Asian A.V. Club newsletter #35: Jason Baum
Award-winning producer Jason Baum has built an impressive career developing groundbreaking music videos and ad campaigns. Now he's extending his skills with innovative films like It's What's Inside.
Jason Baum has produced for a roster of directors that reads like a who’s who of the directing world. Excelling in the music video space, his projects have amassed over 6 billion views to date with artists like Kendrick Lamar—whose video earned him a Grammy for Best Music Video in 2018—Sia, Beyoncé, Lady Gaga, and more trusting his ability to assemble the perfect team to bring their music to life.
This year, Jason brought his talents to the big screen, producing the mind-bending sci-fi horror film It’s What’s Inside, directed by his close friend Greg Jardin. The film had its world premiere at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival and was swiftly sold to Netflix for an impressive $17 million. Not bad for the Maui-born filmmaker whose calm demeanor has made him everyone’s favorite collaborator!
Asian A.V. Club: We love a good origins story here at #AAVC and was wondering if there was one particular, or consecutive thing that sparked your interest in the creative field?
Jason Baum: It was definitely a consecutive bunch of events that kind of led me down a more artistic path. I think it was always there. I didn't really like scientific things or math or sports or anything like that. I always gravitated towards art class and music class. But I would say there are a couple of milestones. When I was probably in second grade, I was really obsessed about being an author. But as a second grader, I only really knew illustrated children's books. So, I thought those were all the books that people read. (laughs)
Once I realized that's not what real author is, my interest went towards a neighbor that was a photographer. In the process, I learned darkroom photography as a kid. But it was really when my parents got a camcorder and let me be in charge of it for vacations, where I kind of went more down the path of filmmaking.
Asian A.V. Club: I have an image of you with the camcorder, directing your whole family to do certain things. What were those early directorial moments like?
Jason Baum: I don't know if I that Steven Spielberg, JJ Abrams, kind of a filmmaker where I recreated things and just constantly directed people. I was very much an observer of people. I was more like the documentarian on the trip. I had a lot of joy that I found after the trip, taking all the footage, and seeing what was captured, trying to string it together into something that represented the trip. They were probably hour-long videos, way too long, but that was probably the most fun to just take the moments, find a way to edit it together, set it to music, and have something that someone could watch now.
Asian A.V. Club: Did any of those videos help get you into NYU [New York University] film school?
Jason Baum: I was really lucky. The high school that I went to, had a big technology program that came with brands for equipment and software and things like that. So, during one of the winter breaks, my video teacher encouraged me to take the tripod and the professional mic's home and go make something. I recruited a couple of my friends and wrote a kind of a docudrama about something that one of my friends were going through.
We shot this film over the break, and I put it together, and I was pretty proud of it. I still think, as limited as my vision was at that point, I executed it to its 200%, and that was eventually what I submitted to NYU. I didn't really know I wanted to be a filmmaker, but the fact that I was able to take this modest film, get into a prestigious film program, made me go, “I should go to NYU”. (laughs)
Asian A.V. Club: What was it like for stepping into an education space that is so focused on creativity and collaboration?
Jason Baum: I think going to NYU was really beneficial, because it really opened me up to the possibilities and the wide breadth of what filmmaking is. Growing up in Hawaii, we didn't really have an art theater. None of the indie films really came to our megaplex. And so, the fact that there were independent and art films out there really kind of blew my mind.
I would say most of my NYU experience was going to screenings. I spent a lot of time in the library checking out laser discs of the Criterion Collection and really just trying to know about all these things that a lot of my peers already had access to because they grew up in New York and LA. They were referencing films that I'd never even heard of. So much of going to film school was learning all those things and then just soaking it all it
I can say that the cool thing about being in a film school environment is everyone's experimenting, and everyone's like doing things out of pure curiosity. So having that kind of camaraderie and collective exploration was really amazing.
Asian A.V. Club: You attended the director’s program, but how did you transition into producing?
Jason Baum: On the first day of NYU, they sat everyone in the room and asked, ‘if you want to be a director, raise your hand.’ 90% of the class raised their hand. Then they asked, ‘how many of you want to be a DP (director of photography)?’ 10 people raise their hand. Then they ask, ‘who wants to be a producer?’ And no one raises their hand.
I didn't raise my hand at all because I knew nothing. I didn't know what any of those positions did. I was just like, I'm just here to see what's going on. The nice thing about NYU is they don't actually make you pick a path. Their belief is you should be able to do anyone's job in some sufficient capacity.
So, when I moved out to LA after graduating college, I was just really trying to take any opportunity that I could get. I kind of befriended a music video producer, and under his wing, that kind of led me down the path of becoming a music video producer. I still have a passion for directing, and still would love to direct more things in the future, but I just take those opportunities as they come.
Asian A.V. Club: Do you remember the first video that you produced under your own name?
Jason Baum: Oh, for sure. I obviously produced a couple things while I was in college, but my first thing that was just myself producing was a music video for an artist named Aimee Allen. I don't even remember what the budget was, probably less than $10,000, but my main core memory of that was I was just so obsessed about doing a great job that literally, every receipt that would come in, I put in an Excel sheet. And then, if something came up and I had to run to the store to grab something, I was looking at the receipt and making sure that I'm not a penny over where I need to be. I was super hyper focused on every single cost and adding it up to make sure I was on task.
It was actually a really great experience. I met a lot of some of my closest, longest friends, like Larkin Seiple, who is the DP of Everything, Everywhere, All at Once and Beef. There's a lot of cool people that I met on that project that I still get to work with today.
From Top Left Clockwise: Dir: Dave Meyers - Kendrick Lamar, Dir: Petra Collins - Olivia Rodrigo, Dir: Bradley & Pablo - Jung Kook, Dir: Emmanuel Adjei - Beyonce
Asian A.V. Club: As a producer, you’ve worked with so many directors and artists on their music videos, how do you approach every new job, and do you still have to pitch for the project in the first place?
Jason Baum: I think most of the time there isn't really an interview process for my job. I come into jobs through the directors or possibly through an executive producer who either knows me personally or can vouch for who I am as a person. But also, I think my wide breadth of experience puts most people at ease that I can walk into almost any situation to figure it out,
I think the best kind of producer is a chameleon of sorts, because everyone has a different working style and a way of getting things done. I can't really impose how I like to work as much as I would like to. So, it's very much taking the director's lead and understanding that this is how they like their set run and this is how they like things communicated to them.
Asian A.V. Club: Do you have to work with a wide range of personalities when it comes to the directors?
Jason Baum: You know, there’s a range. Some directors want you to be brutally honest and say every single detail of what's happening, or else it will drive them insane. And some people are like, please keep all of that away from me, I don't want to hear any of it. All I want to do is focus on what I need to do. Then there's all the people in between. And then once you figure out what the director likes, you go ahead and build a team; finding the right DP or production designer that fits into their microcosm of how they like to work.
As much as you like to control it, sometimes, when you have people that have never worked together before, it's this crash course speed date that you're trying to get everyone to create something with minimal conflict.
Asian A.V. Club: Is it true that you met director Greg Jardin 14 years ago in a parking lot before collaborating on the feature It’s What’s Inside?
Jason Baum: We technically did meet in a parking lot 14 years ago. (laughs) I used to intern at a production company called Radical Media. It's where Greg is represented as a commercial music video director, and we were kind of paired together to do a very small project for a Canadian band called Hollerado. We had never met before, and they're just like, “Hey, here's Greg. He has this cool idea. There's barely any money. Here's Jason. He's the up-and-coming producer. He's willing to figure it out despite not getting paid and having nothing to work with. Go off and make something.” And the good thing is we made something really cool and went to South by Southwest and won the grand jury press there. And as a result of kind of that experience together, me and Greg became the best of friends and just kept working together for the last 14 years, including, It's What's Inside.
Asian A.V. Club: So, when Greg says, let's make a movie, how did you use all the skill sets that you've picked up over the years to approach something with a big cast, fun visuals and is a totally out of the box kind of film?
Jason Baum: Greg’s been trying to make a movie since the point that we met. I would say the first half of those 14 years, he was trying to make a different movie and would give me updates. But at that time, I didn't really have the feature film experience because I was very much exclusively in music videos, not by choice, but by what people were willing to trust me with.
[Greg] would lament the process of trying to get his latest film made. And then I read that script, and it's an AMAZING film. It was just very large for a first-time director. We had just watched this movie, The One I Love, and were marveling at how they were able to make a great film in one location with two actors on a small schedule. And I was like, how can we take the good ideas of the script and put it into something that is smaller, and into something that we could achieve.
So, he went off on that idea and a year later, he sends me the script for what is now, It's What's Inside. And I was like, kudos to your talent, because you actually did pull it off with eight actors, one location. And basically, from that point forward, anytime I met anyone with any film cred or possible access to helping me make the feature film version of it, I would just pass on the script. And eventually, Greg was able to find this producer that was able to find the inroad to get us some money, and then brought me around once it was set up.
Asian A.V. Club: You’ve produced a wide variety of projects, on a scale of 1 to 10, what level of difficulty was making a film?
Jason Baum: You know, producing is hard. I don’t think easy for anyone. But making any film is a monumental task. So, I could only say it was a level 10 of difficulty. (laughs) You know, maybe one day I'll be given so much money where I’m like, ‘Oh, that was so easy.” But it wasn't just a budgetary challenge. It's the process of filmmaking that just requires endless sleepless nights. And this was no different.
From Top Clockwise: Dir: Tanu Muino - Lady Gaga, Dir: Daniel Askill + Sia - Sia, Dir: Calmatic - Kendrick Lamar
Asian A.V. Club: You’ve worked with so many directors in the music video space, now that you’ve successful made a feature, do you think you’re going to get a lot more requests from them to produce their feature films?
Jason Baum: Obviously I've been doing music videos and short form content for a long time, and there's plenty of friends that I've worked with or known for a while that have similar aspirations like Greg. Not because of [It’s What’s Inside], but they’ve been sending me their scripts for years and are like, how do we figure this out? So yes, I have a deep roster of short form directors that would love to make longer form things. But honestly, I love working with friends. I love being able to make their dreams happen.
Asian A.V. Club: We talked about how your started off in the directorial program of NYU and I was wondering do you still have aspirations to direct your own film? I would assume that with your vast understanding of how to produce, you’d be an even better director because you’re aware of all the ingredients to make that special sauce.
Jason Baum: I would like to think that working with so many directors has really expanded my knowledge of how to be a director as well. I would love to try and put something together on that front in the coming years.
Asian A.V. Club: You mentioned that in your younger days, you made things that came from an observational standpoint, which makes me think you have really strong EQ. I was wondering how that works to your advantage in your career to be able to walk into a room and have a strong sense of how to connect with everyone in it. It’s such a cool superpower.
Jason Baum: That’s very kind of you to say. The one great thing about working with artists is, I think a lot of them do have a very sensitive, emotional core to them. And I like working with like-minded people that are very empathetic, not only to the people that they're collaborating with, but also are trying to express something to an audience that is really engaging and supportive of a greater world. So, to be able to help them fulfill their vision is really the true joy of what I do.
Asian A.V. Club: It’s pretty awesome what you do. Thank you for talking to us!
Jason Baum: Thank you.
Second time today a Substack mentioned this movie!! Def bookmarking it for this weekend :)) you guys always do such thoughtful interviews, love the mix of personal and industry that you get into 💯