyclists.
How would you change LA?
That’s a weird question for me, because it’s hard to think about changing a place. Change is such a human quality, for a city it would take an enormous amount of effort to transform it. If I were to change LA, I think I would make the public transportation more accessible to more areas (re: trains/subways) and I would convert a lot of the roads to being extremely bicycle friendly. When you think about it, Los Angeles is sprawling, but Downtown to Santa Monica is not that far. Riding your bike around the city is completely doable on a daily basis. On that note, It’s extremely stupid without infrastructural change to be on the roads because drivers have an extreme dislike for cyclists; but I think it would be amazing if the city was more open to alternative means of transportation and that became the norm.
How has living in LA changed you?
I don’t know how it has “changed” me, I just know that for the last 18 or 19 years it has shaped me. My wife is from LA, I started a business with partners that I met in LA. So I feel like LA has been the primary mechanism for molding who I am for these last two decades. I think that given my preconceived notion about the negatives of LA and having overcome those and fallen in love with the city, has inherently helped me take on a touch more objectivity when it come to judging places.
Where are some of your favorite spots?
Noshi Sushi — all time classic, best low priced/high quality sushi in town. There’s a great story there, too. When I first started going there, there was a new young sushi chef who came from Japan to LA because he loved movies. He has worked there on and off for the last 16 years and recently bought the restaurant from Mr. Noshi when he retired. He’s my age and I love that I have seen his journey just by continuing to go back over all this time.
The Magic Castle — I love magic. The history and vibe of this spot can only exist in LA.
HMS Bounty — One of my old favorite dingy bars on Wilshire. I haven’t been since I have had kids, but I used to end up there to the best of my recollection.
Largo at the Coronet — Best comedy/variety show spot in America. This place used to be on Fairfax, and Jon Brion and Fiona Apple would play there all the time and that was just magical, but now it is relocated at the Coronet and the variety shows are off the chart.
Carousel — This is an OG Armenian restaurant that is in a sleeper strip mall in Hollywood. My wife is Armenian so I have fallen in love with the food.
Karabagh — This is an Armenian market, they have tons of sides and salads and you can order cooked or raw spiced BBQ meats.
Runyon Canyon — For better or worse, no matter how much dog shit or how blown out this place is, I have been hiking it for the entirety of my time in LA. I love that it is a constant for me because I can reflect on the fact that I used to hike and reflect on where I was and what I was doing at different times of my life. My favorite hike is during or just after a rain storm, it’s empty and quiet.
Mario’s Peruvian — A staple spot at Melrose and Vine, absolutely grubbing food. Get the seafood fried rice and chicken saltado.
Jon & Vinny’s — I pretty much love everything that these guys are a part of, but this spot for breakfast, lunch and dinner is always delicious and it feels very LA. The space is open, it’s not crowded in the morning and the pizzas are spot on. They have a fried egg breakfast that is probably my favorite breakfast in LA.
You started taking photos and making films of skateboarding — how has that impacted the work you do today?
That’s a complicated question because I feel very strongly that skateboarding shaped the creative person that I am today. So much of the process of skateboarding and the relationship to skateboarding as a filmer and photographer is about being close to people and intense moments and creating a shared experience of that stoke. It’s complicated because I am still learning about how skateboarding maintains such a strong foothold with me. I don’t skate much, if at all, anymore, but I am so attracted to it and in love with it. I still devour skateboard content and I am constantly rediscovering old photographs and videos that I shot of it when I was a kid. I feel like the attitude of skateboarding, which partially is, “Let me go over here and have a back and forth with this random block of perfect concrete,” is about being present for the emotions and energy of the moment. I still feel, that in my working process, this is who I am. When I am shooting, I want to have a genuine connection with the creatives, with the talent in front of the camera and then of course with my crew. Skaters feel very lucky to skate because at some point in their life it gave them a clear sense of purpose and it was always there for them. If I translate that into being a creator or documentarian or director, I feel so lucky to be able to point my lens at all these different subjects and I want to engage with them in a way that is akin to skating a spot. You would skate a vert ramp differently than you would skate a ditch. Maybe I am going too far with this, but my sense is that skateboarding helped teach me how to be deeply passionate with something so personal and that directly translates to making every project something important and giving yourself to it.
There’s a narrative about skateboarding being the underdog sport that was never going to take off — back when you were a teenager shooting those first videos, did you ever feel that way about your work?
Skateboarding has always had success in seven year cycles. I remember getting into skateboarding at the height of one of those cycles in ’86/’87 and by the time I made the skate videos that defined my early success, skateboarding was going through a really low down cycle. I think being a skateboarder, you do feel like you are an underdog or at least in my generation, a genuine outcast. The outcast and underdog mentality is super empowering when you have something to say, you don’t look at the world and react to it, you go out into the world and simply express yourself. In terms of my work, I was literally pointing my camera at skaters and putting together a visual essay about their style and their tricks and that had nothing to do with being an underdog, it had everything to do with being in love with skateboarding and feeling empowered by the camera in my hand.
Skateboarding has always thrived when it did not react, when it just was. Skateboarding has gone through a massive shift in the last decade. Board sponsors used to define a team of skaters, but since the main pools of money are now coming from shoes sponsors, it is transforming the identities of brands and making that DIY version of skateboarding a bit more difficult to be successful at. But, that being said, the fact that the “establishment” is now an integral part of the economy of skateboarding, that allows for the underdog and anti-establishment sentiment to have a voice. The fact of the matter is that skateboarding has taken off, it’s going to be in the fucking Olympics in 2020 and all these mainstream brands see opportunity in that. It will be up to the individual skateboarders how they express themselves and embrace that natural conformity that comes along with that exposure.
Was there one project that was a turning point for you creatively?
I was incredibly fortunate in that I achieved a pretty wonderful amount of creative success at a very young age making skateboard videos. But then my mentor and advocate who helped give me these amazing opportunities passed away in a tragic car accident. I went to film school and consumed film theory and movies and developed my taste and what I loved, but I don’t think I had a real creative turning point until I was in my early 30s and starting to make, “Waiting for Lightning.” That documentary delved back into my childhood with skateboarding, my friends and my mentor, so in a profound way, I was revisiting this creative spark inside of me, paying tribute to something that defined me while developing a very clear voice in the process. It took about five years to make that film, from 2007–2012, and during that same window I started directing more and more commercials and started to understand how things “worked.” I think the creative turning point comes from achieving a clear sense of how to tell that story and the nuance of what story I wanted to tell. Of course there were many people involved with that project, most importantly my editor Carol Martori, my writer Bret Anthony Johnston and my producer Hana Leshner. So the turning point comes in navigating that ship, getting everyone to see and understand the vision and then being relentless and fighting for the edit and the story I wanted to tell. There was a lot of other stuff going on at my company at the same time that was giving me a ton of experience, but creatively piloting that ship was seminal for me.
You’ve got good crew of followers on Instagram — do you think that is a necessity these days for a director?
I don’t think it’s a necessity, but I think if you have something to share then it can be a great way to communicate with people who like what you do or want to discover what interests you. My Instagram followers mostly come from skateboarding and they are there for the nostalgia of my archives. I throw in my current work and current interests all the time because I look at my feed as a conversation dipping into the past and present. I don’t think any director NEEDS social media in any way. I think it’s a cool way to continue the conversation of work and taste, but if your work has resonance I don’t think your follower count boosts your awareness. Vimeo is probably more important of a platform for a director than Instagram because it’s about the work being presented in the right way. That being said, I was talking to a creative on a job I was shooting recently and he mentioned that they looked at my social media stats and considered them against the other directors I was bidding against … so there’s that.
At what moment, when you are shooting, do you know you have something good?
I think that comes down to your gut feeling and being present while you work. When it comes to just shooting something, a scene, a moment, etc., it’s really a sense of not being aware that anything else is going on, whether you look at the monitor or peer over your DP’s shoulder, it just feels right. You are almost nodding to yourself and it feels pure or it feels funny, but it feels like something true is happening. I try very hard to create a sense of authentic energy that can allow the “moment” to happen. So often I am not near the monitor at first, I am tweaking and poking and setting the mood, then when it’s in rhythm I fall back to the monitor and start repeating moments and exploring where it’s meant to go.
It’s different if I am interviewing someone because that bigger sense of awareness is not as forceful. If I am doing an interview, I am completely in a tunnel with the person that I am interviewing and really paying attention and focused to every word we exchange. By the time we finish I am sort of glazed over and my DP or producer will give me that look that we just got gold. Being 150% engaged in a conversation requires a surprising amount of energy, but if you give that authentic presence to the moment, your subject will feel it, they will open up and share deeply with you. During the process I am aware of the intensity and the honesty of the conversation, but I don’t want to pull myself out of it unless I am specifically trying to get an exact sentence or sentiment in a prescriptive way.
In both examples, you just know and that’s the only way to really explain it.
Check out more of Jacob’s work over at The Reserve Label.
