Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Christopher Jewell Valentìn. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Christopher Jewell, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. We’d love to hear about a project that you’ve worked on that’s meant a lot to you.

The most meaningful projects, have definitely been the ones that I have self produced. Currently working with a fellow independent artist Brayden Hade, as we try to bring our outrageous comedy to life. What is great about this project specifically, is that we crowdfunded it. So all of the funds raised, came directly from loving and supportive friends, family, and people that have followed our artist journeys. That fact alone added onto the fact that the subject matter in our project is incredibly close to home, naturally make the stakes higher.

Christopher Jewell, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

I grew up a military kid, and to 0 shock or disappointment, told my parents I wanted nothing to do with the military. When I went to high school, I fell in love with the process of putting on shows and building community. After doing several plays and musicals, I applied to some of the top theater schools, got a few rejections, but studied and earned my BFA in performing from a school named AMDA who has two locations, one in New York the other in Los Angeles. After school, despite the traffic, LA was the place for me! I have performed in several local productions, touring shows, short films, and feature films. Easy to say I love LA, and now being at a place where I can rely on performance related gigs to pay the bills, I can’t complain. In the past couple of years, I have gotten into more behind the scenes work as a producer/director but mainly as a writer. Writing comedic scripts has become a passion, and now I have had several opportunities to showcase my work: currently writing a YouTube short series, a comedy pilot, and several other collaborative efforts (that I can’t get into just yet).

Is there a particular goal or mission driving your creative journey?

My goal is to build community while we alll make money. So often, I think some higher ups in the entertainment field like to create a sort of “cool kids club”. That excludes a variety of artists, my goal is to build a unique film company that allows for everyone to succeed. Young artists and passionate artists need an opportunity at community, and thus far through my career I feel in many ways I have been able to do that. LA is a city with musical theater people, film people, finance people, and a variety of backgrounds to go with. So my goal is to elevate that diversity in telling well rounded stories that talk about the human experience, through independent filmmaking.

What can society do to ensure an environment that’s helpful to artists and creatives?

Wellllll society can GIVE UP ON AI. But since that is a tall ask, One thing everyone ESPECIALLY higher ups, is look out for newer artists they are everywhere, mainly producing independently. If you find an independent show/movie you like, tweeting about it, posting about it and telling friends is always helpful. Get the word out! Garfield and the Mario movies are/were great, but Chris Pratt (as amazing as he is) is not the only actor in Hollywood with a charismatic voice.

Contact Info:

• Website: http://christopherjewellvalentin.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/iamjewellvalentin/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php/?id=100001523935632
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/iamjewell40

Image Credits
These are personally from me or Brayden Hade Photography.