How the filmmaker as well as the artist Dan Covert built his creative career
"Nothing's going to happen on its own," Dan says. Dan. "The easiest way to make your reputation is to keep creating products. If it's just giving a lot of favours to friends who make items to stay on the right track as a filmmaker."
This ethos has led Dan to have a brilliant career which has allowed him to win awards from AFI, SXSW, and clearly Staff Picks. " It has helped shape our careers"" Dan tells Dan. "That sounds like a lot of fun however the reality is that it's not. It's unlikely that we'd have an public audience for the things we've made. We just bought cameras and then learned to create objects."
A few days following the publication of his film " Geoff McFetridge: Drawing a Life," which won the Audience Award at this year's SXSW and we had the chance to talk about his process with Dan about his creative process and the most imaginative stars he has seen from north. Take a look at highlights from the chat above and read the full conversation below.
Your first position was a graphic designer. What was the path you took to go from there to feature filmmaker?
Dan Dan: We founded the company in 1996. It was originally a graphic design company that later transformed into motion graphics company which later became a production business. It's been a long process. Along the way we designed shorts along with a handful of these were staff Picked to be worn .
This was an experiment and trying to find out what our sound was as a business and directors. Then I was turning 40 and always thought, "I'm going to make films someday." And I was thinking "Maybe I'm not ready to begin making films until I've started." This is why I started looking for stories and the film came up.
16 years is a lengthy time for making the products that are made in this industry. What motivates you to keep working?
Dan In reality, it's actually enjoyable working on this. Up until recently, I wasn't like, "Oh, there's going to be a major blast-out when my job shifts and I'm at the Oscars." I don't think about it. It's like, "Am I having fun now? Do I have fun in the car?"
If a strategy is put out in the open, you can't predict how people respond to it. It's the same with "Did I do the most effective possible decision that I could? Are I spending time working alongside people whom I respect and admire? Are we trying to be honest and authentic?" I'm a constant irons in the fire type of person. I am the owner of a company. I am a commercial director. I've been producing this feature film for a while. I'm pretty good at my work-life balance. However, it's really about slowing down the activities I enjoy and after that I say "We'll take a look and see where it takes us."
In contrast, I'm less concerned about the " the places they go' aspect because it could cause you to die. In the final analysis, do you really consider it important if you're famous or accomplished? That's probably not something you'll think about when you're 80.
What's your own unique north star?
Dan Dan: We're constantly refining this, but this is actually a form of telling stories. This is craft and visual art. It's a bit mysterious terms, yet they have a lot of significance. This is like asking, "Can you tell a story?" Most of the time, people are able to come up with an idea that isn't fully developed and storytellers are in the process of telling the narrative.
The concept of commercials and art is that they're opposing forces, but they're not the most extreme scales. It's more about emotion and conveying that emotion using gorgeous cinematography. We all have our own individual voices. The thing that most excites me is the story and character.
How can you collaborate to develop a name that doesn't compromise your goals?
Dan In the beginning I would always think "Oh they're hiring me to do the work they're looking for." Then, in time I realized "No they're hiring me to help them and I'm sure in that I'm capable of doing." This was a major change in my thinking about the needs of their clients as well as the vision they had. It's still an important aspect, but then the more and more I've grown as an executive, I've realized that people come to you with a individual voice. They're asking you to consider the complexity and think like, "What you guys need to be doing is this."
Do you know of any names you'd like to partner with?
Dan It's difficult because I do not have an interest in this kind of stuff. It's like "Is this a pleasurable exciting project?" A few of the projects that were the least boring tasks I've ever been assigned are now the most fascinating task. I produced a film which revolved around a font researcher from Syracuse and was a Staff Pick video we did. The plot revolved around a guy living at the basement who came across the font, and Pentagram changed it into the logo for Syracuse University. This guy is amazing. I'd like to speak to individuals like him.
Everyone wants to be a part of Nike as well as the other great companies. It's fun but I love hearing about these amazing stories, and kind of making them an audience.
I never learned how to become a director. It was a huge validation in my work as a creator to have 300,000 people in just a couple of days, to watch this film that we made. It's like, "Oh, my God." You know what I mean? It was never produced as short films. The film was created as a project for a client and was edited lightly, after which I noticed the crowd.
Dress Code is on for quite some duration. What is keeping you from leaving the site?
Dan The HTML0 platform will be the place where every creator can be seen by those who admire our work. A lot of this stuff involves short-films and self-financed by popping small trial balloons. And then other filmmakers get to see them. The result is usually a surprise. Somebody from an ad agency may call you to say, "Hey, we saw this thing. Are you able to handle this commercial venture for us?" It's like a one to one. When we're operating in such a manner, the right people will be seeing the issue, and they'll be able to elevate it and giving us an opportunity.
Where do you look for inspiration?
Dan Dan is the source of most inspiration for my art. It's true that I don't scroll through as much video. It's exhausting and I'm trying to replicate my experiences that I see, so I make the time to search for things that are very different from what we normally do or look through commercial feature papers or look at images and techniques.
What's the best advice you've ever gotten?
Dan: There's a quotation from Steve Martin where he says, "Be so good that they won't even be able to be able to ignore your." It's always loved this. This is similar to how the majority of people would like how to build things and get it done. Where for me it's more simply about gradually putting effort into creating an impressive portfolio of work and then being successful enough that other are likely to notice.
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