We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Jason Charbonneau Charbonneau a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Hi Jason Charbonneau, really happy you were able to join us today and we’re looking forward to sharing your story and insights with our readers. Let’s start with the heart of it all – purpose. How did you find your purpose?
I spent a long time in post-secondary education trying to decide on a career path. I began an undergraduate degree in history thinking that I wanted to be a teacher. I did well in school, and eventually decided that I wanted to become an academic. However, a year into my Masters degree I became disillusioned with the academy as an institution, and made the bold – and perhaps foolish – choice to pursue my passion for recording music. I spent all my savings doing a one-year program in audio production, only to become disillusioned with the music industry as well.
I eventually found work in audio post-production, and now have a successful career as a foley artist, but I still wanted to do something that allowed me to apply all the skills I’d learned in school. Starting my YouTube channel, Think Anomalous was my way of doing this. Every video requires a great deal of historical research, which I turn into a written script, applying the research and writing skills I learned in University. I then record and edit my own narration, applying the skills I learned in audio school. Editing video has been another skill I’ve learned along the way.
My path was not exactly a straight-forward one, and at one point in time I felt like I would never be able to reconcile the two paths that I had taken in life. But it was precisely through combining the disparate skills that I had learned to I managed to find my purpose and my passion project.
Thanks for sharing that. So, before we get any further into our conversation, can you tell our readers a bit about yourself and what you’re working on?
I earn my living as a foley artist, which is a person that makes sounds for film and TV. Foley sound includes all the sounds made by an actor and his or her interaction with the environment. Every time an actor walks across a hardwood floor, or picks a glass up off a table, for example, someone has to re-record that sound in a studio. A foley artist is someone who watches a new show or movie and performs these sounds in front of a microphone – by putting on high heels and walking in place on hardwood surface, for example. I have been fortunate to work on a lot of big projects in the ten years I’ve been doing this, including The Last of Us, Everything Everywhere all at Once, and Dune: Prophecy.
In my spare time, I run a YouTube channel called Think Anomalous. We make 20-minute documentary-style videos offering a comprehensive review of various topics in anomalous phenomena (what we commonly call the paranormal). We cover UFO sightings, hauntings, cryptid sightings, among many other topics. There are many channels in this field on the internet, but I feel that we stand out for the depth of research that we do, and for the fact-driven and level-headed way that we present the information. Many viewers have told me that this was the first channel they found that was professional enough to share with others – especially their more skeptical friends. I also make a point to cover topics that other channels don’t, and to introduce my viewers to alternative explanations for various phenomena. Many viewers have also commented that Think Anomalous changed the way they think about UFOs, for example, and about anomalous phenomena in general.
The research I’ve done for this channel has led me to write a book on a wave of UFO sightings in 1896 and 7. I’m in the final stages of my research for this book – tentatively titled, “Flights of Fancy,” and I hope to have it published in another year or so.
There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?
I think my work ethic has been my greatest asset. Work ethic is everything. You’ll never get better at anything if you’re not working on it. You need to find the time at least a few days a week to hone your schools. My channel is doing fairly well now, and I think we produce quality videos, but we only got there but I spent hours and hours and hours honing my skills.
My writing skills have also been very helpful in life. I learned how to write while producing a 120 page Masters Thesis, but even though I never became an academic, I’ve used this skill on an almost daily basis ever since. Whether I’m writing an email, or writing a chapter in my book, being able to communicate effectively and elegantly has been tremendously helpful.
Finally, I think it’s very important to learn to be okay with falling short of your own expectations. Especially in creative pursuits, you get better at something by producing more and more iterations of that thing. Your first few iterations – or few hundred, perhaps – will never be as good as you want them to be. But if you never finish it and move on to the next one, you’ll never improve. I’m embarrassed by many of my earliest YouTube videos, but I know that they were all part of the journey to where I am today.
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?
Being well rounded is very important on a personal level, and you will always benefit professionally from learning different skills or areas of knowledge. However, on a professional level, I think it’s important to master one skill, or one group of skills, rather than to try to be a jack-of-all trades. This is especially true when it comes to creative content. We live in a time of abundance when it comes to media and entertainment. Markets are absolutely saturated with content, and as a content producer, it can feel impossible to get noticed in this environment. But one way to stand out is to do your thing better than everybody else.
There are many channels on UFOs and anomalous phenomena, but Think Anomalous stands out because we do more research than most, and always ensure that our videos contain details you won’t find anywhere else. This has helped me secure a relatively high number of donations on Patreon – my viewers really feel like they’re supporting something special.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.thinkanomalous.com
- Instagram: https://instagram.com/think.anomalous
- Facebook: https://facebook.com/thinkanomalous
- Twitter: @Think_Anomalous
- Youtube: https://youtube.com/c/thinkanomalous
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