Meet Angel Bandong

We were lucky to catch up with Angel Bandong recently and have shared our conversation below.

Angel, thank you so much for joining us. You are such a positive person and it’s something we really admire and so we wanted to start by asking you where you think your optimism comes from?

My optimism comes from my passion and dedication for my art. There’s been countless times, possibly every other day, where I get anxious, doubtful, or way over in my head about my creations. But I can never find myself quitting or stopping because of how much joy and purpose my art brings me. The ups and downs, the stagnation, is all part of the journey. It’s inevitable, it happens to us all creators out there. You can’t avoid it from happening, or control it, but you can choose how you react and feel about it. As long as we’re excited to create, there’s no reason to doubt or stop ourselves.

Thanks, so before we move on maybe you can share a bit more about yourself?

I go by Angel, and I’m a content creator. I primarily create short form videos on instagram, and some long form videos on youtube.

In my videos, I journal about my feelings about life in an introspective and poetic way. I think the most exciting part of my work is the creation aspect of it. Going out to film, which is an adventure for me because I travel while filming, so everything is quite new to me at the same time. The editing part, and bringing out colour always has me in awe.

The special part about it is that it doesn’t feel like content creation to me, or what you would first think of when you think of content creation. It feels more like art to me, just as much as a painting. They’re visual cinematic pieces of poetry.

My content deeply resonates with nature loving folk, introverts, and individuals that thrive in solitude. If that sounds like you and you wanna check out my content, I’m @angeltalkz everywhere.

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?

I honestly think having a very open mind once it comes to learning and improving your craft is important. Yes, work on it as much as possible, but an open mind will help in developing and finding your style—trying new things even if they turn out bad. It’s part of the learning process. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve failed (at least felt like I failed) on a project, or while experimenting something new. But I would not be where I am today if I didn’t branch out to new ideas, even they seem silly or out of your comfort zone. You really never know until you try. If you’re early in your journey, have fun exploring all creative ideas that come to mind. not all of them will last, but they do lead you to the next thing—which might be the breakthrough you’ve been waiting for.

Obviously, it’s important to master your skills in technical terms. For me, that was getting to know the program and softwares I use to edit, camera settings, and basic knowledge in my creative field, such as photography. Watch tutorials, read books, take a class. Put the skills on the field. Research and experimentation is never a waste of time. Getting a hold of this early on will speed up the progress in your journey.

A recent big one for me personally, has been organization and planning. I’ve always had folders in my notes app of ideas for projects, but I found my vague ideas weren’t enough when it was time to get on the field to film, or edit on my computer. I definitely lost opportunities to create cool videos with better scripts in the locations I wasn’t able to visit on a regular basis. When you feel like you’re ready to get serious about your brand, or a project—plan it down to whatever details you can. What does your vision and end result look like? And how do you get there step by step? It’s so easy to be lazy, but it’s really worth it in the long run. Better quality will get your better results. I think in the beginning of your journey, it’s great to be experimental and spontaneous with your creations. When you feel like you’re ready to create something greater, and solid, this is when I would implement this.

We’ve all got limited resources, time, energy, focus etc – so if you had to choose between going all in on your strengths or working on areas where you aren’t as strong, what would you choose?

I love this question. I think it depends what you want to create for yourself, and how far do you want to go with it. I’ve seen many people benefit keeping their craft simple, and still creating lots of success. I don’t believe knowing less makes you a lesser or less skilled artist either. Ultimately, it does help a lot to work on your weaknesses. I’ve seen the development from myself personally when I was an illustration student in college. We were forced to do every medium, such as watercolour paintings, to digital paintings on photoshop, and live drawings of models for only a few minutes at a time. It did improve my skills, and made me more versatile as an artist. But I was still always able to draw well, and could have got away with just that.

If you have the time and patience to do more, it’s worth it. I’ve explored drawing, painting, photography, sculpture, and graphic design. Currently, my passion is in videography and film, but all those other mediums have made learning this on my own possible, and faster. It comes more naturally to me now to try new things, and even new art forms. And honestly, all visual art sort of ties all together. But if you don’t have the time or interest, or you’re already quite successful with your work—there’s no need! Ultimately, if you’re proud and happy with yourself, that’s all that matters.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: https://instagram.com/angeltalkz/
• Youtube: https://youtube.com/@angeltalkz