In the world of independent storytelling, few writers approach the complexities of human psychology with the focus and subtlety of Jesse Dorian. Born Jesse Ladshaw Treviño on November 12, 1986, in New Braunfels, Texas, he has developed a creative career that spans screenwriting, filmmaking, music, and multimedia art. Dorian’s work is marked by a careful exploration of identity, fear, and moral uncertainty, often choosing psychological depth over spectacle and nuanced tension over conventional narrative resolution.
From an early age, Dorian was exposed to a rich artistic environment. His father, Jesse Treviño, was a celebrated San Antonio artist, Mexican American painter, and muralist whose work continues to shape the city’s cultural landscape. One of his best known pieces, The Spirit of Healing, is a large scale mural at Santa Rosa Children’s Hospital, demonstrating a commitment to art as both public and emotional expression. While this creative influence surrounded him, Dorian’s upbringing was largely guided by his mother after his parents’ divorce. The experience of growing up in a household defined by separation would later become a lens through which he explores isolation, interpersonal complexity, and fractured identity in his writing.
Dorian began engaging seriously with filmmaking at just 15 years old when he completed the Filmmaking for Teens part time program at Vancouver Film School in Vancouver, British Columbia. This early immersion provided him with foundational skills in narrative structure, visual storytelling, and the mechanics of cinematic expression. Following this, he pursued studies in Radio, Television, and Film, as well as Psychology, at Austin Community College. Though he did not complete a degree, the combination of media and psychology studies informed his approach to character, helping him craft narratives that probe the subtleties of perception, motivation, and internal conflict.
Rather than immediately seeking mainstream production opportunities, Dorian focused on developing original feature length screenplays. His work spans thriller, science fiction, and psychological horror, but consistently resists standard genre formulas. Since 2022, his screenplays have circulated widely through international independent film festivals, where they have been recognized for their morally complex characters and careful attention to psychological realism. Audiences encounter protagonists whose decisions and behaviors challenge simplistic distinctions between right and wrong.
Among his body of work are Donavan Emery, The Android & Himself, Sven, As Scared As You, The Four of Us Are Dying, Morituriosis, She’s Never Coming Back, and A Close Divide. Each screenplay emphasizes character driven storytelling and explores recurring themes such as self destruction, alienation, and identity crises. His television pilot, Sly, demonstrates his ability to extend these thematic concerns into episodic storytelling, combining complex character arcs with nuanced emotional development.
Donavan Emery, The Android & Himself is a modern science fiction reimagining of The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde. The screenplay examines nihilism, social class stratification, and ethical corruption within an ultra wealthy elite operating inside a grim, hyper political society set in the near future. Where Wilde’s original centers on a portrait that absorbs the moral decay of its subject, Dorian Gray, Dorian’s adaptation replaces the supernatural painting with a one of a kind humanoid android prototype capable of suspending the aging process for those at the highest levels of the social hierarchy. The story reframes vanity and moral rot through biotechnology and artificial life, raising questions about identity, technological immortality, and the commodification of the human soul.
In tone and aesthetic ambition, the project has been described as evoking the dystopian environments of Blade Runner and RoboCop. Conceptually, it has been pitched as a fusion of Blade Runner’s atmosphere with the existential horror of Frankenstein by Mary Shelley, effectively positioning the screenplay as a science fiction meditation on Wildean themes.
Sven occupies a different but thematically connected space. A science fiction horror drama, the screenplay explores humanity, isolation, and the fragile boundary between civilization and nature. Its central figure is a uniquely intelligent humanoid primate known as a chilamasman named Sven, the last of his species, caught between worlds while being the subject at the center of a psychological science experiment funded by the U.S. government. The project originated in December 2007 as a short film assignment for a college film technology course and later evolved into a short lived internet series released in 2008 during the early era of MySpace.
Stylistically, Sven draws inspiration from the classic monster films of Universal Pictures during Hollywood’s golden age, while also reflecting the surrealist and intellectual shock-horror sensibilities associated with filmmakers such as David Lynch and David Cronenberg. Elements of the screenplay and early series function as a subtle homage to those traditions, blending creature feature nostalgia with psychological and existential unease.
Recognition from festivals has played a major role in highlighting Dorian’s work. The Four of Us Are Dying won Best Feature Screenplay awards at the Utah Film Festival and the New York Film Awards, along with a Gold Remi Award at WorldFest Houston. Donavan Emery, The Android & Himself earned Best Screenplay awards at the Bristol Independent Film Festival, the Miami International Science Fiction Film Festival, and the Los Angeles Film Awards. Sven received Best Science Fiction Short Format Screenplay at the Philip K. Dick Science Fiction Film Festival, and Morituriosis was recognized as Best Horror Screenplay at the Los Angeles Film Awards. In 2025, Sly was awarded Best TV Pilot Screenplay at the Vail Film Festival and Best Television Script at the Los Angeles Film Awards. She’s Never Coming Back earned Best Screenplay for Feature Film at the Digital Griffix Film Awards in Montreal, and As Scared As You dominated the Oniros Film Awards, taking all 5 of its 5 nominated categories, including Best Feature Script, Best Original Script, and Best Horror Script.
In addition to writing, Dorian has explored music as another medium for expressing psychological and emotional themes. In 2017, he launched the industrial goth influenced project Imitate Invertebrate, releasing the EP double single Deviant and Just Die Already. While the sonic palette often leans dark in tone and atmosphere, the lyrical voice frequently incorporates dry satire and pointed social commentary. The project balances bleak subject matter with wit, emotional vulnerability, and a deliberate resistance to self importance. Rather than presenting unrelenting gloom, the songs carry heart, humor, and a distinct authorial personality that tempers their darker conceptual framework.
Dorian also founded LostScorpion in 2022, an independent brand uniting apparel design, film production, and music. The brand serves as a creative outlet that supports experimentation across mediums while maintaining artistic independence. Although the e-commerce component of LostScorpion was temporarily suspended in 2025, the initiative continues to reflect Dorian’s long term vision for multidisciplinary creative work.
His involvement extends into film production as well. Dorian has executive producer credits on documentary projects, including In Search of Darkness, which examines horror cinema of the 1990s, and The Thing Expanded. He also received a special thanks acknowledgment for supporting the Academy Award-nominated film The Apprentice in 2024, demonstrating his commitment to the broader independent film community.
Currently based in Los Angeles, California, Dorian focuses on both film and music while maintaining a careful balance between professional intensity and personal life. He has spoken openly about mental health challenges and how they influence his creative output, offering insight into the psychological authenticity of his work. Known for keeping several rescue cats, he combines a private, grounded lifestyle with rigorous artistic practice. By consistently exploring identity, fear, moral ambiguity, and the tension between satire and sincerity, Jesse Dorian has built a body of work that reflects independent storytelling rooted in psychological depth and artistic range.