How To Be A Creative
Photo by Evan Paterakis
Want to know how I choreographed a music video that has over 120 million views? Want to know how I storyboarded a national broadcast campaign? Well, it looked a lot like the arts and crafts projects I did in the third grade.
Growing up, I was homeschooled for a few a years. My parents made the choice to move out of the suburbs, a little closer to the country, and buy a house on half an acre. We were about a 30 minute drive from any major grocery store, but my brothers and I had all the space we wanted to run around and build things. On the property, there was a small guest house, which my parents converted into a room for our schooling.
Thinking back to the four years I was homeschooled, I remember a disproportionate amount of time spent on arts and crafts. Drawing, painting, coloring, scrapbooking, photographing. My brothers and I would finish our “real” school work as quickly as we could in the morning, then start making things. Our parents were incredibly supportive of this, and always tried to give us the materials we needed to be more even more creative.
One of the most memorable days of my childhood was when my dad came home from Best Buy with an analog-to-digital camcorder and a computer that could edit videos. From that moment, my brothers and I were hooked. We filmed choreographed sword-fighting videos. I created comedy and narrative shorts. My brother made a 6-part claymation series, loosely based on Star Wars, called “Blob Wars.”
But this is far from a prodigy story. Our creations were not artistically compelling. Most of the video files got corrupted. But somehow, all of this taught me that if I had an idea I could probably find the materials to make it happen. They were either in the garage, in the school room, or in my dad’s closet.
As I grew into high school and college, I worked on bigger creative projects. Student films for competitions. Live rock shows and music videos. Singles and EPs. Ads for campus events. Things began to get a bit more artistic at this stage. A bit more compelling. But again, it’s not like Scooter Braun drove out to hear my music. I played for 40 people in a dusty room with bad lighting. It was all local.
This story would be a lot cooler if at some point I had any idea that I could become a “creative.” But none of this seemed meaningful at the time. There were no career hounds telling me I could be a “creative,” so I just worked aimlessly, jumping between majors, trying to make sense of my existence, distracting myself with more creative projects.
During my senior year of college, I interned at an advertising studio. I saw a lot of people making creative projects happen every day as a job. During this time, my cousin approached me with an idea to create a social media management company and start pitching small businesses and artists. I’m glad he did, because right after college this caused me to go all in on my creativity. We wrote copy, developed strategy, curated images, booked photoshoots. While this business was far from a success, it gave me a little taste. Maybe this creative thing was possible for me.
Flash forward a few years. I’m creative producing projects alongside Jeremiah Davis for some massive artists and brands. The rest is history. Creative production and copywriting is what I do now. I’m a “creative.”
So, let’s go back to my original question. How did I storyboard and map out campaigns and music videos? Sticky notes. Popsicle sticks. Printed cutouts. There’s nothing magical and special about this. It looks a lot like it did when I was in third grade.
I write this blog to encourage you. If you’re a creative person, there’s a place for you in this industry. For every nine people who say they aren’t creative or artistic, there’s one who is. There’s one who drew cartoon characters in her notebook. There’s one who wrote poems about his friends. There’s one who sang cover songs at the school talent show. There’s one who recorded long-since-corrupted video files.
There are a few who had the confidence to turn their creative ideas into reality. And those people can have the coolest jobs in the world.
