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

Jianna , looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. I’m sure there have been days where the challenges of being an artist or creative force you to think about what it would be like to just have a regular job. When’s the last time you felt that way? Did you have any insights from the experience?

I think at one point maybe every artist has bemoaned their decision to be an artist and uttered the famous words ‘Why didn’t I just pursue (fill in the blank here) at school as my parents suggested?’ But if you are really an artist then you know why you didn’t study law or go to medical school, trying not to be an artist is a little like living without a limb. You are always aware that a part of you is missing and no matter how hard you try to forget, you can’t. Currently, the entertainment industry has been on strike for like five months. In times like these people go get 9-5 jobs. So what was already a volatile, freelance industry just turned into a no man’s land industry. Yet, storytelling is so vital. Where would we be without stories as a society? Maybe an even better question is, for a country who’s largest export is entertainment i.e. storytelling, why don’t we support the artists who make them? Why is most of the power in the hands of five large corporate tech companies and why doesn’t the country have programs like other countries do that fund artists in developmental stages? I could go on and on about how most of the breakthroughs in industries like health are funded through public funds and then privatized later to make money but for whatever reason, the arts in this country are always cut first. And so artists find themselves having to get private money (placing the production of art into the hands of those that have access to that, usually through family connections) or working jobs while they make their art. I don’t wish I had a 9 – 5 job but rather that I lived in a country where we pay artists a living wage and support their work. Getting development funding or funds to support productions shouldn’t be akin to winning the lottery. Yet, it kind of is.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I’m a writer | director who specializes in narrative storytelling. I gravitate toward thrillers, sci-fi, and psychological horror, I also really love fantasy because I love building worlds that feel close to our own but also are foreign enough to be exciting as a storyteller. Something that I’m really reaching to create as I like a challenge. If you knew me as a kid you would know this all makes total sense. My favorite books were Dune, Lord of the Rings, and Stephen King’s IT, which I read in the sixth grade staying up all night on weekends because I couldn’t get enough. I also really love and admire American cinema of the seventies and nineties and wish we could get back to a time when producers and financiers are taking those risks and not just making the seventh installment of whatever’s trending at the moment. It’s funny but a lot of the IP we love now was original at one point and someone just had the vision to make something new.

So I spend a lot of my time at my computer (or notebook) living inside my head and occasionally I get to go to set and make those ideas a reality with a group of amazing filmmakers and artists. My proudest moments are when we are actually on set shooting something that has been living in my head or on paper for most likely years and now here are all these talented people gathered together to create in full living color. There is nothing cooler or more rewarding than living that moment out. I love set. It’s my favorite place to be. I love collaborating with other artists and creators and building ideas so we can finally come to what we all believe is the best version of that story. Collaboration can be one of the most challenging things about filmmaking but I also believe it is one of the best. I love the camaraderie of it. Especially after spending so much time alone writing. It’s such a relief to be caught up in the excitement of making it.

I would say my brand is gut-wrenching thrillers. I like to scare folks and also make them think and I love well-developed characters. I like it when things are moving forward based on character and not solely plot. I love action movies and big sprawling genre films that don’t lose sight of the people the story is about. CGI does not sell a movie. Story does and sometimes it feels like studios lose sight of that. Stories are about people (or animals or insects etc in Pixar’s case), But even those stories have core human emotions at the center of what is happening. It’s just being packaged in a different container.

Is there something you think non-creatives will struggle to understand about your journey as a creative? Maybe you can provide some insight – you never know who might benefit from the enlightenment.

Creatives live a lot in their heads. We are thinking all the time. Even when we are not creating per say (like in physical space) we are creating in our minds. So often I take my dog for a walk and the whole time I’m working out a story thread or a plot thing or a character flaw. I joke with my friends that when I’ve got writer’s block I go to the spa. (Note to producers, if you see SPA as a line item in the budget, it’s a legitimate thing!). It’s my way of relaxing and getting out of my own way. It’s hard to stay blocked when you’re sitting in a 100-degree sauna cooking like a Thanksgiving turkey. Sure enough, ideas start to flow and I’m running to get my notebook out of my locker and jot them down. I think it’s important to understand if you are not a creative or a writer etc., that even if we look like we are ‘not working’ we are working. Creatives don’t shut that part of our brains off. If you send a writer on vacation they’ll come back with a new book or script or whatever. That’s what happens to us. We can’t help it. Asking a creative to turn that part of themselves off is akin to asking them to stop breathing. It just is who we are. You could put a creative in the most un-creative job in the world and they’d come up with something new and creative for it, like a new process or a new poster advertising how un-creative the job is. I guess that is the most important thing to understand about the journey of a creative. We are always working even when we are not working. We don’t have this division in our life like ‘now I’m at work and now I’m at home and I’ll just turn the creative spigot off when I go home.”

Take staff writers for instance. They write on other people’s tv shows all day and do you know what they do when they go home? They work on their own stuff. They don’t just stop creating because they are off the clock. They continue to make stuff that they want to see get on the air. Sometimes that can be hard to live with or deal with in terms of personal relationships but if non-creatives can truly understand and accept that part of a creative’s life, then I think it can work.

What do you think is the goal or mission that drives your creative journey?

I’ve thought a lot about this over the years and even more in the last year. I believe we are more alike than we are different, and as an artist who comes from a mixed background, my mission is to tell stories that bring us closer together as a society, as a species, as souls living in bodies having a physical experience. I am always looking for the universal human truths that live in each story I’m telling. I’m always looking for the big emotions, the big connectors that make audiences feel seen, heard, and loved. When I write I want it to come from a deep part of myself, something almost unconscious, and I want it to connect to that part of the audience’s mind as well. When stories tap into that greater part of ourselves, our universal truths, they are very powerful. They transcend all politics, bickering, and separation. I’d say that is what I’m after. Telling my truths in a way that is universal it can speak to anyone, regardless of their race, gender, or upbringing. Great stories can cut through all the noise if we let them and that is my unofficial mission. To cut through the noise and give folks an experience to remember.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.jiannamaartensaada.com
• Instagram: @jiannamaartensaada
• Facebook: jianna maarten saada
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jianna-maarten-saada-aa203823/

Image Credits
Bio Photo by Elissa Rascón Steinmetz