Bentley Bentayga

Earlier this summer I had the opportunity to work on two spots for Bentley. Our director was Greg Williams and it was shot by John Lynch. I learned a lot on this job about what it takes to make great work and how to handle things when they aren't going right. It definitely was a learning experience.

I am not a videographer

During the beginning of my career I was often called a videographer. At the time the title didn't bother me and I was just happy to be getting work in a field that I loved. I was thrilled to be making work that people could engage with.

However, as my career has unfolded I have fallen in love with the work by directors like Chase Jarvis, Vincent Laforet, Philip Bloom and Eliot Rausch. I was blown away by the content that they were making and how they were sharing their perspective on the world that we live in. This is just a small list of the people of who have inspired me to grab my camera and capture the world that we live in. But the biggest thing that stood out to me was how they referred to themselves as filmmakers and not as videographers.

Ultimately, this has had a profound impact on me and how I view my craft. Filmmaking has always been a creative outlet for me. It has provided me the opportunity to share my thoughts and opinions about different issues and the world that we live in. It has also given me the chance to create different pieces of content that brings a brand's perspective to life.

This viewpoint has given me a certain perspective in how I ultimately refer to myself. I've always viewed myself as a filmmaker and not as a videographer. I have nothing against videographers. I've worked with many talented ones during the course of my career. However, I would rather be referred to as a filmmaker instead.

In my mind a filmmaker has a certain perspective on the work that they are creating. They also have clear intentions of the results that they are trying to achieve. A videographer on the other hand may have goals that they are not clear of. 

I know that these are just semantics and may be irrelevant in the larger scheme of things. However, if I've learned anything over the last couple years it's that a person's point of view has a huge influence on shaping one's career and how people view them. 

I want people to view me as a filmmaker and not as a videographer. I want people to hire me because of my ability to come up with ideas that come from a new and unexpected place and not my ability to operate a camera or edit a film.  

LA Bound

Life boils down to a series of choices. Before long, the choices you make and the ones you don’t become you. Bold choices take you where you’re suppose to be.

Let’s make it official. I’m moving to Los Angeles.

Over the last year and a half I’ve been living in Seattle. During that time it has felt like I’ve been searching high and low for opportunities where I can use my editorial, post-production and design skills to make content on behalf of brands.

Unfortunately, I have not found the opportunities that I hoped I would.

A few weeks ago I spent four days in Los Angeles and talked with people at different commercial post houses and ad agencies. What blew me away was the sheer volume of opportunity that exists down there compared to Seattle. It seems like on every street there is people making work that matters to them.

This is completely different from Seattle. I’ve always viewed Seattle as a creative city, but LA exists on a completely different level.

Honestly, I would rather stay in Seattle. I truly love the city, including when it rains. However, there is nothing stopping me from returning to Seattle in a few years when I have some experience under my belt.

Ultimately, I don’t believe I’m anywhere near the success that I hope to achieve in my life. I believe that I can accomplish a lot more that what I’m currently doing. I believe that moving to LA will put me in a position where I’m surrounded by other motivated, hungry and creative individuals like myself. I see it as a chance to collaborate with people on a more regular basis and create work that means everything to me. I believe it’s a chance to create work that will help take my career to that next level.

There are no promises in life. I don’t know if this is going to work out. However, if I don’t try this I’m going to ultimately end up regretting not trying later on in life. If I find myself in Seattle in a few years I will be able to take comfort in know that I tried. I plan on making sure that it doesn’t come to this.

Let the adventure begin.

(Note: This date might slide change a little. There will be more news soon.)

The Future

Let’s be honest, The world as we know it has changed.
Our economy has crashed and tried to rebuild itself.
Different world governments have failed to fix our debt problems.
People are concerned about the progress that we are making compared to the rest of the world.
Things seem to be improving, but many are skeptical on the progress that we are making.
People seem to have a lot of doubt what the future holds for us.
Despite all of this uncertainty and confusion we have never had an opportunity to shape the future like we do right now.
We have the opportunity to change things and add value to the world to the make it a better place.
But we have to make a choice. 

We are either part of the solution or part of the problem, but it’s up to us.
The world has changed, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t use our creativity.
We need to be like Oakland Athletics General Manager, Billy Beane.
Beane was upset to constantly loosing to teams with bigger budgets.
He also wasn’t satisfied with how the status quo viewed baseball. 
But he was able to change how the game of baseball is played forever.
Ultimately, businesses need our creativity.

Now has never been a more exciting time to be in advertising.
We have the ability to shape how people view things and help create a better world.
Advertising is one of the most powerful mediums on the face of the Earth.
It’s also one of the most hated.
People feel invasive and impersonal.
People are tired of seeing it everywhere.

Ultimately, the business needs to change.
We will still be creating ads for a long time to come.
But the concept shouldn’t be restricted to the creative department.
It should be something that manifests itself throughout an entire organization.
We need to find other ways to help different businesses and engage audiences.
The future of advertising will be about creating experiences.
This shouldn’t be restricted to creating print, tv, and digital executions.
We need to become innovative and create products and services that enhance people’s lives.

Now is our time. 
Let’s be innovative and use our creativity in new and interesting ways.
Let’s create work that touches people and changes how they view the world.

Out with the Old. In with the New.

This has been a long time coming but I've finally redesigned my website. Realistically, I should've done this over a year ago.

After I completed my internship at Fallon I made the decision to pursue a career as a Filmmaker rather than becoming an Art Director. I'm extremely passionate about advertising. I believe that it's an incredible agent of change and has the power to help people see things in new and unexpected ways. However, during my time attending the VCU Brandcenter and working at Fallon I learned that I'm much stronger working on the production end and helping agency creatives bring their visions to life. 

For the last two years I've been pursuing this. Unfortunately, my website hasn't reflected what I'm trying to do in my career. Many people were confused if I was an Art Director or a Filmmaker. Over the last year I've been slowly rebuilding my reel and trying to create work that shows people what I'm capable of making. But more importantly, I've been really trying to create work that shows my perspective on the world that we live in. 

In conclusion, this is a new chapter in the evolution of my work. I hope you will visit occasionally and check out the different projects that I'm working on. 

Happy Fourth of July

Happy Fourth of July Everyone!

I hope everyone is having a safe and happy Fourth of July with friends and family.

A few weeks ago I finished a project for the Wenatchee Valley Let's Have A Blast Celebration. They came to me wanting a short video that they could use on their social channels promoting the events taking place at this year.

Ultimately, I wanted to make this different from the the projects that I normally work on. I typically do a lot of corporate documentary work and I really wanted to make something that really relied on typography. I also wanted to use edgy music to grab people's attention.

Overall, I'm pretty happy with how things turned out. There's a lot of things that I learned and would do differently in the future. I also hope to do more like this soon.


  

Goals

It takes me a while to wake up in the morning. After hitting the snooze button a few times, the first thing I tend to do is grab my phone and check Instagram and Snapchat. Over the last couple of weeks I've been frustrated after doing so. 

Honestly, I feel like I'm not living up to my potential. Every day I see updates from my friends who are working at ad agencies all over the country and they are doing amazing things like working on commercial shoots, going to Cannes, or winning Gold Lions. Meanwhile, I'm struggling to find freelance opportunities in Seattle, find new clients and other work.

Something has got to change. I'm capable of so much more. I want to make work that people enjoy and engage with. I also want to make work with people who are smarter than myself and who challenge me on a daily basis. There is also so much that I want to learn, but I've found that I learn best when I'm surrounded by like minded people who are constantly pushing me everyday.

I need to do something different. I don't want to think that all my hard work over the last couple of years has been all for nothing. But if I don't change something here really soon I may have to do something else. This is something I don't want to think about. 

I'm determined to make this work. I love being creative and making stuff that people find engaging. But more importantly, I don't want to limit my potential and the work that I hope to make in my career. 

Time to focus on the work. More to come later.

 

2015 Reel

This has been a long time coming, but it's finally here.