Zimran Jacob: Writing for TV? How-to networking and a must-read list.
Zimran Jacob is an Indian American drama television writer originally from the San Francisco Bay Area. After graduating Cum Laude from Chapman University with a B.A. in Screenwriting and studying at NYU, USC, and UCLA, he moved out to Los Angeles where he began to work in the finance department at Gaumont Television, which released Narcos, Hannibal, Hemlock Grove, and F is for Family during his tenure at the company.
Zimran’s job at Gaumont led him to Marvel in the writer’s room on the Netflix show, The Punisher where he was able to contribute to the story in his role on the support staff as the Showrunner’s Assistant. During his time at Marvel, he pitched two stories which became produced episodes.
Zimran sold his feature SWAG to 19f Productions where Kevin Pollak is attached to direct. He was a PGA Diversity Workshop Fellow in 2019 and was a Semi-Finalist in both the 2018 and 2019 Austin Film Festival. Most recently, he brought enthusiasm to his job as Showrunner’s Assistant for October Faction on Netflix. He writes dark Shakespearean dramas featuring Machiavellian characters, tribal power struggles, and is addicted to crime stories.
Zimran brings a breadth of knowledge and a unique background to all his projects. He created a software company that he sold. He has worked as a financial advisor and an NBA journalist. On top of that, he was a nationally ranked chess player and can do that cool thing where you play a few games at the same time.
Zimran’s Reading List:
- Eleven Rings: The Soul of Success, Phil Jackson
- The 50th Law, Hustle Harder, Hustle Smarter, Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson
- Mastery, The Laws of Power, Robert Greene
- The Talent Code, Daniel Coyle, John Farrell
- 1984, George Orwell
- Outliers: The Story of Success, Malcolm Gladwell
- Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind, erek Perkins, Yuval Noah Harari
- How to Be an Antiracist, Ibram X. Kendi
- Caste (Oprah’s Book Club): The Origins of Our Discontents, Isabel Wilkerson, Robin Miles
- The Ramayana
- The Odysssey, by Homer Homer and Robert Fagles
- Inglorious Empire: What the British Did to India, by Shashi Tharoor
- Peoples History of the United States, Howard Zinn, Jeff Zinn,
- Powerhouse: The Untold Story of Hollywood’s Creative Artists Agency, James Andrew Miller, Kirby Heyborne
- Your Only As Good As Your Next One, Mike Medavoy
- The New Jim Crow, Michelle Alexander, Karen Chilton
- Story: Substance, Structure, Style, and the Principles of Screenwriting
- Screenwriting: The Sequence Approach, Paul Joseph Gulino
- Film Scripts Two,
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