07 Oct Make things because you want to, not because you ought to

I graduated college in 2001… and every since then, I’ve been making videos for a living at some capacity.  While I was still living in LA, I worked for Motion Theory and we mostly made TV commercials and music videos, but as a part of the edit and tech staff, it was my job and I did that for a living.  When I moved back home, I kind of left that life behind me realizing that Hawaii was not Hollywood so for a couple years, I was mostly back to just making videos and/or taking photos for fun.  It was no longer really a part of my “career”.

After being home for a year, I started getting more inquiries to work on some projects as a freelance editor, animator or tech person… and slowly the desire to turn my creative inclinations in my career slowly crept back in.  From then until now, it’s been one long sprint to turn my passion for video production into my forever job… but somewhere along the way, it started to become all about what others wanted me to make.  Whether it was a commercial project for a client or social media short for Instagram.  Now there’s nothing inherently wrong with that because after all, this is a job… but what I’ve found over the years is that if I stop doing things I want to do and making things I want to make, I can quickly burn out.  The magic in any creative industry is the freedom to make the things we want to make.

Over the last few years, I’ve had the opportunity to tell the stories of some amazing people through a series I created called “Made Fresh.”  It is a video series with the sole intention of sharing stories of Hawaii’s fresh makers… people making fresh things or doing things in a fresh new way.  One of my most recent featured artists in Mylen Yamamoto, the owner and creator of Cropsticks.  I first met Mylen years ago when she was co-working at the Greenhouse in Kakaako and ever since, I’ve been inspired by her creativity and tenacity to build and think outside the box.  Her invention Cropsticks has been featured on Sharktank and is been picked up by Disney Aulani, MW Restaurant and a ton of other sustainably conscious businesses.

As much as I enjoy producing videos for clients, I’m going to push even harder into YouTube and creating more content I feel inspired to make to keep this filmmaker flame burning bright.