Coaching FOR FILMMAKERS
Since 2017, I’ve empowered filmmakers to achieve purpose, balance, and fulfillment in their careers. Leveraging my industry experience, I offer personalized coaching designed to cultivate sustainable growth in both your professional and personal life.
Through my own highs and lows in the film industry, my experience founding a wellness community for filmmakers, and becoming certified in lifestyle and wellness coaching at Harvard Medical School, I’ve learned that true success arises from aligning your path with your personal values, goals, and life circumstances.
Coaching FOCUSED ON RESULTS
Over the past seven years, I’ve guided filmmakers at all career stages—from newcomers to industry veterans—through unique challenges such as pressure, burnout, lack of creative fulfillment, and the drive to innovate. My coaching is tailored to your specific needs, ensuring you not only identify obstacles but also develop actionable strategies to overcome them.
Whether you're looking to refine your creative vision, establish work-life harmony, or explore new horizons, my goal is to unlock your potential and support your growth in a way that leads to meaningful results.
Book Your Free Consultation
I offer a complimentary 30-minute consultation for filmmakers who are ready to elevate their careers and/or lifestyles. During this call, we’ll identify your aspirations, challenges, and the next steps to help you thrive in your career. Together, we’ll determine if we’re a good fit for a coaching relationship that drives real change.
Potential Areas for Growth (BUT NOT LIMITED TO)
Navigate Major Career Transitions: Considering a pivot into new genres or projects? I’ll help you navigate these shifts with clarity and confidence, ensuring every step aligns with your long-term vision and leads to measurable outcomes.
Create Work-Life Harmony: Struggling with balance? Together, we’ll craft a sustainable approach that honors both your professional ambitions and personal well-being, drawing on my expertise in lifestyle and wellness coaching.
Redefine Your Career Vision: Feeling stuck? I’ll guide you in reconnecting with the core values that inspired your passion, reshaping your career path into one that’s fulfilling and aligned with your goals.
Overcome Burnout and Reignite Creativity: If pressure has left you feeling burnt out, we’ll work together to establish effective strategies to restore balance and reignite your passion, resulting in renewed motivation and creativity.
Build Creative Confidence: Self-doubt holding you back? I’ll help you cultivate the confidence to trust your instincts and push creative boundaries, ensuring you remain true to your vision in a competitive industry.
TESTIMONIALS
“My time working with Jon was instrumental in jump-starting my filmmaking career, just as I was starting out in the commercial world. Jon supported me as a director with grace and patience as I started working on bigger projects - instilling such a solid foundation not just in the filmmaking process, but also how to inspire and spark meaningful collaboration.”
-Lloyd Lee Choi, Director @ Division7
“Jon is unlike any teacher I've ever had. He meets you where you are and helps you grow from there. He opened my mind to new ways of seeing filmmaking and used my values and strengths to drive my progress. Most college courses can't do what Jon does because they have to teach many students at once, like a factory. But with Jon, it's personal he openly shares his years of incredible filmmaking experience. Even top athletes have coaches, and working with Jon showed me why a coach can be more valuable than any college course. A coach like Jon gets inside your mind and helps you push forward, which is something we all need from time to time.”
(e-mail from my client, Seth Binford): “Hey Jon, I hope you are well! I wanted to thank you again for your encouraging words and insights during our coaching sessions last year. This spring/summer has been my most successful summer financially while also maintaining the best work/life balance I feel like I've ever had. I attribute both of those milestones directly to our conversations and your support during our time together. Thank you for listening and sharing your own experiences and thoughts on those calls, it was more impactful than you may know.”
“How much should I charge for this?” I asked Jon.
“Well how much do you want to make?” He said.
Coaching with Jon was a heavy dose of wisdom and perspective about how to engage sustainably in a hyper competitive and strangely elusive market.
His simple questions derived from deep experience helped me set my targets and communicate my values in my own words so my results could be in service of my own unique journey and vision for my career. The standards were high, the inquiries were poignant, and the results were the best year I had ever done in terms of revenue and creative risk taking.
I couldn’t speak more highly of Jon as a coach and human being.
How much do you want to make? What do you want to make? What do you want your journey to look like? If you don’t have immediate answers to these questions, rest assured there are good-hearted people who can help. Jon’s one of them.”
“I worked with Jon for a little over a year and it was a transformative experience. While I was proud of the work I was doing, I was dissatisfied with my work-life balance and often felt frustrated about the lack of progression that I was feeling as a director and production company owner. Working with Jon was brilliant. He had a real understanding of the challenges that I was facing because he had actually been there and experienced the same.
A lot of coaches are folks that have never walked their talk, but Jon was the opposite. He was knowledgable about the industry and knew the pitfalls that I had fallen into and ways to get out of them - and crucially was able to help me avoid others and look after my mental wellbeing. Jon helped me to realize key insights about my voice as a filmmaker and why I wanted to do what I do - and in turn the kinds of work I should be seeking out.
Our work together was instrumental to a restructuring of my production company and led to new relationships that have transformed the kind of work that I've done. As filmmakers we're great at seeking out things to up-level our skillset, but it's harder to find the things that will up-level our mindset and wellbeing. If you are a filmmaker who is looking to make your career not only successful but also sustainable and enjoyable, Jon is the guy for you.
-Will Dolan, Founder & Director @ Firewood Pictures
“You don’t know what you don’t know. The commercial advertising industry is a complex landscape filled with many unknowns to film production vendors. There is a system with multiple layers that requires experience and understanding of how all the gears work to bring a project to life. Jon was instrumental in helping me gain perspective of these complexities and coaching me to focus on my strengths to be more competitive in this market. His knowledge of the process is vast and his understanding of how the game works will certainly help you gain a clearer picture of where you should direct your efforts.”
-Josh Carrasquillo, EP, Director & Partner at Taproot Picturers
“Jon’s coaching played a pivotal role in reigniting joy in my film career. I came to him at a time when I was lost and unsatisfied with the client work I was bringing in. Jon taught me how to represent myself more confidently in the industry, network more effectively, and attract fulfilling projects based on my own unique system of values. His coaching was invaluable to both my personal and professional development as he himself could relate to my struggle of creating a work/life balance. Jon also connected me with industry professionals, which led to exciting new projects that grew my creative work in a direction aligned with my values. I’d recommend Jon’s coaching to anyone looking to take their filmmaking to the next level and show up as their most authentic self.”
“I connected with Jon at a time when I was really struggling to find my footing as an import in an established industry in a new country. Under his gentle questioning and supportive guidance, I was able to articulate my strengths and position myself internally and externally to really dive into forging my path in ways that ditched the small voices of doubt and got me sitting in my unique skills as a creative director.
Beyond the practical structure of his mentoring, he turned out to be a genuinely attentive and supportive voice and someone I felt instantly safe with confiding doubts and dreaming big pictures. Not to mention we found an easy simpatico that absolutely came from his judgement free demeanor and deeply supportive nature.
Thanks to his work building a hugely successful production company, he’s also wildly discerning; so in that sense I can see his work as a mentor finding voices that not only need the help, but will flourish beyond it, bringing value and ambition to the industry. I can’t wait to see who he helps leap off next.”
“I knew from the first intake questionnaire form that this coaching experience with Jon would be immensely valuable and transformative in my filmmaking journey. Jon’s approach gave me a chance to slow down and really discover why I’m a filmmaker and what I’m looking for in filmmaking. He places a big emphasis on process. And with that he truly made this experience not only valuable but enjoyable. We talked a lot about what wellness looks like for me inside and outside of the industry. And I just really felt Jon genuinely wanted me not only to succeed in achieving my goals, but to enjoy the journey from a place of wellness. I can honestly say that with Jon’s accountability and creative insight, my short film I was working on became so much more emotionally charged, and I finished the film while staying healthy holistically. There are so many seemingly small things that I have taken away from this coaching experience that have made the biggest difference in my daily journey as a filmmaker. I’d recommend Jon’s coaching to anyone who wants to grow as a filmmaker while becoming healthier and happier at the same time.”
My time with Jon came at a pivotal moment in my career. It was a time of change and lots of uncertainty. I had expectations about what our sessions would do to help me grow professionally, but Jon really pushed me to revisit the foundation of my career interests first, which was more valuable to me on a personal level. We worked through many of the professional goals I identified at the outset, but the lasting value I’ve taken from our work was Jon’s constant push to evaluate the personal basis of each career concern. This process led me to make some crucial changes that I probably wouldn’t have otherwise, and created a lasting way of thinking that I still apply today. I’m immensely grateful for our time together.
“As someone who's only ever worked for themselves I've always yearned for a mentor. I was lucky enough to work with Jon while handling one of the biggest contracts I'd had to date. Aside from helping me with some of the more obvious logistics and daily goings on we had a chance to dive deep and define the values and intention behind the creative work. It's an often very gray and gatekept industry and I think having a qualified coach is invaluable "
“I highly recommend getting coached by Jon. No matter where you are in your creative journey, Jon has been there and can give you great advice from real-world experience. One of the most challenging things in this business is that few self-help and business books were written for filmmakers. So, getting advice on everything from treatments to managing stress to battling those imposter syndrome thoughts has been invaluable.”
“I connected with Jon at a critical point where I was feeling alone and confused in my career. Jon and I went on to establish a co-directing venture that was built on mutual respect, understanding and support. We were able to navigate the challenges and oftentimes, the frustrations of this competitive field. Jon has always been more interested in my wellbeing as a friend than what project I might be working on at the time. In an industry saturated with self promotion, it’s refreshing and important to know that there are people out here who are interested in more than themselves.”
“I had the great pleasure of going through Jon’s coaching program in 2019 after meeting him at the Film and Music Conference by Music Bed. Jon coached me through career decisions and more importantly he helped me instill daily practices that improve my overall way of life. From scheduling my daily tasks to gratitude journaling, I learned things through Jon’s program that I still implement in my life today. Our conversations never shied away from mental health and the importance of taking care of our mental as well as our psychical body. This idea inspired me to explore some of my own past with mental illness on screen in a short film I produced shortly after working with Jon.”
“I'm a producer at a production company and I found myself always gravitating toward the work put out by the team at Jon’s old production company, Variable. I'd use their pieces for reference and inspiration material on projects time and again.
When I had the opportunity to be coached by Jonathan, I was beyond excited. It was a big deal to talk with and receive personal advice from someone I've looked up to as a filmmaker for several years. My experience with Jon was outstanding and I'd highly recommend it to any other directors or producers looking to level up.
I really appreciate that in addition to the concrete filmmaking related advice, I got a lot of unexpected advice about how to manage burnout / sustainability. Hearing from Jon about the level of burnout commonly found at the higher tiers of commercial filmmaking helped me to put my own aspirations in perspective. Overall, I feel my coaching experience made me a much more well rounded filmmaker and am so grateful for the opportunity.”
“I was fortunate to connect with Jon during a period where I was feeling stalled in terms of both my creativity and productivity. During our sessions together, he provided me with some powerful tools and inspiration. Jon has great empathy and a remarkable perspective that I think would be invaluable to filmmakers at all stages of their careers. Years later I still consult him and am glad to consider him a friend!”
*For more testimonials or to request a client referral, email me at jbregel@gmail.com
Let’s Collaborate!
Supporting filmmakers has always been close to my heart. Whether that’s been through representing commercial directors, supporting staff at my production company, executive producing for filmmakers I admire, coaching industry veterans, or simply being a sounding board for peers, I understand the unique pressures and rewards of this career.
If you’re ready to elevate your journey and achieve meaningful results, let’s discover how we can collaborate.
For any questions, feel free to reach out directly at jbregel@gmail.com— I’m here to help.
Onwards!
-Jon