Interview w/ Jackson Burns
By Nick Caceres
Published 08/17/2025
From “know it alls” to “the domestics,” the current state of online discourse surrounding art is regressing in a grotesque paradigm across the spectrum in Jackson Burn’s latest video, “Liking Things Sucks Now.” No longer the Frank Ocean of niche video essays covering quality tunes, Burns is reigning in a new epoch in his career that isn’t exclusive to YouTube; several big projects have been delivered smoothly in 2025 with a promise of more beautifully crafted work on the horizon.
As the son of renowned actor, comedian and game show host, Regan Burns, who was recently equipped with the role of Mitch in the final season of “Righteous Gemstones,” Jackson Burns has been entrenched in the pockets of the film and television industry from a very young age, being a first-person witness to his father among other actors at the top of their game. This would immensely reflect on the now emerging filmmaker. It shouldn’t come as a surprise then that the Burns descendant is now a fresh alumni of Chapman University’s Dodge College of Film and Media Arts.
Burns is currently slipping by though scoring various gigs local to the area. As a means to secure a better future in the more independent side of video production, Burns with a pact between his most trusted contemporaries, have launched Capital P productions. This is a full-service creative agency aimed at working with artists, some of which Burns has had vivid REM of becoming the visual ammo to tell their stories. Nothing else happens I swear!
The following interview took place over Zoom on the night of August 4, where we discussed Burn’s first YouTube video in two years, the functionality of Capital P Productions, growing up in the entertainment industry and being the first guy in history to use the back catalog of Yellow Swans in a senior thesis short film.
Picture of Jackson Burns in 2024.
Photo Courtesy of jacksonburns.co
Nick: What's up, Mr. Burns? How's it been in the high life?
Jackson: Oh it's been great. Living in paradise as always. I've been good. Thank you so much for having me. I appreciate the opportunity to talk.
Nick: I appreciate you being down. It's actually been a year since the Bucket of Jake interview, so it's been long overdue.
Jackson: It has been long overdue. You know, they say, “save the best for last,” so I'm gonna be rubbing that in his face for a little bit.
Nick: (laughs) I think a good place to start is the fact that you’re back to being a YouTuber, with your first video in nearly two years dropping in July. I was actually at an art museum while that happened.
Jackson: Oh nice.
Nick: What got in the way of being more consistent with videos?
Jackson: Oh man, it was a lot of things. I mean…the big one is school. Finishing up school just freed up a lot of time for me and I was able to really hunker down and get that done. I went to film school for four years and that was just really creatively draining. When I started doing this, YouTube was kind of my creative outlet. I was just using all my mental energy on getting done with school and working on those projects and trying to get myself set up career-wise outside of YouTube. So when that ended, I had had this idea for a long time. The script has actually been done for ages. I was like, “you know what, lemme just get this done and get it off my chest and see how it goes.” I was really happy with how it turned out. Views wise could have done better, but what are you gonna? Such as life. But yeah, I guess that's why it was such a long time in between videos. I also knew I didn't wanna post until I can get stuff done a little more timely 'cause it was two years since my last video but before that it was like a year long break which is just ridiculous.
Nick: It was like waiting on a Fiona Apple record.
Jackson: (laughs) Yeah, right. It was like Frank Ocean over here.
Nick: So with this new video you have, it was interesting to hear someone bring up something that I myself have been noticing for quite some time, whether it's the decrease in perspective or the rise in shaming. One aspect of this that I'm surprised you didn't cover was how the studios are reacting to it. How do you think studios are appealing to the archetypes covered on this spectrum you constructed?
Jackson: That's a good question. Obviously we've been seeing a lot of cookie cutter fanfare stuff recently. I had to drive up and down through LA today for work and every billboard that you could see was like, either it was a spinoff or it was a sequel, a remake, not to say that every remake and every sequel is gonna be bad. I've actually heard that “The Naked Gun” was really good but I digress. I haven't seen it yet. I think that the idea of having these like massive worlds that kind of force people into rewatching and rewatching and rewatching is cookie cutter content. I'm not saying it, but everyone knows what I'm talking about with superhero movies, like the “The Fantastic Four: First Steps” which by the way just had a historically bad second weekend, I think like a drop in $80 million or something in the second weekend, which is one of the biggest drops in movie history, the biggest being “The 86.” Like I said, not all remakes are bad, but I saw a video the other day that was talking about like 20 years ago, you could have gone to a theater and had a choice between seven different opening weekend original concept films now, whereas now you have kind of like one big franchise movie opening every weekend and like three competing films that are either a kids movie or it's, you know, one or two probably really good indie movies. To make a long story short, when it comes to these archetypes and interacting with how movies are actually made and stuff, I think that we're just seeing a lot of dumbing down, a lot of, I think, virtue signaling, making these movies feel important when really they don't have anything political to say at all. With that being said, I don't want anyone to think that I don't think there's good movies, there’s still good movies being made. “Sorry, Baby” came out this year, it was absolutely phenomenal. “Eddington,” my movie of the year, just came out, absolutely phenomenal. Great original movies are still being made. Just because what is popular has become kind of, uh, destructive and anti-culture does not mean that there's not awesome things happening all the time.
Nick: I definitely agree with you, especially with music. I think this year is better than last year music-wise. Last year had a very weak start. This year in January alone, you had Pink Siifu, you had African-American Sound Recordings, you had Billy Woods announcing an album. Then like, like you said, 20 years ago, the only two remakes that I remember from ‘05 was the original modern “Fantastic Four” and “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.” Those were the two that I remember, everything else seemed original.
Jackson: Yeah, for sure.
[Jackson Burns]. (2025, July 2). Liking Things Sucks Now [Video].
Nick: I think an example of how toxic this discourse can get was the music Twitter discourse surrounding a video that a good friend of yours and someone I interviewed a year ago, put out, “Post-Rap: Hip Hop’s Most Distorted New Movement” by A Bucket of Jake. It was hilarious how that lined up. How do you think the points you made in your video run parallel to that from the knowledge you've gathered on the discourse? I know that you weren't on Twitter but it was pretty ugly.
Jackson: Yeah I never saw the Twitter side of it. It's really interesting, the timeline here. So obviously I have a podcast with LukeOnDemand and A Bucket of Jake, The Good Enough Podcast. It is gonna end in like one episode, stay tuned.
Nick: So they say…
Jackson: It really will end, I promise. The timeline was whenever we have a video that's pretty much done, we'll send it to each other and just get notes and get reactions. Jake sends us the Post-Rap video, we both give it the thumb of approval. I like the video a lot and I stand by that. I think that Jake is at his best when he's talking about music that he loves and it's all about how passionate he is about it and when he is talking about things that are cool. I guess this goes for all three of us. I think that's when we're at our best. The video comes out, and again, I'm off Twitter, so I didn't see anything on Twitter, but I happened to just check on how it was doing and I opened the comments and obviously he was getting slammed. I guess Twitter goes fucking crazy and then I texted him and I was like, “oh man, the comments on this new one are brutal.” He goes, “yeah dude, I turned off notifications. I just didn't wanna see it.” Then I was like, “by the way, I'm working on this new video. I've had the script done for a long time. You should read it.” It's basically a video that you've seen now, the “Liking Things Sucks Now” video. It was the script for that video and I was like, “you should check this out 'cause I think that a lot of the issues that you're talking about are present here.” I think that it goes both ways. I think that we all know that to make YouTube videos and to be successful in this business, you have to be a little bit click baity, right? I'll never fault Jake for that. I'll never fault myself for that. It's just the unfortunate part of that, the idea of Post-Rap obviously though has become sort of a buzzword and I think that it sucks. I think that if you actually watch the video and hear what he's saying, it's basically him being like, “check out these five experimental albums that I like a lot.” The emphasis of the video was like we are in a really great era for experimental hip hop, which I think is all I think we can all agree is very much true and is an interesting topic. I just think that it was just the use of the word “Post-Rap,” even though he gave like seven qualifiers saying that it had nothing to do with genre and was just a word that he used himself. I hate that that happened to him. It was really difficult to watch. I know, you know, Jake has nothing but good intentions. He is a close friend of mine and…yeah.
Nick: Do you feel like there were a lot of gatekeepers who were coming at him about that? People who were very purist about the genre, kind of like what you talked about in film?
Jackson: Yeah, a hundred percent. You know this too 'cause you're in the spaces, but people in music are so gatekeeper about genres. Like you cannot call an album a genre without someone clashing against you and be like, “no no no it's not this! That's fifth wave emo, that's fourth wave emo” and whatever. There's this whole world of stuff and so I think it sucks when a majority of the comments are like, “Post-Rap is such bullshit. This isn't a real genre. You're making shit up.” That's one of the first things that he says though, you know what I mean? It's people reacting, not actually engaging. Again, this is something I talk about in my video, I guess briefly, but they're not actually engaging with the content. It's a pissing competition, right? It's a pissing competition of like, “oh, I know more than you. Post-Rap isn't a genre because this person said this about this.” It's all just noise, you know what I mean? Why can't we just sit down and talk about how great “I Lay Down My Life for You” was? Why can't we sit down and talk about how great “Revelator” is? These are great beautiful Experimental Hip Hop records that I think anyone would benefit from listening to.
Nick: For those people, please do appreciate that stuff when it's coming out because this is what it was like to be like a fan of Boris 20 years ago. They literally transformed Metal in around five years and I think that's happening right now with Hip Hop.
Jackson: I agree completely. I talk about this sometimes with Luke and Jake, but I think that we saw this happen a few years ago with the Windmill Scene. Being early to that was such an interesting feeling. I'm not gonna say that it's over, but now that it's kind of run its course and we've seen the main players emerge from the ashes, it's really cool to be able to say that I was there for that. I was there to appreciate when “Schlagenheim” first came out, when these early Black Country, New Road/Black Midi duo live shows were happening.
[A Bucket of Jake]. (2025, May 31). Post-Rap. Hip Hop’s Most Distorted New Movement [Video].
Nick: Another parallel I drew from the points you made was, as someone who in the past used to consume a lot of political content and still do to a smaller extent, could be applicable to online politics. With that, did you ever think about that video you did on Jake Novak, when writing the script for “Liking Things Suck Now?”
Jackson: No, I didn't. That was a weird video. I totally forgot that I even did that…Damn. No, I didn't think about that. That's interesting. I haven't come back and re-watched that in a long time and I wonder how many of my points would stand up to how I think about things today. I remember saying in that video that he didn't deserve to be dog piled, I'm pretty sure I said something like that, but then I also did dog pile him, so I guess it couldn't be that accurate. Yeah I remember spending most of that video comparing him to Bo Burnham and why one was successful and one wasn't. That is interesting though. I guess to further your point, I hadn't even really thought about my video in a political sense either, but you're totally right. You look at all the big, I guess, political commentators nowadays, at least the online ones, and so much of that community is taken up with bullshit drama and fighting and not actually worrying about issues and real life problems that are happening. I don't know all the drama but I know that anytime I get like a headline where it's like “this creator did this” I'm like, “yeah, but there’s a genocide.” You know what I mean? There are bigger fish to fry.
[Jackson Burns]. (2022, July 22). WHY YOU HATE JAKE NOVAK: A Guide To Politics In Music [Video].
Nick: It’s time to switch over to “Make Sense” (2025).
Jackson: Yes!
Nick: Now of course something that will be made very apparent throughout this interview is that you’re what they’d call an emerging filmmaker and recently you have put out your Chapman Senior Thesis, “Make Sense.” Now an interesting aspect regarding this film is that we had a brief conversation when you were still putting it together, not regarding its story or visual production but a certain duo whom I was planning on interviewing whose music would become the film's soundtrack. So…when did you first discover Yellow Swans Jackson?
Jackson: Oh man, I'm so excited to talk about this. I can't remember around what time. I could probably look back at my Album of The Year logs and figure out when I first heard them, but I know that I was recommended them by someone when I went through a Drone era where I was really wanted to just be listening to more like droney long kind of like build music, I guess you can call it. Someone recommended “Drowner Yellow Swans” to me and so I checked it out and it's…I mean…you know, it's one of those listens that just changes the way you view what music can sound like.
Nick: I'll add to that. When I first heard that album, I was like, “it is a crime that these guys were not hired to do a soundtrack for some horror film.”
Jackson: Yeah, absolutely. It feels timeless. If you didn't have the stats in front of you, you would have no idea if it came out yesterday or in the 1800s on a broken record player. So “Drowner Yellow Swans” is my introduction to them. I've since listened to a good chunk of their discography, mostly skimming through stuff, just looking for samples. Anyways, fast forward to 2025, I'm a cinematography student, that's what I wanna do, I wanna be a cinematographer. My directing partner had written this script for a movie called “Make Sense.” It's not out yet 'cause we gotta do festival runs and all that but in essence, it's a short 15 minute movie about a chef who loses each of his five senses over the course of five days. So it starts with taste and then sound and smell and vision. The big question was how do you show losing a sense? Like what do you do and what do you hear when you lose a sense? So we created these chapter breaks throughout where the movie will dissolve into these eight millimeter sections that we shot. So we basically took a bunch of grain plates with some eight millimeter cameras and superimposed it over each other. I made a playlist of different noise musicians and I said, “I think that this list right here is, in my opinion, what it would sound like to lose a sense.” Yellow Swans ended up being everyone's favorite pick. So we reached out and they were responsive and yeah, the rest is history. I'm really excited to put it out. To be honest, it's very rare that I'm proud of something that I work on but I think “Makes Sense” is my proudest accomplishment. I'm really happy with how it turned out.
Nick: I saw a clip of “Make Sense” that you put out somewhere. I was so happy to hear “Reintegration” because when I first heard that when I was researching for the interview, I was like “he has to use this. This is perfect.”
Jackson: There were a few songs–I won't spoil which ones, but we used a few different songs. I'm not gonna say that I was the music supervisor on the movie 'cause that doesn't make any sense, but I was kind of like the Yellow Swans historian. We initially had wanted them to create original music for it. Then we just fell in love with their backlog and they gave us full access to their backlog. Thank you to Yellow Swans for that, seriously. Pete and Gabe are immeasurably kind people. I also got a chance to see them live before we scored it and it was just unreal. The room felt like it was moving.
Nick: I was thinking about this earlier, I feel like that period of time in the 2000s was a golden age for Drone and Ambient music. A lot of people reference the 80s, like Brian Eno, but you had people like Tim Hecker, Yellow Swans, James Ferraro, Boris, like we just mentioned, all coming together at the same exact time and for some reason no one used that for films.
Jackson: I know. I'm glad we were able to smash that up. Again, thanking Yellow Swans like seriously made me so happy that they were able and willing to work with us. In my eyes, they're celebrities, they're heroes of mine. I did a short project on 'em for school and I think I wrote somewhere that there is no reason for them to be making the music that they are outside of just artistic gratification. You know what I mean? Like there's no monetary or like popularity incentive to be making that kind of music. It's just pure love of the game which is the best.
Nick: That definitely showed in my interview with them.
Jackson: There's a great clip somewhere of them performing in Portland, like a small outdoor theater. Do you know what I'm talking about where Gabe does the speech about voting and the current presidential race? It's pretty great.
Nick: So we were gonna talk about that in the interview, but it was already like two hours. They weren't really that proud of that performance. I think Gabe said he was really nervous
Jackson: I found they're very harsh critics. They said the same thing after the show that I went to. They were like, “that wasn't a good show” and I was like, “are you fucking kidding me? I just had a moment, like a life altering experience here.”
Nick: You can't even replicate what those guys did. Come on now.
Jackson: Yeah, exactly.
Nick: Which show did you go to?
Jackson: It was in LA. It was for the reunion tour recently. It was like in a room behind a bar. It was very odd. They had two openers, it might've been two different noise duos. I remember one of 'em had a crazy name, it was like Flaccid something, I don't know. It was a great show though.
Nick: Nice! To your knowledge, are you the first guy to use fair music in a film?
Jackson: I think so. It's interesting 'cause I actually got the idea and again, I was just the DP on this project. Like I shot it and I lit it but the directing partner I work with is very collaborative. So I had the idea, again, to put together a playlist of Noise musicians specifically because I think Luke had stumbled upon a DIY sign on the street and it was a promo for a movie that Aaron Dilloway scored. I don't know if you're familiar with him. He's pretty awesome.
Nick: Jake wanted me to check him out a year ago when I interviewed him. I have not.
Jackson: You should. It's pretty great actually. It's funny, I just bought a record the other day of his. I just happened to stumble upon an old used one I'd never heard of at a Restore. But anyways, he's a Noise musician and I was like “oh my God. I never thought of noise being applicable for a scoring.” Then when I read the script, I was like, “it has to be Noise.” So as far as I know, I guess our film is the first film to have been scored by Yellow Swans. I hope it's not the last 'cause they're very good.
Nick: Filmmakers need to tap into the 2000s Drone scene.
Jackson: They do. A hundred percent.
Nick: Get Tim Hecker on an A24 film and world peace will be made.
Jackson: We might achieve something.
Film still from "Make Sense" (2025).
Photo Courtesy of jacksonburns.co
Film still from "Make Sense" (2025).
Photo Courtesy of jacksonburns.co
Nick: I gotta know what you think their best album is…and is it “Drowner?”
Jackson: It could be “Drowner.” It really could be “Drowner.” You know, everyone talks about…oh my god…what is it called? The most popular one. The one that has–why am I blanking out!?
Nick: “Going Places?”
Jackson: Yes! Everyone talks about “Going Places” and I think “Going Places” is crazy. I think that the B sides of “Going Places” is actually better. I can't remember what that one's called either!
Nick: “Being There!”
Jackson: Yes, “Being There.” I do prefer “Being There,” but looking at their whole discography, again, I haven't heard the whole thing, but from what I have heard, I'm a “Drowner” guy at heart. “Sandwall” is too good.
Yellow Swans - "Going Places" (2010) album cover
Image Courtesy of Bandcamp
Drowner Yellow Swans - "Drowner Yellow Swans" (2007) album cover
Image Courtesy of Rate Your Music
Yellow Swans - "Being There" (2010) compilation cover
Image Courtesy of Bandcamp
Nick: Definitely definitely and probably one of the best Noise albums of all time. Another recent development of yours is that you launched a creative agency. As someone who has done camera work for people in the past, what major roadblocks in contacting potential clients led to you wanting to organize and launch Capital P?
Jackson: Yeah, Capital P is something that I co-founded with, again, the director and writer of “Makes Sense” whose name is also Jackson funny enough. We made it as basically a launching platform for me and a lot of my friends. I think that me and all my friends are very talented, especially the people that I went to school with. So, you know, it's difficult when you're trying to reach out to people and get stuff made. It sounds weird to be like, “hey, my name's Jackson Burns and I wanna shoot your video.” You know what I mean? It's a little cringey. This is not an original idea by any means, but we had the idea to make a coalition of people. That way we can pool all of our work together and reach out to people en masse as one group. So yeah, me and my buddy just put together a group of people that we think are very talented and I co-signed them and started reaching out to some people. I can't say anything about what we have coming up, but we have some really great artists we've been talking to and some exciting stuff in the works for sure.
Nick: I'm very excited to see it. So looking at the Capital P team, most of it is LA-based. However, I noticed that you have a few people like Luke Stone and Jake Joseph, they're on the East Coast, as well as this girl named Natasha, who was based in Singapore of all places which is very interesting. Where do you know some of these people from and what important roles do they play at Capital P?
Jackson: Yeah, so obviously Jake and Luke met through the podcast, you know…that Reddit “Veteran” post from ages ago that we all met each other on. All of our people who are from New York–my directing partner knows a lot of his friends who went to school there, so he has connections there. Then everyone in LA are people that I just met through school. A lot of the people actually worked on “Makes Sense.” All of our sound people worked on “Make Sense.” So yeah, it's mostly just people that we went to school with, people that we wanna work with because that really was what it was about. It was just trying to get work with our friends. That's the dream.
Nick: I feel like you're making the dream happen already.
Jackson: I hope so. I've been very fortunate so far. Hopefully more down the line.
Nick: What goals are you wanting to set for Capital P? You don't have to actually reveal any specifics, just like goals in general.
Jackson: Well, again, the main goal is just to be able to work with our friends and get work together as a team as opposed to, you know, having to nitpick jobs here and there. I think, more than anything, if you are receiving an email from us, it means that we are actually interested in you. This isn't bullshit. If you're getting an email from me or from Beebe, it's because we heard your music and we really enjoy it. All we are interested in is being a tool basically. Whether that looks like you telling us what you want your video to look like and then us shooting it or it's a more collaborative experience is up to you. We're interested in making cool content, cool videos, cool art with other artists that we respect and with the people that we like to work with. That's the dream. There are some companies and some agencies that are, you know, the bigger ones that aren’t like that. I was talking to someone recently who was working at a company and they said that they send thousands of emails every day through AI and different programming and that sucks. I would hate to know that information after getting reached out to.
Nick: Oh that's soulless.
Jackson: Yeah, it is soulless. Me and my directing partner personally write up each email and we try to include information that would let you know that we are actually fans of your music and that we listen and that we care about what you're putting out.
Nick: It has to be a great feeling to confirm with a client that you've been wanting to work with for a while and you now give them the visual power to tell their story.
Jackson: Yeah and again I can't say any names but there are some people we've been talking to that I'm very very very excited for
Nick: Please be Billy Woods.
Jackson: I wish. Mister Woods please. I would be honored to shoot a video for you!
Nick: You can trust Jackson. He's good.
Jackson: Yes thank you. See I got the live cosign. That's the thing though. I met Woods after his show in LA very briefly and I got to ask him about the “Doves” video and it sucks 'cause I have nothing to offer them, they're covered. You know what I mean? Like the “Doves” video is one of the best of the decade. Even the “World Is a Dog” video was great. The “SpongeBob” video is great. They know their shit, so it's hard to even have something to offer.
[Capital P Productions]. (2025). CAPITAL P REEL [Video].
Nick: It's time to reel it back to the early days of Mr. Burns. If it's not clear enough, you grew up in what is probably the art capital of the United States if not the entire world. There is no other placement world that’s quite like Los Angeles. I guess for whoever isn't aware, you are the son of Regan Burns who acted in shows from Disney Channel to HBO and was recently in the final season of Danny McBride’s “Righteous Gemstones” which jumpscared me for obvious reasons.
Jackson: I got so many texts man. I knew it was coming, but I got so many texts being like, “is that? What's going on here?” and I was like “I don't know what to tell you.”
Nick: He's Big Dick Mitch!
Jackson: (laughs) Yeah, my dad does play a character on “Righteous Gemstones” called Big Dick Mitch.
Nick: I was cracking up when I saw that. I was like, “bro no way. He's a sex slave? What's going on?”
Jackson: Yeah, I know. I remember when he was shooting it and he was telling us about it and I was like “well…that's over…Let's just let this be done.” I'm glad that you thought it was funny though.
Nick: What was it like growing up in a family like that that was already in the industry when you were growing up?
Jackson: It was great. I can sit here and talk about awkward fan encounters and things like that, but I'm very self-aware about this stuff. I lived a very privileged life. My dad was blessed as an actor to have three great years of a standing show on Disney Channel which is more than most actors can say. So yeah, it was great. I had a great time being on set. Him being an actor on an original show for a few years didn't necessarily translate to anything helping me career-wise, but that's okay. I learned a lot from watching him work. I've seen him perform live a few times now. It was a really interesting way of growing up. It's weird 'cause I don't actually know what it's like to not have a parent be a somewhat known person in society. I'm just kind of used to it. That's just what reality is, you know?
Nick: I remember there would be moments in GEP where both Luke and Jake were like “that's normal to you dude? We grew up in the middle of nowhere!”
Jackson: Literally in LA just a few days ago–my birthday's coming up and we were celebrating early 'cause my sister's going back home for college. We were doing an escape room and the guy was like “I loved you and ‘Righteous Gemstones.” I was like, “oh yeah, he recognizes ‘Righteous Gems.” That's what happens. It wasn't anything special.
Nick: Dude…I would lose my shit if someone told me, “did you interview Have a Nice Life?”
Jackson: I don't know if you saw that episode of the podcast, but that happened to me. I've only been recognized two times in public and both times were at a Black Midi show by different people. It hasn't happened since and it may never happen again but it made me very happy.
Nick: Shout out to Gumball crashing the show.
Jackson: Oh, yeah. Shout out to–oh my God, that guy. It was an earlier Black Midi show. Thankfully it wasn't that one. That was a rough moment.
Nick: I won't lie. I know you said it didn't have much influence on your success, but I wouldn't be surprised if he passed down knowledge to you. I bet there's been times where your dad was like “yo, don't work with those people. They suck” or like “work with that guy. He’s cool.” I feel like that's something that parents would pass down to their kid, a lot of industry knowledge.
Jackson: A lot of it's just validating. Like, I'll come home from having a shitty day at work sometimes and I'll explain what happened and he goes “yeah that's how it is” and I go “all right, that's just how it is,” and I move on. No, you are right, I mean, like, he’s not making phone calls that are like, “my son's gonna shoot the next big movie!” I guess the influence is, more so, small scale. Just being on set when I was very young and being able to see how a thing is made
Nick: That’s weird that you were on set on some of the shows that I grew up watching back in the day. You’ve mentioned on GEP that growing up, you were friends or at least hung out with a lot of child actors at the time like Genevieve Hannelius from the show your dad was on, “Dog with a Blog” or Skai Jackson. Are you still in touch with a lot of these people or was that a temporary thing?
Jackson: It was temporary. I mean, I've seen a few of them since. Genevieve, I think she goes by “G” to most people. She did a play in New York and my sister went to go see it. She got to see her after the show. We were friendly for a long time. I won't say that we were like, you know, extremely close, but we were on set enough and we were the only other kids who were there. None of the other older cast members had children except for, I think, the voice of the dog had a newborn at the time. We were just around often then, so it was just something to do. There were kids on set, they had to go to school, and so when they weren't in the onset school. It was just, “well…what else is there to do?” I made a lot of great memories with them. Again, I don't really keep in touch with them, but I have nothing but good things to say about all of them. They were all, and I'm sure they continue to be talented and grounded people.
Nick: What's also interesting is that a lot of those guys, who are now our age, were actors as kids at the time. I remember there was a Matan Even interview, you know…the Bill Clinton kid, where he interviewed an ex Nickelodeon actor. The guy just works at a minimum wage job in LA and he used to star in a relatively well-known Nickelodeon show. He's our age.
Jackson: Yeah, it's interesting how these things pan out. The industry is such a weird place and especially now, it's such a crazy time that people are all over the place. It's interesting to see where life takes them.
Nick: I feel like it's a very unpredictable trajectory sometimes.
Jackson: Oh yeah, a hundred percent.
Nick: Absolutely because when we were figuring out the scheduling for this interview, you told me like, “dude, I could get a gig like the next day and I have to take it.”
Jackson: Yeah, especially right now, I'm in the stage where I'm paying my dues, so if work comes up, I kind of have to take it. I won't say I have to, but I should take it.
Nick: How come you weren’t acting at that age? Was that from your own agency or a decision from your parents?
Jackson: It was a mix of both my parents’ agency and my own. I just wasn’t interested and even if I was they would have never let me because that’s just not something they wanted me to be doing that young. My parents have always been good at shielding me from certain things and I think that they wanted to give me time to be a kid. If I wanted to act I had plenty of time to do it later and I didn’t even want to anyways so it just wasn’t that big of a deal
Nick: When did you yourself become interested in being a filmmaker? Was that always something that you were interested in, even at a very young age, simply due to the environment you were in?
Jackson: It was always something that I was interested in to a degree. It's definitely amped up as I get older. When I was really little, I was always interested in cameras. Like I remember many times asking for one for my birthday and taking videos on a stupid little camcorder stuff that I would shoot with my sister and all that. I don't think I took filmmaking seriously until my senior year of high school. I think that's the year when I realized that this is what I wanted to do and I continue to take it really seriously. Senior year is when my dad showed me, “Do the Right Thing,” which is sitting behind me right now. I think that that movie especially changed my perception on what a movie could be. I think before that it was always just like aligned entertainment and obviously that's not what movies are and that's not what they are for me anymore. That movie was a really eye-opening experience for me. I just got really into it from there. I actually wanted to be an editor for a long time and then I ended up switching gears after my first year of college.
Nick: What were the first projects you worked on as a filmmaker?
Jackson: I actually stumbled upon them recently. Oh man, I made the worst movie you've ever seen in your whole life. So the way the film program at my high school worked, I went to a public high school. Actually the film program has since been dissolved which made me super upset to hear about. It was Film 1 and Film 2. So you take Film 1 just your freshman year, you take Film 2 your sophomore year, then you take Film 2 two more years in a row. I came up with a lot of final projects, but only two of them got saved. They were horrible. There was one that I did called “Tales from the Lyft.” It was like, “what if a Lyft driver was a vampire?” What am I doing? I did one during COVID that had to be shot on my phone 'cause they weren't getting us any of the gear that we had at school 'cause, you know, COVID was happening. I did one about a breakup where I'm talking about my records, which I feel like actually kind of makes sense for where I am now. I don't know…I made a lot of bullshit. Even my early college stuff was horrible. Like I said, it's really rare for me to be proud of a project. I think I've only done like one or two things to this day that I could even watch while being comfortable with myself.
Nick: I'm not entirely proud of my first interviews. I prefer it that way to an extent.
Jackson: Yeah, I think there's times when you being critical diminishes your artistic perception. I think if you're watching your old stuff and it's unwatchable, that's good because it means that you've grown a lot as a person. It means that you've gotten a lot better. At least that's what I tell myself to make myself not feel like shit.
Nick: Yeah, it shows growth. In transition from that, how did you feel when you first received the acceptance letter for Dodge College of Film and Media Arts which is for those who don’t know, the same school that includes alumni like Parker Finn and the Duffer Brothers?
Jackson: Yeah true. I felt really good about myself. It's funny, I remember exactly where I was. I was playing “Call of Duty: Modern Warfare” in my living room. I got the email notification on my phone and I was on hot mic with my high school friends as I like opened it which is a great memory. I'm very grateful to have gone there. It's such a great school I recommend to anyone. I have a lot of issues with it as well as any person with any institution would have but I feel so grateful to have gone there. I've met lifelong friends, so many of the professors that I love, I met there. I think that's the emotion that I was feeling just grateful to have the chance and been able to do that.
Nick: With that, you don't have to name any names, but what specific issues did you run into when you were a film student at Dodge College?
Jackson: Oh yeah, I mean, I can go on for hours about that. I'll start here. If you're reading this at home, go to the Dodge College Instagram account and you'll see a post from the last week or so. I don't know when this is going up but you'll see a recent post announcing that we have yet again made it to the number four spot on the Hollywood Reporter's top 10 list of film schools. I want you to really take a look at that picture and I want you to really think if that is what our building looks like, something's very wrong. What I'm getting at is that they're using AI generated images of our own film school and their promotion for the school which is pretty horrible. (Note: This post has been taken down.) They've actually done a lot of pro-AI stuff last year that I was pretty against, on top of the fact that they have issues with people shooting on film. You're not allowed to shoot a film when you're at Dodge which I think is absolutely ridiculous at a film school. I had to fight really hard to get to shoot parts of our movie on eight millimeter film. As someone who works as a camera assistant, I feel incredibly uneducated on how to use that stuff. I don't know how to load, I don't know how to expose for film and anything that I know about film has been learned outside of school from other people who went to other film schools in the area. So yeah, pretty not awesome on that front, but again, these are complaints from someone who had a really great four years there regardless. These are complaints and I think they're worth investigating for sure. I still think it's a great film school. I have my own personal qualms with other film schools too. I think that USC is mostly bullshit. I hate the fact that none of the students there own their own projects. There are also a million great options. Saddleback Community College is very close to where I go to school and they have a phenomenal film program. Many of the people that I work with to this day graduated from Saddleback and are incredibly competent, if not more so than people I went to Dodge with. We live in a time when you can really learn anything. I think film school was incredibly helpful to me as a filmmaker but it's not for everyone. You can learn these things on your own as well.
Nick: Shoutout to one of the most horrifying articles ever written.
Jackson: Oh that was such a bad day for me. My Dean wrote a–I'm not even gonna call it an obituary–it was basically a slam letter after David Lynch died, basically spanning his entire career of work. It went semi viral because it was just the worst written thing you've ever seen in your life. So thank you for that one Steven Galloway.
Nick: Didn’t you flaunt a film camera when you walked on graduation?
Jackson: Yeah I did walk across the stage with a film camera, not as like a statement or anything, I just wanted to take pictures. My dean actually wanted to take a picture of me. I came up to him and shook his hand and he was like, “do you want me to take a picture of you?” I didn’t say anything actually, I laughed, and then I shook his hand and I left (laughs) because I didn’t have anything to say.
Photo of the Dodge College of Film and Media Arts
Photo Courtesy of filmschool.org
Nick: Around the time you got into Dodge in 2020, you started your YouTube channel. I’ve heard you mention that you’re embarrassed by a lot of your content which I relate to. I don’t entirely like some of my earliest articles. However, I’m curious as to how you specifically view your first few years on YouTube and if there are any specific videos you can point to as examples to that opinion?
Jackson: I look back and I think about how naive I was. I mentioned this in my most recent video where I talk about what a weird experience it is to be a person who's into music and art online but it was weird and confusing. I think that looking back, I just realized how naive I was. I didn't have that much of a knowledge of music compared to some people compared to myself now. I think that, again, I was just a kid who was stuck in lockdown and found a lot of cool things online and wanted to talk about them and find a community. I'm glad that I did. I think it took a longer time than I was expecting. It took a lot of sifting through bullshit and people who don't actually care about this kind of stuff. I've met a lot of cool people through doing the channel. As far as specific videos, I mean, the “Bread EP” one, that's the worst thing I've ever done in my whole life. It doesn't get worse than that. There was a while where I was considering taking it down but I think I have to leave it up at this point just as a point of reference of who I was as a person, you know what I mean? Also I've referenced it so many times in the podcast that I feel like it would be a piece of lost media. It’s horrible though…it's a really horrible video. The hardest to watch intro ever. There's some stuff that I was proud of from the early days. I think the MF DOOM video holds up. I think there's just a lot of stuff, I think I was just naive.
Nick: Speaking of “Bread,” when I was at the film festival at my college, covering it for Niner Times, someone did a music video for “E Coli” and I got so happy.
Jackson: Really?!
Nick: You know what sucked was when I interviewed people afterwards, that was the one guy who wasn't there.
Jackson: That would've been so cool.
Nick: Unfortunately, it didn't win anything. Seemingly, no one knew what that song was. They didn't know the significance of that video.
Jackon: This is what I'm getting at in my recent video which is that people who go to a film festival have no idea what the “Bread EP” is–
Nick: –but you say it online and suddenly it's mainstream.
Jackson: And you're right, it is mainstream, but we often forget the strange echo chambers we tumbled down to find these things. Although I guess you are right. I didn't see where it was mainstream, but I was stupid for saying that stuff.
[Jackson Burns]. (2020, June 18). Bread: My Favorite Album You've Never Heard Of [Video].
[Jackson Burns]. (2020, May 2). VILLAINY - The MF DOOM Story [Video].
Nick: Not long after these first few years of content, you made a video that I think was the first high-production project on your channel. So…how did you discover Phil Elverum and what impression did his music leave on you?
Jackson: I remember–I could pull up the date if I wanted to, but it would take too long. I don't remember exactly when I found “The Glow Pt. 2” which is the first thing that I ever listened to from Phil and his wide catalog. I remember sitting on my bed and listening to it in-full by myself and it was a really great first listen. It didn't hit immediately how important it would be to me. That was very much a later thing. Obviously like everyone online knows, it's the greatest breakup album ever made…period. The first listen wasn't an incredible moment where all the pieces came into play and it was like, “oh my God! This is crazy!” It was more so I just listened to it and I went “this is incredible” and bookmarked it and saved the stuff that I liked and moved on with my life. Then eventually I went through something similar. I revisited it and it hit on levels that I didn't think were possible and months later, The Microphones video was finished and ready to upload.
Nick: You know, I had a very similar experience with “Some Rap Songs.” When I listened to it in high school, I thought it was just a chill album. I didn't really pay much attention to what he was saying. I wasn't really that tapped into rap music at the time and this was my first “abstract” rap album. I didn't know about other people like Billy Woods. I think I found out about MIKE around that time. During the Pandemic, I had a very bad falling out with someone. Then when I revisited “Some Rap Songs,” it immediately clicked and I was like, “okay…I need to stay away from this album now. It’s too depressing!”
Jackson: Yeah, I think it's interesting too where sometimes you go through an event and you realize that a specific album is the perfect thing that you need to fill the hole that you're experiencing. Obviously with me, it was “The Glow Pt. 2.” I went through a breakup and I realized that I needed that record more than anything, but sometimes I'll hear something and I'll go like, “I'm not ready for this yet.” That's what the new Bon Iver record was like for me. I don't know if you heard me talk about it in the podcast but basically I was saying that I wasn't in the right mental state for this record specifically. I did bookmark it. I was like “at a later time, this might be important for me, so I'll save this for later.”
[Jackson Burns]. (2022, February 9). Why You Should Listen To The Microphones [Video].
Nick: So at the time of this interview, there's been an announcement that Phil Elverum will be releasing an album with longtime collaborator and multi-talented maniac At the time of this interview there’s been an announcement that Phil Eleverum will be releasing an album with longtime collaborator and multitalented maniac, Arrington de Dionyso. In relation to what you covered about the guy’s music in your video, how do you think this album will contribute to the Elverum universe?
Jackson: I think that the best part of being a fan of him and his music is that I never know what to expect. To be honest, I have no idea who this new guy is, the person he's collaborating with, although I remember hearing a little bit of a snippet and it sounded pretty intense. My favorite music from Phil kind of interchanges between “The Glow Pt.2” and “Microphones in 2020.” I love “Microphones in 2020” and it's greatly attributed to my worldview. Sure enough, he makes a new record last year, “Night Palace,” and he contradicts “Microphones 2020” constantly. His whole thing on that is like “I don't think I was actually right about any of the stuff I said on that record.” It's like, “what are you talking about?” but I love that about him. I love the fact that he's a growing and changing person constantly and I think that's what makes his music so human. There are some albums that he’ll put out in the early Microphones days that sound more similar to the stuff he's making now than like the thing that came after it. You know what I mean? All of the music is non-linear and it's purely just based off of what he is most interested in and thinking about at the time. I think that that's what makes his discography so rewarding to listen through, is that you kind of get to take this ideological journey with him, through the changes in his life and his views and I guess most importantly, his sound. So my best hope for this is that it sounds completely different from what I'm expecting.
Phil Elverum & Arrington de Dionyso - "GIANT OPENING MOUTH ON THE GROUND" (2025) album cover
Image Courtesy of Bandcamp
Mount Eerie - "Night Palace" (2024) album cover
Image Courtesy of Bandcamp
the Microphones - "Microphones in 2020" (2020) album cover
Image Courtesy of Bandcamp
Nick: With that, are there any future projects or gigs that you have down the road that you're willing to share?
Jackson: Most of the stuff that I have lined up right now is just crew stuff. I do a lot of camera operating. A lot of pulling focus and things like that. Like I said, there's a few artists that we're talking to right now, nothing that I can share publicly, unfortunately, just in case stuff falls through. I'm really excited for what the future holds though. There's a lot that I want to do and there's a lot of people that I’d like to work with and I hope I get the chance one day. I guess we'll see what comes of it.
Nick: I want to thank you for doing this epic interview. I heavily fuck with what you're doing and how you're doing it. Are there any hard lines you'd like to leave us on?
Jackson: Oh man…I don't know. I hadn't even thought of that. I'll just echo what I ended my last video with, which is that I think the best thing that we can be doing right now, outside of just staying active politically in some way, is just to experience art with open minds, challenge ourselves and things like that. That's my thing right now and I hope, like Phil, that changes and evolves.