Biografia
A Minneapolis native with a background in theater, video art and documentary, Jerome moved to Los Angeles in 2007 to attend the prestigious cinema-television production program at the University of Southern California. While enrolled, he moonlighted as a production assistant and later a camera operator on the official Warped Tour Documentary, assisting with editing in the studio and filming live performances and interviews on the tour itself. During his time in the program Jerome was also part of the writing staff for the drama pilot Rx, which swept the Accolades awards festival, taking home the Best In Show in the Drama category, as well as awards of Merit for Direction and Concept.
His thesis film Stray, photographed in 16mm and starring child prodigy Brighid Fleming who has gone on to play opposite Danny Devito and Gerard Butler, was well received on the festival circuit, gracing the screens of the Art Institute of Boston at the Short Attention Span Digital Video Festival and at the San Luis Obispo International Film Festival. It was also part of a special program of the Show Off Your Shorts Festival at Reighley Studios. While attending USC Jerome further served as director of photography and editor of Adi Cabigting's thesis film Lilly, which he photographed in 16mm on the Arri-S film camera and edited in Avid.
Upon graduation, Jerome moved to Hollywood and spent the next year freelancing on a variety of eclectic projects. He received his first screen credit for his position as a production assistant on the set of the feature film Dark Country, under the direct supervision of director Thomas Jane of Punisher and Hung fame and UPM Karri O'Reilly. Working with the Gotham City Film Foundation non-profit organization he lit and interviewed celebrities and luminaries such as Jessica Biel, Hillary Duff, David Hasselhoff, Slash and Tony Hawk.
Jerome spent much of his freelance time working in the grip and electric departments, most notably on an independent feature film Second Class Citizens, where he functioned specifically as a dolly-grip. He also worked on the music video for Meeghan Henry's hit single "When I'm 18", the AVON breast-cancer PSA "A Walk in the Park", two commercials for Kalyx sports bras, a fashion spot, and a Career Builder spec-commercial entitled "Break Through". He has worked as a gaffer on the Tenacious D web-series Guitarings, a commercial for the band "Trainwreck", and the ambitious video art project "Palette" directed by James Marcus Haney. Jerome also directed his own CareerBuilder spec commercial entitled "The Jobs You Want For the Skills You Have". Both spots made it into the final round of the 2010 "Hire My Tv Ad" Superbowl commercial contest, and have since been spotted during the breakaways from streaming online television programs.
In a neat twist of fate, Jerome applied for a grip position advertised on Craig's list one day and found himself--along with an entire skeleton crew of freelance film crew members---gripping in the background during an episode of Men of a Certain Age. Apparently they had attempted the "television show within a television show" previously with standard background talent but had found the result unconvincing, so they decided to hire professionals instead. Jerome was elated to share the screen with one of his all-time favorite actors, Scott Bakula, for a few fleeting seconds.
In January of 2010 Jerome was hired by one of the premiere visual effects houses in Hollywood, Prime Focus. Throughout the following year he moved quickly up their ranks, from a position as a runner, to the executive assistant of Academy Award winning visual effects supervisor Mike Fink, to editorial coordinator, to rotoscoper. He also received some training in stereoscopic-compositing with Eyeon Fusion. During his time at Prime Focus Jerome has had the honor of working on a number of blockbuster films, including Clash of the Titans and Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader.
