Videographer in Wake County, North Carolina

When pondering what filmmaking means to me, I think back to a mixer at a film festival in Oregon, where I lived at the time. Another filmmaker and I discussed where we were from, to which she asked if I was born in Oregon. “No,” I replied. “I was born in North Carolina.” She briefly looked confused and then said, “Oh, so you’re actually from North Carolina.” The question of where I’m from has always bothered me because it’s difficult to justify being from two places on opposite ends of a country at the same time. While it’s easier to answer the question now that I live in North Carolina with my extended family, what I do know is that filmmaking and audio/video technology have given me the chance to grapple with the nuances of locational disjointedness. Growing up in Oregon, my life was largely shaped by the intersection of technology and the arts. As I became more enamored with the fine arts, I also started learning the ins and outs of videography and audio/video technology. My first formal film gig, taking video for the high school football team, got me out of the house during the summer and encouraged me to use my technical skills—and more importantly, my leadership—to make video relevant to football players and coaches. My abilities to teach, help, energize, and build community with other team videographers led to my first ever promotion, to the team’s video coordinator. Now a freelance filmmaker, I focus the bulk of my films on different topics and stories that have emerged from my travels between my upbringing in Oregon and my extended family in North Carolina. For example, my recent video essay, The Seven Sins of Whiteness, came from a combination of my experiences as a privileged white man in Oregon and the political discourse I engage in with my family in North Carolina. Another film I made, A Word on Purple Cows, was based on a family mantra of thinking about purple cows instead of counting sheep when trying to sleep. Using film to come to terms with the differences between my lives in both states truly immerses film into my life and accentuates how much movies and images articulate my own life story. Within this often chaotic but always exciting film journey, I’ve become very comfortable with the technical sides of video and with working across the genres. I have proficiency in Adobe Premiere Pro and DaVinci Resolve and my camera experience ranges from an iPhone to a DSLR camera and even a drone. My portfolio not only shows my technical capabilities as far as editing, sound design, color grading, and artistic composition, but also demonstrates my experience in video art, short narrative films, documentary films, and video essays. Some of the films I take part in have stories; others have arguments or wonderings; and some even have no concrete narrative at all. Regardless of the film genre or structure I’m taking on at a given moment, I take on every film with as much dedication as I can and don’t take lightly the act of announcing my work as “complete.” Depending on the nature of the project, I have worked both collaboratively with others and individually as a one-person crew. As an extrovert, I enjoy working with other people if the opportunity arises. When collaborating with a crew—and more specifically, with actors—I work to establish an energetic, welcoming environment where everyone can expect to be treated with respect and dignity and where appropriate boundaries are upheld. For projects where my stubbornness may supersede collaborative creativity, I’ll take a one-person crew approach that gives me control over my vision with comments from in-progress screenings informing my next steps. Switching between individual and collaborative settings has helped me figure out how to prioritize tasks and know how to maintain realistic expectations of my projects based on crew size. All of this is to say that what I bring to the table apart from experience are strong collaboration and leadership and a passion to help others bring their stories and truths into the spotlight. My own story wouldn’t have taken me where I am today without audio/video technology and I would be humbled to join you on your artistic and technical odyssey.