Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Emilie Svensson. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Emilie, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Are you happier as a creative? Do you sometimes think about what it would be like to just have a regular job? Can you talk to us about how you think through these emotions?
The short answer to this question is, “Yes”. But if I were to be more transparent, I would have to follow up with a profound “No”. This is a long winded answer- Looking at the bigger picture, I’ve never understood or agreed with how society views The Arts as this inevitable waste on society, despite the glaring statistics of society’s constant and almost over consumption of it. I don’t agree that as a creative person who pursues it as a profession, that I along with other creatives, are destined to be jobless and hated by people with conservative views who perceive us and often outwardly proclaim that we are a drain on taxes and resources. Those same conservatives within any tax bracket who watch movies, read books- (hopefully), listen to music, watch podcasts, and enjoy taking pictures on their phones just as much as the photographer who enjoys finding and capturing moments on their film camera in a studio for the next magazine spread, that will also be viewed, paid for and consumed. Creatives are only ever praised if they are successful under capitalist standards- It’s a direct way to say to the world, “you bring value”, “you and your art are worth something”, the subtext is always the dollar sign. I would need a whole other text box to elaborate further on how women specifically in this male dominated industry of being creative, are often if not always overlooked, underpaid, and undervalued- our voices never heard, photography never seen, films never made, music never heard, and overall, our voices always suppressed or pushed completely into submissiveness and silence.
I personally have worked very ambitiously and tirelessly, both freelancing in Hollywood and eventually switching into corporate in my 30s after relocating to Sweden in 2021. I think I speak to many other creatives when I say that our fire in our belly has always burned strongest in our youth. Over time if or when you don’t see returns, that roaring fire quells to a dull ember amongst other tired coals. The irony is that everything that life hits you with, can be used for inspiration to tell the truth of your story in whatever medium you’re working in, which in turn can draw in large audiences that turn to larger profits, but suits never think that far ahead, always prioritizing short term gains over long term profits, and personal reality never stops coming therefore neither do bills. Suddenly, finding a “real job” becomes the norm, and all of those personal experiences are never shared to a larger collective due to the lack of the ability to just get started.
As a director, filmmaker, photographer and storyteller, I look back on my work and realize that despite my very proud achievements and award-winning short films that I’ve made with other friends and top collaborators, most of my career has only ever been to make another man’s vision come true. Quite simply, this should speak to the system at large. I’ll forever be grateful and sing my mentor’s praises- DOP Par Ekberg; a forward thinking Swedish man who has taken on several men and women to be trained under him without any promise of return. He gave us tools, access and lessons that were always gate kept to the average person, and as a result, he’s accumulated some sort of evangelical following. He’s always been my number one cheerleader outside of my family and close friends. He is one exception in the sea of many powerful men running showbiz.
That aside, having trained as a general PA, Camera AC, and eventually working my up to Director in the course of seven years during my time in Hollywood, I had achieved the unachievable in a very short amount of time, only to be met with another glass ceiling that I couldn’t break. I had worked with and directed Usher on two separate projects, but when I had reached out to agencies to take that next step to get me repped hoping to have people / agents / managers help with accessing clients, resources, and growing my career, there was just more rejection.
Never without a plan, or ability to sit still for too long, I decided to relocate to Sweden. I’m a dual citizen of both Sweden and the USA, so I figured having international access and trying to break into a smaller bubble might serve me better to get established. I had endless meetings with agencies, and even reached out to agencies in Spain and Germany with my new reel that included some heavyweight celebrity power. It’s worth noting that both countries have a strong reputation of hiring more women in my field as a director. It’s also worth noting that several Western European countries take a small portion of their country’s tax dollars to fund the arts because it’s a direct result of showcasing and developing their culture- Perhaps this is why outside countries always assume that America has none.
Sadly, I was only met with more empty promises in Sweden until I got very lucky and landed an Associate Director position at a gaming company. Mind you, I took on this role, but still under a manager, and still with an outside director being hired to create our stories and tasks. I worked well with my team, so this was no personal hurt, but hierarchy was noticeable. The company wanted a T.V. series around one of their games- I ended up world building, writing scripts, pitching, building lighting and color pallets, producing much of their marketing projects (which was outside of my job description), sometimes getting in front of camera, training in motion capture, doing R&D for the new Generative AI tech that was surfacing in 2022, and learning pre vis in Unreal Engine 5. I was learning, and using every skill I had, which made me happy- along with all of the corporate benefits surrounding a steady paycheck. BUT this was during the big tech hires and layoffs just after Covid. As much as I loved my job, the company had to make several painful layoff decisions. I never ended up directing, except for a BTS shoot we did for a Beta test on a game. I found the location, pitched and produced this project, but when we wrapped all “congratulations” and praise went to my manager.
I survived until the next corporate gig came around. It was a gaming project built on the blockchain. I was afraid of rejoining the startup culture and burnout, to which I experienced a lot of in Los Angeles after having spent several years at a new media company there, but overall I took a chance on an all-hands role for the aim of moving up the ladder quickly and finally managing my own team. I ordered gear, built a studio- twice, did livestreams, created workflows for external teams, created BTS short docs, podcast episodes, project led cinematic trailers, did all of the writing, shooting, editing, producing and directing for every square inch of media we could make for the marketing team. This company suffered several bankruptcies, and after four years living in Sweden, I was in the same position in life for the second time, and the burnout left me catatonic.
The landscape of media was and still is changing rapidly. I jumped from traditional union and non-union sets in Hollywood with celebrities, influencers, characters with big personalities and egos, to new media while that was still the buzz, then in Sweden I switched to corporate for AR/VR/XR tech and blockchain. I accepted a lot for the sake of training and hoping for connections and opportunities, at the end of the day I was still storytelling, right?
Today, I’m very reluctantly working with AI while ironically pursuing a PhD in Creativity to keep the humanities, arts and academia alive in a world where AI is unregulated and we are at the mercy of AI’s corporate overlords and the chaotic “Trust me bro” investment mentality. I’ve taught Generative AI to students as well while volunteering so they have a chance at understanding AI media literacy, and being able to create and tell their own stories where big expensive Hollywood studios are far out of reach- At the bare minimum I want them to have a chance at having a job where AI is simultaneously eradicating jobs.
At this stage, I’ve truly come full circle to see the reality of flash-in-the-pan tech companies spanning cinema, new media, gaming, crypto and AI, spawn and die in rapid succession, all while toying with people’s livelihoods, and squash truth in storytelling into an automated and optimized machine. I suppose this falls in line with “play stupid games, get stupid prizes”?
When I started pursuing cinema at merely 15 years old, I new I was chasing a very difficult dream. In all my years, I never thought we as humanity would stop making movies. I always felt in my bones that I would succeed and find work. I ALWAYS wanted to “have my cake and eat it too”- I NEVER wanted to be the starving artist. I wanted my visual stories told, and ideas shared in a cinematic community that I have always looked up to and respected, through a medium that I have always loved. After all of this toil, I’ve only recently grown to despise what I’d always loved- and haven’t recently brought not so much as my film photography camera to my eye for just a simple and small meditative practice and pleasure of capturing a human moment.
My reality and the culmination of all of my choices regularly stares me down as I question my worth, and skills as they quickly become more and more obsolete with every passing day, looking for something better on job boards in a recession while I also hope to buy my flat to keep a roof over my head and build a comfortable life that I’m proud of. With nearly two decades of study, experience, passion, and leadership (without the title), it’s horrific to discover that all of my time, dedication and love for something gave nothing in return.
To really answer this question, I would have loved to have taken a “regular job” in a different field. At 17, I would still have to guess at whatever role that might be with so many jobs having disappeared overnight. Without getting into finance or becoming a doctor, none of us could foresee the implications of whatever “normal job” we chose- which ones would survive and which ones wouldn’t.
I don’t think anyone is happy in their job, but I know we pursue corporate because we like the life it gives us- I’m able to travel and support myself while having benefits and the possibility of building a family and having a future- Hardly anything ostentatious. I don’t miss doing manual labor for 12-24 hours on a set, but I do miss working with great people to make something and tell a story. I often look over my shoulder wondering if I should jump back in to make movies in the traditional way, but I know I wasn’t making ends meet, and I wasn’t happy with my life where I was living under the poverty line, living paycheck to paycheck, and still not achieving that delusional “American Dream”.
My advice: STAY CREATIVE, but keep it as a hobby until it can support you. I love being an artist, but on my own terms. Many of my friends who chose something stable have a passion for drawing, playing music, writing, etc. and in our occasional catch ups, they look at my weird and (usually) wonderful life of freedom and passion, and always wonder and confess to me “what if”? But I look at them with lives surrounding stability, certainty and ease of choice, only to ask them the same question. Only a small handful of my friends in Hollywood have “made it”, but again those are only a small few. Wanna give it a go?
Emilie, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?
Before there was LinkedIn, there was cold emailing. As an undergrad, I scoured the internet for emails and connections. I have a diverse and mixed background with an international upbringing, but having grown up MOSTLY in a small town in Northern Virginia with a very middle-middle class household income, a nepo baby I was not, and I used whatever cards I had to get started. I knew at 15 years old I wanted to be a director and at 21 years old I knew I wanted to take on the dark comedy genre, so I led with this.
I trained hard in uni, and leaned into my Swedish / Armenian backgrounds. I eventually got in contact with Jonas Akerlund, one of the biggest Swedish directors from the 80s, 90s and early 2000s. I told him I was moving to LA and wanted to learn the ropes- he took a meeting with me and immediately I became a director’s assistant where I would eventually meet my mentor, DOP Par Ekberg.
I still remember the very first day on set- a music video with Coldplay. It was a far cry from sweet little suburbia where the most exciting thing to happen was a Panera opening up around the corner from our high school. I freelanced with the Swedes on several music video and commercial projects. Don’t get me wrong, it was tough work, I had to learn fast and I got my ass kicked. I did all of the grunt work to be on these sets- running errands, putting together receipts, shuttling petty cash and props around L.A., getting lost on the freeway with my crappy phone running on 5% battery, carrying water and coffee for talent and crew, making sure I ordered the same coffee for me as the director in case it spilled, and I was doing this at literally any hour of the day or evening.
In addition, I landed a job working at a new media company. Freelancing wasn’t paying the bills seeing as I couldn’t join the Swedes on shoots overseas. I learned how to create influencers at this new media company without ever becoming one on my own. I had joined this company with a very specific desire- to get into the writers room and direct dark comedy short films that matched my skill level. I quickly discovered this was gate kept to a certain few who had joined the company earlier, and I ended up making videos that taught people how to cut an avocado five ways in hopes of going viral. I didn’t get the dream at this company either, but it was a job and I could survive on it. In the end, I never learned how to properly “speak Internet”, and I always longed for the higher standard of the traditional set- especially after having been exposed to it at the very start of my career. There was a loud and noticeable conflict within Hollywood at this time- keeping talent and storytelling exclusive to elite auteurs, and people who wanted access to tell their stories to get new talent into the upper echelons. I believed in this new media company’s mission wholeheartedly to create access, new competition and tell stories from a more youthful and relatable perspective, but in the end, instead of growing to get development and distribution deals with bigger networks, the new media company stuck with the cheapest option which produced the cheapest products- it was the McDonald’s of video production and that was never what I wanted. I tried to grow my skills here and I learned how to do 360 video- something that would later help me in the future when I moved to Sweden.
I continued to freelance and grew into the camera department, getting on indie sets with my friends and while this never put me over the poverty line, I was happy doing what I loved and getting better at it. I need to shout out Jennifer Lai, Jean Denegar, Daphne Wu, Roxy Shih, Salma Loum, and Justin Aguire for training me and hiring me as well. I kept up with photography on top of this by shooting for Derrick Lee running a music and culture blog called “Blurred Culture”.
It wasn’t until 2019 and during the 2020 Covid shutdown where I had skills, friends, connections and time to make my own stuff. Shoutout Jasmine Chiong, Sarah Tither-Kaplan, Lulu Jovovich, Dani Adaliz, Emily Ferris, Jasmin Savoy Brown, and Sophie Lundberg. I made music videos, ads, spec ads, short films, an anthology series, two projects with Usher, and even played with Tik Toks- little did I know I probably should’ve stuck with Tik Tok since that was the prime time to get in.
I won awards for my / our films, I gained star power under my portfolio, and showed that I could direct in any format, yet that glass ceiling remained.
I moved to Sweden and switched to corporate for stability and a better quality of life- one that I could not afford in the U.S. Yet with AI and tech today, I see a dreary future ahead for how my skills and experience can remain future proof. Long gone are the days of “the dream” to get repped and shipped off to Lake Cuomo to shoot a commercial for Chanel. I’ve since reluctantly adapted to generative AI creation purely for survival, but I’ve made the decision to pursue a PhD on the side to make the jump into education and persevere with what remains of human creativity and intelligence. In addition, I volunteer as a teacher at Tumo in Armenia to honor my Armenian heritage and to inspire new, young minds to keep the human spirit alive despite these rapid changes.
I would like to say that I bring my voice into my work with corporate, but sadly this does not ring true. For one of the companies in Sweden, I was able to do so, but for the others, everything relies on statistics, trends, SEO and other metrics. I can bring my voice into my PhD which I am actively doing at present, but with corporate, you are required to bring your tech skills and create whatever fits the brand. Other than having written my first feature film with my writing partner Sophie Lundberg, I do not have any personal projects in the works until my PhD is completed.
How can we best help foster a strong, supportive environment for artists and creatives?
Don’t be like Timothee Chalamet.
Can you share your view on NFTs? (Note: this is for education/entertainment purposes only, readers should not construe this as advice)
Gross.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.emiliesvensson.com/
- Instagram: @emsven13
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/emilie-rae-svensson-106713234/?skipRedirect=true
- Other: You can buy my travel photography here: https://www.im-fine-mom.com/
