Skipping Ahead

I’m going to jump ahead here because I want to acknowledge how grateful I am for this moment in time…

I’ve had three meetings in the last couple of days with friends about helping them with their businesses with the skills that I’ve developed over the last almost decade. The first was a local market that felt like the corner stores that my grandparents would take me to and I get to help them promote their thing with my things. The second was a friend who is releasing a book soon and I am going to be her media guy and help her to blow up this book launch

And then, just now… I met with a company that I have gotten to know across the bar as a bartender here in town. They’ve been kind of privy to me relaunching my media business and my desire to be in the golf space for drone cinematography, videography, and photography. He is showing me around his office and his production space and talking shop and I said, “Hey, what is your relation to this tee company?” And he kind of blinked at me and said, “I invented those. I own the patent”

Back story on why this is so cool for me. I picked up golf somewhere in college. I love it. I love it more than anything I’ve ever done. I. Love. Golf. And I’ve always used this particular style of tee. And I’m standing in the office talking to this guy I consider a friend and I had no idea that THIS MAN was the person that invented the thing I’ve been using the entire time I’ve been golfing. And I’m here to talk about do drone, video, and photo work for this company

I played it cool. I left. I sat in the car. And I cried happy tears. I get to do this. I. Get. To. Do. This. I am so exceptionally grateful for all these skills and all this time and effort that I’ve put into this craft. I get to use my skills to help people that matter to me. And I get to do really cool stuff with them and for them. And this is why, when I was lost and had no idea what I was going to do with my life, I didn’t give up. I knew that tomorrow could be better than today and I had the power to make it my reality

And here I am. I was thinking on the drive over to the office that this is the first version of my life that I have actually enjoyed. And then that happened. There is ✨ magic ✨ all around me. In this town. In these people. In my head. There is absolute ✨ magic ✨ if you are able to tune into it

That’s all from me for today. I’m having a wonderful moment in my head and I am so thankful and appreciate of everything and everybody that has gotten me to this moment

P.S. I forgot that I get to work remotely for the old brewery back home still. The baby that I helped to raise… I get to keep helping it grow. And that’s fucking rad too

The Back Story…

So, this is how it all began…

I wanted to start this blog to document my story about becoming a drone cinematographer, videographer, photographer, graphic designer, editor, and digital artist. I remember being six years old. We had just gotten our very first computer in 1993 and I was playing in a 3D drawing program and I was completely enamored with what I could do. And I had absolutely no clue what to do with this new found computing power. I vividly remember making all sorts of weird shapes and designs and loving it but having no direction whatsoever

Fast forward to 2016 and I’m in the middle of a career change. I have no clue what I want to do with my life at this point, but I know that I have always loved photos and videos. I am watching YouTube videos of all these digital creators all over the planet. Some of the bigger creators are paying videographers to make videos for them. We have entrepreneurs with camera men following them around to document and create. And I thought… I need to get a piece of this pie. If I want to travel the world and make videos, I need to learn how to do this. At this point I had some amateur photo editing experience and I had made random videos in the sports and fitness world for personal use, but I had never thought I would want to actually do photo and video work. In fact, when I had purchased the computer I was using four years prior I had said, “Yeah, I don’t need any more computing power. I’ll never do photo or video work” and boy was I wrong

Anyways, I went to Best Buy and bought a little “creator kit” for my phone that included a tiny tripod, a clip on lens, a microphone, and some other random things. It was trash. I had no idea what I was doing. I started to record myself doing random things and making videos to learn how to use the editing software. I put myself through what I called “YouTube University” by watching any and every video that I could watch and trying to replicate those things. I made a bunch of really cringy videos that I will probably never let anybody see again. I spent about a year doing this until I bought a budget stabilizer and monopod for my phone and made some videos with that. The footage from the stabilizer on the monopod looked like a drone and I had my first video go viral of a sunset near my hometown. A friend said, “Looks like you need to start a business” and I did. Matt Brinker Productions was the first name I operated under and I made a bunch of other small videos that people took a liking to. They were also trash and will never be seen again, but everybody starts somewhere, I guess

That’s where I will stop on this first post. I plan on posting a couple times a week about what I’m doing and how I’m dealing with it, as I have now become a full time freelance creative. More soon… Stay tuned…