Behind-the-scenes

Putting together a portfolio has been a project that started years before being what you see now thanks in part to the nature of the work I do (excluding photography), which require at the minimum some weeks/months of production and can sometimes span several years. Funny to think there has ever only been one project present on more than one version of this portfolio; that realization reminded me of my progress across projects I have been through over school and contractual jobs, and the way this website has kept morphing in new ways to represent my most recent position as a creator. This one is the third iteration of the portfolio, but the first which I do not feel overwhelmingly self-conscious about advertising. Regardless, it is important for someone in the field I am in to put themselves out there, even if that can mean being publicly dissected; or even worse, unseen and unheard.

So here goes nothing in the shape of a blog. Why? I think a lot of the work I do can be somewhat opaque on my specific involvement in them because of the spectrum of my technical and practical abilities. Seeing the final product doesn’t exactly say what I do on them. In a similar vein, a lot of other things I do are passing under the radar that are as important to my development as what does get some limelight. Background experimentation unequivocally feeds my practice; things like image editing and post-production skills, prototypes that haven’t seen the light of day, or things as “basic” as writing or doodles. This is a way for me to render what I can do to be easier to understand for potential clients/collaborators or people who have an interest in what I do. I hope for this blog exercise to help clarify, especially to myself, how these skills and interests go back to the same central objective of my life, which is to be something of a professional storyteller.

Alas it isn't a legitimate job title (RIP childhood expectations), so the path there will most assuredly have its fair share of challenges. Because my skill-set is diversified, one thing I have been mulling over going about my life and interests was the idea of being a jack-of-all-trade, which depending on where it comes can have a positive or negative connotation (maybe that’s just me?) I’ve been increasingly worried that doing too many different things could possibly be more of a hindrance than help from an outside perspective. Especially when seen through the lenses of certain well-delineated fields such as film-making, one of my passions.

But, ultimately, one must make one’s path to the best of their abilities, and this in the face of whatever hardships one finds themselves in during their time. One good way for me to do that, it is now clear to me, is by keeping a journal of some sort, something I’ve completely been suggested by reading articles on the likes of Bruce Lee and Virginia Woolf in my sore lack of originality. Like them, I’ll sometimes try to play with words in a way that will definitely make me sound like the biggest nerd; unlike them, in this interconnected era, done publicly rather than privately, this procrastinator's trick to creating some form of urgency. So please bear if you would with this at times ridiculously formal way of expression: I am in a state of becoming, and cannot help myself.