Jamin Winans (born December 4, 1977) is an American filmmaker. He is known for his short film Spin (2005) and feature films 11:59 (2005), Ink (2009) and The Frame (2014).
Winans was born in Fort Wayne, Indiana, and moved with his family to Denver, Colorado when he was five.[1] Later moving to nearby Evergreen, Colorado, he attended Bergen Elementary,[2] and began making movies with pieces of string and cardboard at age 10. In an extended interview with Jason Heller of Westword, Winans recalls,[1] After high school at Evergreen High School, he attended Columbia College Hollywood in Los Angeles before dropping out and pursuing filmmaking in Colorado.[2]
Winans created Double Edge Films in 1998.[1] Winans plays various roles in each film, most significantly as writer, director, and editor, and more recently composing scores; his spouse, Kiowa Winans, is intimately involved with the effort, in roles as producer, but also in art direction, and sound and costume design.[1] Jamin Winans began showing shorts at film festivals around the U.S. in 2001.[1]
Winans made his first short film, Blanston, (2003), a film depicting four people trying to pull an insurance scam on the company they worked for. His next, a short called The Maze (2003),[3] [4] is about a physicist trying to understand the science of the universe. Next, Winans released Spin (2005),[3] the story of a DJ trying to fix a chain of events unfolding a city's downtown area, a film that has won multiple film festival awards, including Best Live Action Short and The Bruce Corwin Award at the 2006 Santa Barbara Independent Film Festival[5] (and has >15 million hits at YouTube). His first feature, 11:59 (2005),[3] portrays a photojournalist trying to remember what happened in the last twenty-four hours of his life, and premiered at the 2005 Montreal World Film Festival.
Winans next released Ink (2009),[3] a film portraying the struggle of a father trying to save his comatose daughter, who is floating between dreams and nightmares.[4] [6] [7] In the first week of its release, "Ink" shot into the Top 20 movies on IMDb due to being heavily pirated on peer-to-peer networks.[8]
His next film, a 5-minute short, Uncle Jack (2010) relates the story of a desperate fugitive trying to narrate a bedtime story has several hundred thousand clicks on YouTube.
In late 2014, Winans released his latest feature film, The Frame, which he wrote, directed, edited, and scored.[1] "The Frame" is about two strangers colliding in an impossible way - taking on the very root of fate, destiny, and their own existence, they race through a maze of an ever-changing universe while being pursued by a demonic man determined to erase the world.[9]
Winans released his first documentary "Childhood 2.0" in 2020 about the impacts of social media on children.[10] A new sci-fi fantasy narrative feature, "Myth of Man" was announced on the Double Edge Films website, with a 2024 release date expected.[11] In addition to films, Winans also works on commercials.[12]
Winans also composes original music for film. Winans composed the musical score for Ink (2009), and his song, The City Surf from Ink was used in the climactic scene of the Liam Neeson film, The Grey, in conjunction with a score composed by Marc Streitenfeld.[1] [13]
In Winans latest feature film, The Frame (2014), Winans again composed the score.[1]
Short film
| Year | Title | Director | Writer | Editor | Composer | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2003 | Blanston | |||||
| The Maze | ||||||
| 2005 | Spin | |||||
| 2010 | Uncle Jack |
Feature film
| Year | Title | Director | Writer | Executive Producer | Editor | Composer | Notes | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2005 | 11:59 | |||||||
| 2009 | Ink | |||||||
| 2014 | The Frame | |||||||
| 2020 | Childhood 2.0 | Documentary; Co-directed with Robert Muratore and Kiowa K. Winans[14] | ||||||
| TBA | Myth of Man | Also cinematographer |
Winans is married to production collaborator Kiowa Winans, a native of Colorado whose family was originally from New England.[1]