We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Josh Rech, Seth Deming, Garrett Black, Dan Kapper, Lucas Mroz, Ariel Báez. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Josh Rech, Seth Deming, Garrett Black, Dan Kapper, Lucas Mroz, Ariel Báez below.
Hi Josh Rech, Seth Deming, Garrett Black, Dan Kapper, Lucas Mroz, Ariel Báez, great to have you with us today and excited to have you share your wisdom with our readers. Over the years, after speaking with countless do-ers, makers, builders, entrepreneurs, artists and more we’ve noticed that the ability to take risks is central to almost all stories of triumph and so we’re really interested in hearing about your journey with risk and how you developed your risk-taking ability.
Josh: There have been some risks that have been pretty scary for me to do. But when I image a life without taking risks seems boring. I’m such a future thinker, so I’m always looking further down the road for my decisions in life. I kind of play that movie in my mind when I think, should I just work a steady job that I know can pay well, or should I take that risk and do what I really want to do and feel made to do? And that paired with the foundation of my life, which of my relationship with God, I feel freedom to make those choices, because I know He will take care of me and my family. And it’s really helpful to take risks from this place even when I’m terrified. Practically speaking, it was just little choice by little choice in the film world. I was sweating thinking about sharing my short film ideas with other people. It felt so vulnerable. But I was able to take that small step and find people who were interested in doing the same things. Then I took another step and asked if a bunch of people wanted to get together to make a short film for a few days. Then my wife and I decided to invest money into making a short film. We had no idea where it would go, but it was a really fun surprise. The short film didn’t really go anywhere. We made it into two or three festivals and got a couple small awards, so there was some disappointment on that end. But what we did get out of it was so many amazing friendships. I’m way happier about that outcome than any awards. And that was really the start of our film production group called “Write Film Edit”.
Let’s take a small detour – maybe you can share a bit about yourself before we dive back into some of the other questions we had for you?
Write Film Edit started as a group of friends with the simple goal of making filmmaking fun again. Most of us have been in the video industry for a while. And we got into the industry in the first place because we all wanted to create movies and tv shows. But then life kind of happens—you have a family, you have to pay bills, be a grown up. And even when you do work on film sets, it’s not fun and people can take themselves way too seriously. It’s way too easy to get burnt out in a space like that. So we asked ourselves how we can do it differently. How can we make it like when we were growing up and making (terribly bad) movies with our friends? And then how can we bring other filmmakers into that process with us. We currently have a number of comedy short films on a Youtube channel called “Write Film Edit”. And we are now taking the next big step of producing a feature film which we’re currently in development and fundraising. We are aiming to raise at least a million dollars which is the biggest thing we’ve done.
Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?
1. Selflessness – Our whole group is for one another. We root for each other and we ask how we can help the others out. And sometimes that has hurt us in making decisions in not wanting to run each other over, but it’s been a great environment to create in. Start small by looking for someone else that you can help, even if it’s just giving them feedback or encouragement.
2. Filmmaking – Everyone in the group works at such a high level in the industry, and has worked really hard to gain specific skills. And you really need those practical skills if you hope to be consistently creating great work. No matter what industry you’re in, you have to be doing, creating, making, studying, and practicing.
3. Being okay with failure – This is killer for perfectionists like some of us. If you’re waiting for the perfect project, timing, and the perfect outcome you’ll never get started. We have to be okay with putting bad ideas out there. And we saw YouTube as a place to practice that skill of just making and sharing our work. Just take one step towards your project. Create something small. Share it. See how people feel about it. Getting criticism is one of the hardest things, but it is a shortcut to success.
What do you do when you feel overwhelmed? Any advice or strategies?
This is different for all of us, but there is one common thread that I’m sure all of us would answer. That would be reaching out to one another. The six of us have a Marco Polo group—the video messaging app. We talk about a lot of our Write Film Edit projects on there, but we also use that space to be real with one another when we’re feeling overwhelmed or whatever the struggle may be that particular day. Since we are in different areas now (cause Josh is a traitor). we have started doing a “retreat” twice a year just to hang with each other and connect on a personal level. We are able to share what we’re struggling with and pray for one another and see how we can practically help each other out, we laugh constantly when we’re together, and it’s the best. We’re not made to do life alone. Everyone has things to give away to one another, so find your people and be brave and share your life.
Contact Info:
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/write_film_edit
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/writefilmedit
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