Camera operator, editor and animator Will Brown on striking a balance between paid work and passion projects
Will Brown heads up Visual Creative Films, a video production company producing content across social media, corporate film, advertising and event videography.
What is a typical working day for me? It’s difficult to pin down when you’re self employed and working across several different fields. There’s always such a broad scope of different projects on the go, both personal and commissioned. No day ever seems quite like the last.
I think the key to success – in any creative industry – ultimately comes down to a passion and drive for what you do; and that passion has to be found even during the more monotonous, boring corporate gigs.
Will Brown on location
Visual Creative Films business cards
I strive to strike a balance, dividing my time equally across shooting, editing and animating. It helps me keep my skills sharp. Obviously there are periods of time when you find yourself working on the same project for several weeks, which gets little tedious. I think the key to success ultimately comes down to a passion and drive for what you do, That passion has to be found even during the more monotonous, boring corporate gigs.
If I know I have a large – probably fairly uninspiring – editing project coming up, I tend to try shoot something, or find a creative outlet to dedicate (at absolute least) half an hour to, per day. It was at the Glug Birmingham event earlier this year, themed on ‘Procrastiworking’, where I finally alleviated the guilt that’s associated with pursuing a creative and stimulating project when the grey stuff has a fast approaching deadline.
I think having a quick, easy to pick up creative medium and allowing yourself the time each day to explore that medium is key to preventing burning out when it gets hectic.
Dissimilitude is a useful tool for extracting creativity from a brain overwhelmed by a particularly heavy project, which is where I’ve found my current creative vice: ‘cinemagraphs’.
Aesthetically I found that they give a refreshing new take on the idea of the moving image; a varying mixture of still photographic and motion elements.
I love that looking through the restrictive lens of the ‘cinemagraph’ format. It forces you to think in a way totally divergent to that which I normally would when composing a photograph. It takes me back to the wonderment of holding my first stills camera. Not knowing what to point it at first!