We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Jordan Beecham. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Jordan below.

Jordan, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today We’d love to hear the backstory behind a risk you’ve taken – whether big or small, walk us through what it was like and how it ultimately turned out.

During the course of my life I have taken a few risks Straight out of college I moved to Louisiana to live with my then girlfriend and now wife. I knew she was a special person, and we had been together roughly a year at that point. This was a good risk for me I didn’t fully know what I wanted to do for a living at that point but I knew who I wanted to be with.

The real risk I want to outline was the one I took back in 2019. I was living in Colorado at the time now married and happy in my relationship. I was working a job I didn’t get much joy out of doing this while already having a degree in art. I was totally out of alignment with my values and interests. But I had a steady stable income that paid enough to keep my financially afloat. My wife and my families were far away on the east coast and we were feeling lonely and disconnected from community.

I reached out to a connection I made in New Orleans in the film industry. I told her how I was feeling and I wanted to make a change and get back into working in the film industry. I had a passion for films, so that felt like a good avenue to channel my creativity. My connection didn’t make in promises about getting steady work but she did say there was a lot work in Atlanta. It was there I decided to take a risk Atlanta was much closer to our families making it possible to see them more often. My wife and I began to discuss the move and we discovered a dear friend of mine had just moved to Atlanta in the summer of 2018.

With no guarantee of a job for me, and only the prospect of babysitting for my wife we moved in with my close friend in to an apartment in Edgewood. A leap of faith brought on by a need for growth and change.

So how did it turn out?

Well things weren’t smooth by any means for either of us. I got a few various jobs in the art department on a number of films, and series including I am proud to say Ozark. I became a set decoration PA for roughly a year and had a daughter in 2022. I grew my art practice through participating in events with the gallery ABV. More recently I mad the decision to become a storyboard artist. I had talked about wanting to do it for years, but that was just talk and I made up my mind to take action. I came in contact with a major storyboard artist who works on the Marvel films and he provided me with guidance to develop my portfolio.
And now I have completed several commercial projects that include Gucci, Keter, an Orlando Waterpark to name a few. All in all I would say it was a risk worth taking I love my home in Atlanta, and the community I have cultivated here.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

So I studied art at Savannah College of Art and Design after going through grade school being passionate about making art. At SCAD I studied Sequential Art, which is the art of visual storytelling comics, storyboarding and can be a companion to animation. After graduating I moved to New Orleans while job hunting one day I come across an ad on craig’s list calling for fashion sketches for a student film. I have a meeting with the author of the post and She tells me the work would be for this feature film called 10 Cloverfield lane. My jaw drops, She goes I just worked on the new terminator film, and I am like this is a big deal this could be the start of my career in film. So my drawings were featured in the finished film and I was eager to do more. That was the spark. Years later that voice telling me you should use your degree was speaking to me while I was a PA on a film. Every time you are working the production office of a film they hand you a crew sheet that has the contact info on it. I see they have a storyboard artist on the crew! I reach out asking all my questions about how things work in that profession. What do you make money wise? How much work do you provide in a day? Is there a union? and From I put myself through a boot camp to develop my work.

So I am an artist first so the quality of my work is important to me it took time to develop a cinematographer’s eye for making storyboards. I have my clients provide visual representation for Ideas they need to show to their clients. Eventually I want to work on films where the storytelling is the most important piece of the puzzle for that is an art in and of itself.

What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?

Most rewarding aspect of being an artist or creative. I love the process of making something It is a puzzle every time, there is always a problem to solve. Especially in figure drawing. To me being able to carve out a living getting to do that is amazing. I almost feel like I am doing something wrong because growing up most people around me were doing jobs they did not enjoy. So to be doing something that didn’t feel like work most of the time and being compensated for it felt amazing.

Being compensated for my work isn’t just about they money it is saying “hey that work you did I value so much that I want to provide you with the means to live your life, feed your self, to go on a trip to pay for a place to live.”

So making something that people enjoy, and value enough that they want to give you something in return is very rewarding to me.

Any resources you can share with us that might be helpful to other creatives?

I think there are more resources out there than we as artists may realize. Part of what is required is research which I don’t always find to be the most enjoyable task. But when you think about it the act of researching is putting in effort to find something, and what you get back in return is knowledge. I don’t think knowledge can be acquired without effort.

I would say to this question that I would have researched more, sooner. With the internet we are more interconnected that ever before in human history. So if there is a job you want or a technique you want to learn more than likely someone is doing that job, someone else learned that technique. I would say most people are happy to answer questions from people that are interested in what they do. Going out and asking those questions, and then taking action has taken me further than any other way of going about it.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://jbeecham24.wixsite.com/homepage
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/storyboarderatl/ https://www.instagram.com/jordanbeecham_art/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jordan-beecham-1458b3a7/