Today we’d like to introduce you to J.I. Mardones
Hi J.I., can you start by introducing yourself? We’d love to learn more about how you got to where you are today?
Hello there!
This is J.I. Mardones and I am a Chilean/Texan filmmaker.
I was born in Austin TX (USA) in December 1987 and at the age of 4, I moved with my family to Santiago de Chile, where I lived for 30 years.
At the age of 9, I saw Star Wars (the 1997 Special Edition) for the first time in my life, and it was through that saga that I discovered my passion for filmmaking and storytelling.
In 2008, at the age of 20, I started attending the Film and TV program at the University of Chile. In parallel, I began to develop my interest in music, by shooting live concerts with my first camcorder, taking electric guitar classes, and learning to use a music production software in a self-taught way.
After graduating from film school in 2015, I had different jobs and projects related to brand activations (BTL), commercials, and corporate videos, where I could develop my professional skills as a camera operator, location sound recordist and video editor.
In 2021, during Covid pandemic, I started J.I.Mardones Films, my life project where I create cinematic short films and, one year later, at the age of 34, I finally could return to Austin TX, my hometown, looking to start a new life and consolidate my career as a filmmaker.
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
My path as a filmmaker has definitely not been easy.
Before entering film school, I had to face a lot of prejudices around my career, especially considering that I decided to study a “non-traditional” career. Many people still think that filmmaking or any other artistic career are just hobbies, but from my point of view this is a job like any other, like being an engineer, a doctor or an lawyer. Fortunately, no one in the USA has told me “get a real job!” (yet) but in Chile I remember I heard that phrase a lot of times.
Once I was finally able to fulfill my dream of entering film school, of course, I began to face the typical struggles related to my career.
People often think that filmmaking is a career with great advantages because you use to work with different groups of people practically all the time. However, sometimes it is not as nice as it seems. I can tell you about the few times when I did not receive any recognition, any mention, for my contribution in a project, or when other people tried to sabotage or steal my work or excluding me from important decisions. And that is how I began to learn the importance of having my own personal projects, parallel to the other projects I use to work on all the time. I know it may sounds like being individualistic, but I think you understand my point.
Chile is an excellent country to make films, series and commercials, due to the wide variety of landscapes and its particular political history, but at the same time it is a very hostile place to live and work as a filmmaker yet. Like many recently graduated professionals, I started my career in a McJob, earning a starvation wage, and in the following years things improved just a bit. Yes! I could get a new job in an engineering company with contract, benefits, vacations, a higher salary, but at the same time I was in a work environment where I could not meet and interact with other creatives. Besides, in Chile there are a lot of well-established niches, but they are too limited, so at some point you naturally will feel that you are not growing as a professional in that certain area, so it was in those years when I started to think seriously about the idea of moving to another country where there were more opportunities and respect for filmmakers.
If you ask me about how are things going in Austin… well, I moved from a very populated city (9 million inhabitants) to a growing city (1 million inhabitants, or maybe a little more also considering the surrounding areas), however, I would dare to say that I have noticed that the size of the local film industry is very similar to Chile’s. Besides, Austin is the kind of city that feels like living in a small town, but it has all the same characteristics of any big city in the world (tall buildings, highways, shopping centers, chaotic traffic, social unequality, etc.) and also has a very interesting biodiversity. As a growing city, sometimes I feel that there are certain niches that are not fully established yet, as well as slow periods, so sometimes I feel that I have had to stick to certain types of rather traditional projects, such as event videography, live concerts or conferences.
Also, I moved here in the middle of an economic recession, caused by post-Covid inflation and the war in Ukraine, and then in 2023, I don’t know if it was just a feeling but at some point I felt that things were not going so well. And nowadays we have been seeing the news about how the Trump Administration II is looking to set tariffs to different countries, so we must see how that factor may affect our daily lives, in a near future. So as you can see, to learn to move in THIS Economy has been an additional challenge.
Another important aspect that has meant a great challenge for me has been to try to connect with different people and consolidate relationships and work teams in Austin. Since May 2022, when I still had just one month living in the city, I have been attending as many networking events as I can, in order to connect with other creatives: filmmakers, photographers, models, actors, musicians, visual artists, poets, dancers, etc. Austin may not be the most populated city of Texas and the USA, but it has a great creative community and, besides, we also must consider that we live in a “nomadland”, so we always are meeting new people and you see others coming and leaving constantly, like in many parts of this country.
Oh! And I also have to mention how intense and how many emotional states I faced during March 2025, and specially, how hard hit me the theft of my backpack at the end of the month. Fortunately, my Macbook and the backpack were recovered by the police as soon as I expected, 2 days after the incident, but sadly the battery charger and my two hard disk drives (with many of the 2025 projects I was working on) are definitely lost. So as you can imagine, right now I am trying to rise again, continue forward and re-think my next plans as a filmmaker for the rest of the year.
Great, so let’s talk business. Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
J.I.Mardones Films is my life project, my safe place where I can tell audiovisual stories away from the dogmatic vision of the film school and the stricts alignments of the film and video industry.
Cinematic short films are my specialty… and I do the whole job, from planning to post-production. I use to work by my own, but I can get very nice results even with very few resources. Depending on the project needs, I may need a second camera operator or a location sound recordist sometimes, but to be honest, I prefer to keep J.I.Mardones Films small. I am not dreaming with becoming a big studio in the future or something like that.
I could talk to you about the many short films I have made during the 4 years of existence of J.I.Mardones Films, or about my evolution as a camera operator and video editor, however, CONNECTING WITH MY INNER ARTIST, just recently, is the aspect I am proud the most. It happened in March 2025, one day, while facing a hard moment. That time I felt like I could not continuew with the plan, so instead I decided to start to edit the video I shot about the Museum Of The Future at SXSW, which actually was not on the top of my to-do list, but it is a video in where I chose a background music that had something I cannot explain in a rational way, but helped me to feel better. It really was one of those projects that came from the heart.
And of course, I offer my services to different types of clients. I have a vast professional experience working in commercials, brand activations, corporate videos, and since I moved to Austin I have been making a lot of fashion films, event recaps, BTS featurettes, live concerts, a few dance videos and social media contents.
And when I am not working on the J.I.Mardones Films projects, I use to work as a 2nd camera operator in other film crews or I am supporting local collectives. So as you can see, I an very versatile and I am capable to adapt to different work environments.
Are there any important lessons you’ve learned that you can share with us?
During the last few years I feel that I have changed my mind in so many things about life.
I have learned that filmmaking is 50% doing your job as a creative and 50% to promote yourself in a creative way. It has been an interesting process to learn to loose the fear of appearing in front of the camera, talking and even doing silly faces. I used to be one of these filmmakers that use to have just an image of their camera in their profile picture for all social media, but at the end of the day we all are human beings, so people deserve to know who is the guy behind of so amazing work.
So since 2023 I have been putting more effort in getting more BTS photos and videos where you can see me doing my “thing” with the camera and the editing software, because nowadays it seems it has became more interesting to see the creative process instead of just the final product. In addition, I have been learning to pose in front of the camera and choosing the right outfits, as if I was an actor or a model and I tell you… just make the exercise of not holding your camera, when getting your next headshots. If you saw the Original Trilogy of Star Wars, Master Yoda and the evil Emperor Palpatine, both characters are so well-made at the point that you never see them using their own lightsabers, but you already understand how powerful they are. The whole idea is… after 10 years of professional career, I already feel self-confident enough of my skills as a camera operator and video editor, so I feel that I do not need to keep trying to prove anything anymore, so right now I can focus more on building my personal brand.
And I don’t know if it was because of the social isolation during the lockdowns, in Covid Era, but I remember that at some point I started to realize so much better about a lot of things about certain people I used to be friend or colleague with and, in consequence, it was a period where I decided to cut certain relationships in order to continue forward with more peace. So, from that point of view, moving to Austin also meant to re-build my network. Wait a minute… did I have a network in my first years as a gratuate professional? In Austin I learned the importance of connecting with people that respect, value, and makes me feel comfortable, but specially I learned the importance of connecting with people that are following similar goals and have similar beliefs, as well as learning to stay away from those that treat people like their useful fools!
Yes! I understand that dealing with different kinds of people all the time is part of being adults, but I tell you…. not because you worked once with an awful person or company, that means you must being tied to them forever, as if it were a life sentence. And I also have to mention… the recent theft of my backpack, in March 2025, confirmed me that the Austin community is very supportive in so many ways and it also made me realize, once again, that this is the place I can call “home”.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://jimardones.wixsite.com/films
- Instagram: https://instagram.com/jimardonesfilms
- LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/jimardones
- Twitter: https://x.com/jimardonesfilms
- Youtube: https://youtube.com/@jimardonesfilms
- Other: https://buymeacoffee.com/jimardones
Image Credits
All images are property of J.I.Mardones Films.
