Coaching FOR FILMMAKERS
As founder of The Nourish Community, a space for filmmakers pursuing wellness, meaningful relationships, and purpose, I bring together industry expertise with a passion for fostering meaningful and sustainable growth.
Since 2017, I’ve been dedicated to working one-on-one with filmmakers as a coach, helping them achieve purpose, balance, and fulfillment in their careers and personal lives. If you’re looking for guidance in your own journey, click the free consult call button below to explore how we can work together.
Through my own highs & lows in the film industry 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.
AN OVERLOOKED INVESTMENT
Filmmakers pour countless hours (and often tens of thousands of dollars) into film school, gear, software, studio space, film festivals…the list goes on. But even with a strong portfolio or top-tier representation, many still find themselves feeling stuck, unsure of their next steps, or struggling to build a career that’s both fulfilling and sustainable.
Honing your craft is only part of the equation. Long-term success requires more than technical skill; it takes strategy, clarity, and the ability to navigate the industry with purpose. Without a clear direction, it’s easy to feel overwhelmed or stagnant, despite your talent and hard work.
That’s where coaching makes a difference. Unlike equipment or courses, it provides a personalized, results-driven process to help you move forward with confidence, refine your goals, and create a career that aligns with both your vision and your life.
Coaching That Drives Results
For the past seven years, I’ve worked one-on-one with filmmakers at all career stages—from emerging creatives to seasoned professionals—helping them overcome obstacles like burnout, creative stagnation, and the uncertainty of what comes next.
Through coaching, I help filmmakers gain clarity, set intentional goals, and build sustainable careers that reflect their values and strengths. Together, we create actionable strategies to sharpen your creative direction, expand your network, and ensure your work leads to the opportunities you actually want.
Whether you’re looking to refine your creative vision, find balance between work and life, or open new doors in your career, my goal is to support your growth in a way that leads to meaningful, lasting results.
Scroll Down for Testimonials
WHO I WORK WITH
I work with a select group of filmmakers from all areas of the industry who are serious about building fulfilling and sustainable careers.
If you’re feeling stuck, overwhelmed, or uncertain about your next steps, coaching provides a structured, results-driven approach to help you gain clarity, build momentum, and break through career plateaus.
I offer a complimentary 30-minute consultation for filmmakers who are ready to take their careers and lives to the next level. During this call, we’ll discuss your goals, challenges, and the strategic steps that can help you move forward. This is also a chance to determine if we’re the right fit for a coaching partnership that leads to real, lasting change.
What Coaching Can Help You With
For the past eight years, I’ve worked with filmmakers at every stage, helping them overcome key challenges such as:
Navigating Career Transitions with Clarity – Whether you’re pivoting into new genres, taking on bigger projects, or shifting your focus, I’ll help you make confident, strategic moves that align with your long-term vision.
Finding Work-Life Balance Without Sacrificing Success – Struggling to balance career ambitions with personal well-being? We’ll create a sustainable approach that keeps you creatively energized while protecting your time, relationships, and health.
Breaking Through Career Stagnation – If you feel stuck, we’ll redefine what success means to you, reconnect with your core values, and craft a career path that feels both fulfilling and financially viable.
Overcoming Burnout & Reigniting Creativity – Pressure and constant hustle can drain your passion. We’ll develop strategies to help you regain motivation, establish healthier creative habits, and reignite your love for filmmaking.
Building Confidence & Overcoming Self-Doubt – If imposter syndrome is holding you back, I’ll help you trust your instincts, own your creative voice, and step into opportunities with greater self-assurance.
Turning Conversations into Real Opportunities – Struggling with networking or pitching yourself? We’ll refine your messaging, help you build authentic industry relationships, and develop a strategy to convert connections into meaningful work.
Creating Personal Projects That Elevate Your Career – Your self-initiated work is a powerful tool for attracting the right clients and collaborators. We’ll craft a plan to develop personal projects that align with your vision, showcase your strengths, and open new doors.
WHY WORK WITH ME?
I’m not just a coach, I’ve lived the highs and lows of this industry firsthand, and I continue to stay actively involved in the industry as a filmmaker. I know what it’s like to grind non-stop, chase every opportunity, and still feel unfulfilled. I also know how to break free from that cycle and create a career and life that feels deeply aligned, abundant, and sustainable.
This isn’t a one-size-fits-all approach. Every coaching session is tailored to your specific goals and challenges, helping you gain clarity, confidence, and momentum.
TESTIMONIALS
“My time working with Jon was instrumental in launching my filmmaking career. As I stepped into the commercial world, his guidance gave me the confidence to take on bigger projects, building a strong foundation in both filmmaking and 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.”
"Working with Jon has been a great experience. His coaching provided clarity and direction at a time when I really needed it. Through our sessions, I gained valuable insights not just into my goals, but also into the deeper habits and thought patterns that guide my decisions. If you’re looking for someone who can help you as an accountability partner, find clarity, build momentum, and take meaningful steps forward, I highly recommend Jon as a coach."
-Logan McNay, Director
“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