A composite image of an animated still of two faceless people embracing on a staircase. The other is a portrait of Jordan Micheal Blake.

Jordan Michael Blake: Mormonism, Self Reflection and Delta Safety Videos

Film Interviews

Jordan Michael Blake is a writer, director and founder of a spoof Taco Bell Film Festival (not at all sponsored by the actual chain). His short animated film Paradise Man (ii) is currently at this year’s Sundance Film Festival in the Animated Short Film Program. Paradise Man (ii) is a delicious 12 minutes of thoughtful and humorous self-reflection with a handful of existentialism. It follows our protagonist, Paradise Man, searching in life for the perfect hole-in-one when playing golf. Along the way, Paradise Man experiences love, loss and a depressive episode throughout his journey. I, your humble SLUG Contributing Writer, had the very pleasure of sitting down with Blake before he attended Sundance for the first time as one of the filmmakers. 

“If you’re reflecting on your own self, then if everybody were to reflect on their own selves, I think the world would be a little better, so maybe I like this movie encouraging that. I get to do it while I make the movie, which makes my life a little better, you know?” Blake tells me when asked about where the theme of heavy self-reflection in Paradise Man (ii) — and in most of his other work — comes from. He also adds, “Just from my background of leaving Mormonism, honestly. I think at a young age I was forced to reflect on what I really believe, maybe a little earlier than other people might have to.” He says his focus on this idea grew from his time isolated during the pandemic. “I think it being as overt as it is now probably started happening during the pandemic. That was a time, you know, whe[n] you [were] just faced with a lot of existential thoughts and questions and I think that’s when it really started cooking.”

Also yes, you did read that right, this isn’t Blake’s first lap in Utah. He was raised Mormon and actually began his film journey at BYU here in our great state. I ask about his departure from the church, what his time at BYU was like and how that impacts the type of films he makes. On leaving the church he says, “I think throughout most of my twenties, I was in denial. I thought that I, you know, I left Mormonism, that’s in the past. I’m a new version of myself and the things I learned were good, and the things that I’d learned that weren’t good, I left behind. I think, you know, probably again sort of during the pandemic and reflecting on my relationships over the course of my life, I realized [that] my Mormon upbringing is something that I will never leave behind.” This is evident throughout all of Blake’s work, which has frequent mentions of religion.

On his time at BYU before transferring to NYU, he shares, “I went to the film school at BYU and again, I was surprised, maybe on some level, at the quality of the professorship, and sort of inspired by it as well. A lot of my favorite professors that were there had gone to NYU or gone to USC grad school for film, and I was like, ‘Oh man, that’s so cool, like we’re just over here at BYU,’ but like, these film schools that are a little bit more famous, I’m learning from people that went to those schools. After I transferred to NYU, I sort of realized even more so how great that education was.” In 2010, Blake was on the verge of being expelled — at around the same time he got accepted into NYU — for not having an 80% church attendance. 

Blake recounts that his passion for film came from being gifted a camera from an early age. Like most directors, he made his own home movies, where he spoofed things like The Blair Witch Project, cleverly making his own The Blake Tape Project (tell me that’s not a sign of future success, as Blake was only 10 years old when he came up with that). Paradise Man (ii) is not Blake’s first jab at animation, that would be his Delta Airline Saftey Video for his spoof Taco Bell Film Festival, which is in no way was affiliated with the chain itself and had a fake sponsor from Delta Airlines. I was curious about how animation came to be about in his work. Blake shares, “Oh, that’s new. I took a digital animation class at NYU ‘cause I’ve always loved animation,” and he had plenty of time to take it during the pandemic.

Blake’s animation style, though, isn’t what you would traditionally think of when imagining an animator. He takes stock footage stills and animations then edits them into the stories you see, like with Paradise Man (ii). “Yeah, I just don’t know how to draw, really,” says Blake. He adds that he was inspired by one of the first colored animations by Oskar Fischinger titled An Optical Poem, where Fischinger took paper cutouts and moved them along to a symphony. Blake explains, “I just thought like, ‘Oh, what if I did exactly what he was doing, but with things I’ve taken from the internet?’ ‘cause if he could do that in, like, 1940 I can probably do that with my computer now.”

On the subject of the internet, a lot of Blake’s work has references to the earlier forgotten days and aesthetics of the internet. My favorite example of this is his short segment Lectures On Eternity for the Adult Swim show OFF THE AIR. I asked him what our current state of the internet might mean for future filmmakers and art itself. After thinking carefully, he tells me, “With how the internet has developed, it’s just a lot of positive affirmation for a broad base of support from people that you know or don’t know. It’s like, the more broadly you post something, maybe the more broadly you get likes, which makes you feel that you’re broadly valuable to other people.” He adds, “It’ll be, you know, a little less idiosyncratic, the art that gets made. But I kind of think there’s gonna be a reaction against it. I think maybe that’s what some of my art is, a reaction against how sanitized everything feels right now.”

If for some reason, even after reading this, you still manage to miss out on experiencing Paradise Man (ii) at this year’s Sundance, do yourself a favor and watch all of James Michael Blake’s work on his Vimeo, check out his website jordanmichaelblake.com and keep up with the film collective he co-founded at theasfc.com

Read more of SLUG’s coverage of the 2025 Sundance Film Festival.