What are you afraid of??

It's time to bet on yourself

Welcome to my first post as a full time creative! It has been five years since I last put all of my effort into my films and work on self-distributing my third feature film “Seize The Carp”. Seize was a “pandemic baby”, if you will. Not filmed, but edited and completed during the height of stay at home orders. Thanks to my post sound mixer, Ben Huff, I was able to learn how to do ADR in my office, but we never had a proper screening or festival run due to the changes that would come over the following years.

Pandemics, strikes, and shutdowns changed the film industry for what I think will be the better. This is where we will start our journey today.

What’s Happening

If you have been following the past few months you currently know that I lost my job at the end of the school year. All good things must come to an end. If you know me personally, I am a cup half full kind of guy. I thrive on change, despite its never-ending supply of anxiety and stress. It’s not easy to embrace, but if you can learn how to lean in there are great things that can happen in the uncertainty. This couldn’t be more true as I write from my new studio in my new house only 10 months removed from my previous new house. Losing my job, my home and my old pup over the course of three months made me reconsider what the purpose of all of this was and how I would redefine my success and journey moving forward. What is the point of life, if you aren’t living.

Last month I took every free minute to throw all of my ideas at the wall and I learned a lot. For one, I started a tiktok which has grown to 350 in only a few weeks and it started with this video.

@bronsoncreativeWhile working on an edit around the history of Broadcast Journalism, I woke to this news. That National Public Radio network offers access to 1000's of stations’ that directly connect their viewers and listeners to the world they. As a rural 80's and 90's kid I was reliant on these services to keep my family safe during tornado warnings in the summer. If we had to wait on a for profit station 50 miles away to cover the storm, we might have not gotten the warnings we needed. This a developing story and the full video will be on Youtube next week. Stay curious and check who you learned from. Even if its me... #npr #pbs #public radio #localaccess #freedomofinformation #stayinformed #medialiteracy

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As an educator and a creator I have been trying to figure out how to combine the two. When in the class I am deconstructing media and its manipulative techniques, and while I create I use these techniques to tell stories. It’s complicated to walk the line and keep myself unbiased, but its a challenge I’m willing to take. I want to have conversations with people that disagree, but time will tell if they want to have conversations with me.

YOUTUBE and Public Access TV

The main portion of my mission, at this moment, is to take education and media literacy to youtube. Let me elaborate. This is the mission but the end goal is to be more community based and forward facing. Yesterday I had a call with my local cultural arts commission to discuss local access television programming for the community. Currently my new town does not have this in circulation. As you can see from TikTok I believe it is important to have things available to a society, even if they cost money and return no financial reward. So what does this actually mean?

I got my start in public access tv when I was in college. Starting at the local PBS in Central Missouri, I would later go on and be the president of my local access college station. We had three live shows that broadcasted to around 15k people all from the basement of a college cafeteria. This studio was put together with hope. Analog and digital, dvd and vcr. Cables everywhere. Did we care? No, we just wanted to share stories and learn about the power of communication with your community. An interest that has been reinvigorated by the news that the Corporation For Public Broadcasting has been defunded. I don’t believe this will remove public access tv and radio, but I do believe it will eliminate the smallest stations in our most rural communities which leads to disconnect from the world around them.

Currently I am putting together my first scripted pieces for Youtube, and my hope is that these shows will eventually be over the air in my community. I don’t care if they make money as the education is more important than the dollar bills. I know that there is a current phenomenon, maybe its been there before, but America’s infatuation with only sponsoring and supporting financial viable creations is leading us away from our collective storytelling. I am creating today for a world that I can only imagine. A world I will most likely never get to participate in, but that doesn’t mean I shouldn’t make it better than today.

So here’s what I’m currently in post production:

1. How’d We Get Here = This long form segment will dive into the complex systems we have created as humans. Currently I am transferring one of my Broadcast Journalism Lectures into a piece on the 24 hour news cycle and social media. What is the Fairness Doctrine? What does Orson Welles, have to do with the entertainment wave of news? Subscribe to my Youtube and find out next month!

2. VLOGS = These behind the scenes videos are diving into the whole process of me starting all of this along with my journey to self distribution of my feature films. You can check out the newest episode below.

3. The Creative Process = This is the show I hope to get on Public Access tv. I am always experimenting and learning new things myself and it is my hope that I can share space with other creatives and inspire more people to bet on themselves. This show will explore analog and digital tools that help people create and sustain in the modern world. I will also be talking about the rise of Ai and other programs. If you have any questions or ideas around topics you can feel free to drop them in the comments below.

4. Live Streams = This is one that scares and excites me. I am planning to do some live editing and writing groups on youtube as I want to make a classroom environment online. Not teaching anymore will change my day to day, and I want to provide a place for creatives to explore and share their work with others in the digital space. Eventually I hope to bring this into the real world as I am currently talking with art making spaces to host these workshops etc.

5. Tutorials and Education = These videos will include basic tutorials of editing, screenwriting and other programs that help creators express themselves. I don’t think this should cost, and so I will be putting more tutorials together for other programs. Let me know if there is something that would be beneficial to you.

HOW TO GET INVOLVED

I know this is a lot but it helps me to have huge goals, even if I know they can fail. Failure has never really scared me, but it has made me resilient. The more life throws at you, the more you learn and grow. This makes me optimistic that 6 month or 6 years from now, this will only be a small blip in the journey. With that being said, if you would like to support then please consider buying or renting a copy of my films at www.bronsoncreative.us

You can also subscribe to https://www.youtube.com/@BronsonCreative so you get updated when I launch new work. I am currently releasing at least one video every week with more coming as this is now my full time focus. If you really like what I am doing then I would be forever grateful if you share this with a friend, family member or, other creative that could benefit from the journey.

Thank you for all of your support and I can’t wait to see what comes of this adventure. Until Next time!

Jerry