Jim Ojala

Career overview

Ojala grew up in Duluth, Minnesota, where he developed an early love of film through horror movies and the works of directors such as Martin Scorsese, Stanley Kubrick, George A. Romero and Buddy Giovinazzo. Following his graduation from Duluth Central High School in 1995, Ojala began his career working in public-access television. There, he and his friends created the series My Three Scums, a horror comedy sitcom about a dysfunctional family of mutants and monsters which he described as "sort of an obscene punk rock Munsters on crack". The series ran locally for three years, after which Ojala sent tapes of the show - in a large box filled with inflated helium balloons reading "I LOVE MY THREE SCUMS" - to Troma Entertainment co-founder Lloyd Kaufman, who was impressed enough by both the series and its eye-catching promotion to offer Ojala an internship on the feature film Citizen Toxie: The Toxic Avenger IV. Upon receiving the news, Ojala immediately quit his job as a medical records filing clerk and moved to New York to work on the film.

During the production of Citizen Toxie, Ojala stepped into an open spot in the film's makeup effects department, working alongside Tim Considine of special effects company Direct FX. At the film's completion, Considine offered Ojala a full-time assisting position within his company. With Direct FX, Ojala worked on numerous features, commercials and theater, which included manufacturing an entire line of bald caps whose clients included Saturday Night Live and several Broadway productions. Ojala also worked alongside B-movie auteur Larry Fessenden on the 2001 horror film Wendigo and was involved with the Millennium Film Workshop, where he learned how to work with 16mm film under the supervision of underground filmmaker Mike Kuchar.

After the events of September 11, Ojala found it difficult to obtain any type of work in New York, eventually forcing him to seek out career options in California. Only a few days into a week-long visit to Los Angeles, Ojala was hired on the spot as a lab and on-set technician for the visual effects studio Almost Human, Inc., providing various functions including moldmaking, makeup application and puppeteering for film, commercials and television series including Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel and Firefly. Since leaving Almost Human in 2005, Ojala has worked with several special effects companies including Autonomous FX, Animal Makers, Spectral Motion and Legacy Effects, and has worked on mainstream productions including Hellboy II: The Golden Army, 2012, Where the Wild Things Are, Thor, X-Men: The Last Stand and Pacific Rim.

In 2005, Ojala established his own independent special effects studio and film production company Ojala Productions, specializing in makeup and creature effects for film and television as well as producing in-house projects written and directed by Ojala himself. Among others, Ojala Productions contributed special effects work for films like 2001 Maniacs: Field of Screams and the critically acclaimed Deadgirl, television shows including Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job! and the music videos for Snoop Dogg's Malice n Wonderland album. During this time, Ojala wrote and directed the short films The Incredible Torture Trio, which played at the TromaDance Film Festival and was later distributed internationally on a Best of TromaDance DVD compilation, the 48 Hour Film Festival entry Truthus: A Family Holiday and Marvel Zombies: The Movie, a fake trailer based on the Marvel Comics property of the same name. Marvel Zombies: The Movie drew high praise and recognition from online comics communities and eventually went viral, later being featured on the G4 pop culture news series Attack of the Show! where hosts Kevin Pereira and Chris Hardwick called it "one of the most amazing fan movies we've ever seen".

With Monty Broussard, Ojala wrote and directed the 2011 science fiction thriller short Harvest, a proposed pilot for a television or web series. The following year, Ojala was featured in Craig Chenery's book Blood Spatter: A Guide to Cinematic Zombie Violence, Gore and Special Effects and in 2013, he directed the music video for comedy punk band The Radioactive Chicken Heads' "Deviled Egg", which was highlighted on horror channel Fearnet as their "Music Video of the Week".

In 2016, Ojala provided make-up effects for popular indie pop band Lucius' music video "Gone Insane"; the video received notable mainstream recognition, with Rolling Stone describing the effects "strange [and] striking" and the Village Voice calling them "exceptional". 2016 will also see the release of Crabs!, a horror-comedy monster movie on which Ojala served as co-producer and special effects supervisor.

Strange Nature

Since 2003, Ojala has been developing his feature directorial debut Strange Nature, an eco-horror/body horror film based on real-life cases of mutated and deformed frogs in Minnesota. Ojala worked on and off on the film's production since 2006, filming various shots and building creature effects; in August 2013, he launched a crowdfunding campaign on Kickstarter to help finance the remainder of production. Ojala opted to fund the film through Kickstarter in order to retain full creative control of the project and keep the production based in Minnesota, supposedly after prospective producers in Louisiana and Bulgaria demanded it be filmed elsewhere. In wake of the Kickstarter, Strange Nature received notable press from both horror publications like Fangoria as well as local Duluth media, with Duluth mayor Don Ness vocally lending his support to the project and even offering his office as a potential filming location. According to Ojala, many local ecologists have also expressed enthusiasm for the film, going so far as to lend actual live deformed frogs for use in filming. The Kickstarter ultimately raised $46,088 on a $45,000 goal; principal photography on the film took place in and around Duluth in Fall 2014. As of 2015, Strange Nature is currently in the editing stages of post-production.