ACTOR. DIRECTOR. WRITER.
I have been acting, directing, and writing since I was 12 years old. I've appeared on CNN multiple times, directed a documentary film that has been televised in Europe on TV, and most recently a short film I starred in was broadcast on TV across the east coast out of NY on Channel 13. Besides filmmaking, in my spare time I draw, play the guitar, read, and like to travel.
I started to become interested in film as a medium and direction for my life at a very young age, when I first saw "Raiders of the Lost Ark". That film changed me forever. It sparked an insatiable appetite for watching films of all genres, domestic or foreign, black & white or color, with sound or even old silent films. In the process of being exposed to all these classic and contemporary works I began to establish my own style and approach to making movies.
There I was at 12 years old starting to shoot my own movies, acting in and directing my own western and adventure shorts. I made a short film called "Indiana Jones and the Mummy's Curse", and my brother Josh played the mummy in the tomb (which was a root cellar). My brother was decked out in old cloth, and waiting inside. We had rigged a wooden door that would open at the touch of a "button", with someone standing up on top, moving the "door" (plywood) at the right moment. My debut short film was titled "Jesse's End", a western where I got shot down by the town sheriff in a gun fight after robbing three banks. I lived out in the Montana countryside at that time, so we used some of the long deserted old homestead cabins as the locations for the banks and sheriff's office.
Since then, I have intensified my focus on filmmaking, and today it is what I spend my time concentrating on. At the core of my diversely unique films I have made and wish to make in the future, I want to explore the characters in each piece, for therein lies my true focus: the human.
Recently I have been fortunate enough to star in some great films, work with CNN, and collaborate with exceptionally talented people in Connecticut, New York and Montana.
Please feel free to contact me with a question, or inquiry on directing, writing, or starring in a project. I look forward to speaking with you soon.
Sincerely,
Joel Vetsch
Email: films@joelvetsch.com