We recently connected with Timothy Kline and have shared our conversation below.
Hi Timothy , appreciate you sitting with us today to share your wisdom with our readers. So, let’s start with resilience – where do you get your resilience from?
If you ask me what resilience is, I can’t say for certain what it is because resilience is unique to each person. I learn resilience through my life experiences. However, if you asked me what it isn’t. I can tell you what it isn’t I’ve seen resilience in every form and I know for certain that it’s not manipulation but there were times I used to think it was. Because, you know movies have shaped my life. You watch characters take revenge and sometimes I’d think it was the result of resilience. For instance, I wouldn’t be resilient if somebody stole a bunch of money from me and my solution to the problem was I went after them and threatened their family and they gave it back to me. And then I’m like, oh yeah I’m resilient. I got through that problem. But like, how did I get through that? In that situation I’d have gotten through that by lowering myself to something that I’m not. And that’s a point about what resilience isn’t to me, but also what it could be to me or what I have perceived resilience to be in the past.
Through experience I’ve learned resilience is really one thing and that’s absolutely taking a pounding to the face and getting back up and knowing that bigger failures are your biggest advantage in your power pounding. You’re like just absolutely getting pounded to a pulp and like instead of like putting your tail between your legs and taking off in the other direction and making fear based decisions. You get up, you wake up and you brush yourself off and take another punch to the face. And you do that so consistently that the outcome is that everybody perceives you are what you’ve made yourself. And that’s a person who is able to take a Mike Tyson punch to the face and keep grinding.
I recently had an identity theft that hit me pretty hard and I think is probably the biggest pounding I’ve ever taken in my life. I would get up every day and try to troubleshoot this problem. My whole approach was ensure that I was prepared to take another pounding in the future. I went and I read about the law, I learned about what the FDIC and the OCC could do and couldn’t do. This happened to expand my knowledge base, adding valuable wisdom to me as a CEO. I gained experience that could potentially not only help me be prepared for the future and learned better self-defense from this fight. And now having walked through this, I gained the purpose of sharing my experience with you guys or with another person who needs my help. So if someone else is going through this adversity, I hope I am able to give them some hope or if they’re about to get punched or they got punched. I can then reach that hand down, pick them up and say, look here, this is what I did.
What I did is I got back up, shook myself off and I licked my wounds and I got back to my business, I got back to helping people. I got back to being of service to others and got back to doing the things I love to do and spreading that passion through my company. True resilience for me is the ability to not let any adversity affect my core values.
Appreciate the insights and wisdom. Before we dig deeper and ask you about the skills that matter and more, maybe you can tell our readers about yourself?
I started I started in like the L.A. scene in Hollywood as a really, really terrible “extra” …like seriously bad actor. I had a friend I grew up with back in Maryland. He called me one day and was like “my agent needs extras”. And I was like, ok…sounds cool. And he’s like, “don’t you want to know how to pays”. And I’m like, No, I’m there, you know? So I would I would drive to L.A. from San Diego every day and just go do this “extra” gig for 100 bucks. The productions wouldn’t pay you until months later. Back in those days it was like 100 dollars could make or break me in like a second. The funny thing is the money didn’t matter because when I was on set my eyes lit up and they got wide. All of a sudden, my heart started beating in rhythm for the first time. Once I got on that set it was just the coolest thing ever. Not far down the line, I started looking at the guys with the cameras and I was like man these guys get to play with the coolest camera toys ever. And just like that knew I wanted to do that for the rest of my life.
I just didn’t ever care how much time and effort I needed to put in, or how much money I made. I looked at it from the lens of; even if I needed to work for free, at least I’d still be creating. What I did from there was on every set after a 12 to 16 hour day of being an extra. When you’re waiting for your cue to be on camera for like 2 seconds. I would help the production crew break down their gear and I would help them carry their stuff to the car. They would tell me about the tools of their craft while I was helping them. It was awesome! I just learned so much from them that by the time I actually got one of those cameras in my hands, somehow I knew exactly what to do with it and how the mechanics worked. More so, I could see a vision before everything I shot. Of the full production start to finish. Almost like a blueprint that is factual and true the moment it hits my consciousness At that point it is just execution and having the right tools to bring it to life. Similar to washing your hands. You consciously know what needs to be done and subconsciously know exactly how to do it. Samsies goes for video production. It Just happens wether I want it to or not!
At that point in my life, I wanted to learn every single thing I could about digital cinema production. So I learned lighting, I learned CGI, video editing, cinematography and color grading soon after. I got into being a director later down the down the line. There was just no stone that I left unturned because if I stopped trying to learn and grow…then I wouldn’t be fulfilling the promise I made to myself to be on a film set for the rest of my life. I was so grateful to be on working on these sets that I didn’t even know that I was acquiring this massive skillset! And by the time I started going on set and directing, I didn’t even know I was an actual director. It had became such a natural part of life that on occasion someone had to remind me to introduce myself as the director. I kinda figured out the rest after that and still chuckle about it to this day.
Over the span of ten years I developed Hilo Motion Pictures. The name comes from the Polynesian word “Hilo” which to the general public translates to: “Navigation by the stars”. Its a word that came to life as they would row hand crafted boats from Island to island. However after attending a professional surfers (friends) funeral in Hilo, the elders translated it into this.. Navigation by the stars utilizing the light from within. I got chills up and down my spine and had goosebumps for months. I could not get this word out of my head and after a move from San Diego to Orange County California, I rebranded my original company to Hilo Motion Pictures. In the beginning it started super small and was just myself and my childhood friend from Maryland. It was just me and another guy shooting, editing and then as we got on the sets in Hollywood, I was like “this sets are super huge and there’s so many people. In my mind, it seemed like “the more people on set” the slower things go. But I believed in myself and I knew, I could do this on a small scale with 3-4 guys and it was it was like the biggest hail mary I have ever thrown. But, you know, I did it! And I did it really well with the help of an amazing team and some unusual suspects. and yeah, my good friend from Maryland Wes. Dude taught me everything I know and has been a mentor to me for as long as I can remember.
One day when I realized I actually have a real business now and there was one thing on my mind. What I wanted to do was to take everything I disliked about the way I was treated or the way I saw some things in the industry that segregated everyone and to do things 100% different. I didn’t care about business models or even having an LLC. At that time and to this day I just care about how people our team is treated and how we treat others we partner with. It wasn’t like I sat down and I wrote these vows down. It’s just a part of my being. So it’s an imperative for me to integrate these personal values of kindness, fairness and service into my business by making people feel included every second and every step.
As I mentioned, I used to wait months to get paid when I would shoot on film sets and so many times I was barely making rent. Having money for food and I would set every other life choice aside for the willingness to be involved with the film industry. After that, when the business took off, I started writing business checks for the people on our sets which included every crew, team and cast member. It doesn’t matter if you’re on set, you’re getting a check that day. And I would hand write every single one and sign them the night before just so every person walked a way with an envelope filled with a check they could cash that day. Meanwhile, I’m eating government cheese and peanut butter sometimes mixed with a “little” Top-Ramen. Everyone authentically appreciated it so much and just thought that it was the coolest thing ever. I used to hear “nobody has ever paid everybody on set” from people as they leered at the check in disbelief while probably checking if it was “real”. Reluctantly to this day, every single check has went through! When I got a glimpse of what something so small does for people in the way of making them feel included, making them feel understood, or just making them feel heard and seen, I found a miraculous motivation for my existence. Smiles! Big ones! And a ton of gratitude for people I naturally loved and actively treat like my brothers and sisters. The people I’ve worked with would just do anything for me! And just because I treated them like friends and family. We share a common thread of human connection and decency. With that particular connection is in place, it is the source of all the positive and loving vibrations that surrounds me and it was the catalyst for the immense growth within our company Hilo!
If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?
I have acquired an immense amount of skills on the production set. But nothing in comparison to the deep sense of Empathy, kindness, compassion and overall natural sense of human connection. Its everything. I don’t even really know if I am good at what I do. But I know how to meet people on their level and lift them up. Or if they don’t need lifted up, just to be a kind ear to listen to them as they work through their life situations themselves. Just being present with no judgment. Nothing is bad or good. It’s all experience and it’s all a journey. So being able to be there for someone, even if its the 3am call has spawned a unique ability to grow in that area for the greater good of everyone I every come in contact with.
The best advice I can ever give is to learn to accept the universe, our earth and the people in it on their terms. It creates a balance and a circle of life within everything I have ever done. Acceptance of everything in the moment and seeing what I can do to bring light into it. The obverse doesn’t work. Ive tried it! It ends in a ball of resentments towards entities and people that only end up toxifying my life. Peace and serenity in everything I do causes me to be teachable, a partner, a director while still being part of the crew.
Alright so to wrap up, who deserves credit for helping you overcome challenges or build some of the essential skills you’ve needed?
From where my business was at in the early 2000’s and where the business is at now is such a huge contrast its amazing. I’ve had a lot of help. I’ve had a lot of mentors and I am grateful for them all. My All star team: Taylor, Ed, Viet, Corey, Ivy, KJ, Deb, Bart, Trevor, Alex, Pedro, Brandon and most of all Wes. They are also my biggest support! The true cornerstone of everything. My existence was just to be of service, to just have some inclusion, you know, to not make certain people eat one buffet and the other one catering. You know, I order food for everybody. And everybody’s a family, everybody’s the same and people super dig that. Nobody sits alone at lunch, If I see you sit alone I’m going to go over to you and I’m going to say, hey come sit with us, come sit with me, or, you know, let’s chat about life. So those principles of kindness, fairness and service have been an absolutely monumental part of not only growing the business, but also becoming the director I am today.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://hilomotionpictures.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/hilomotionpictures
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/hilomotionpictures/
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/hilo-motion-pictures
- Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/hilomotion
- Other: Vimeo: https://vimeo.com/hilomotionpictures
Image Credits
Taylor Jazz Ivy Jane Klein Rachel Ramos
