I have contemplated a blog for a long time. I always think blogs are a waste of time, and no one reads them unless the person writing them is relatively well known for what they do. I also assume you have to be a good writer, which I don’t think I am. Recently though, as I have gotten back into film photography, I have found myself on so many blogs learning about cameras, film, scanning, and developing. I now realize how much I utilize this information. It is the end of 2020, so if a blog goes terribly, I can still blame it on the year. So let’s begin…
Where to begin? My education? Childhood? How I got to where I am now? Let’s leave the deep dive for a later date and start in 2018. I was walking with my girlfriend, talking about some random thing I want to do, which is a pretty regular conversation. I had been fumbling around with the idea of making a website and finally having a place to show my work. I had a YouTube page and Vimeo, but it never felt professional enough. I freelanced a bit and wanted to expand away from the news station commercial work I had been doing for almost 5 years.
I had a hard time handling the burnout from the long hours in a salary position that had me living paycheck to paycheck. I wanted to do more, have more control, and explore more experimental ways of doing film and video. This was the general conversation my girlfriend and I had had multiple times. I wanted to be more than my name and more of a wide arching concept. I don’t just do commercials. I do video and photography for weddings, you-tubers, products, and businesses. I live stream events, manage social media accounts, work with musicians, artists, and other entrepreneurs to capture their visions. I explore film photography with different cameras and film types. I do work to get paid, but I also work for fun and reach out to collaborate at my own expense. I haven’t even talked about animation and motion graphics. Let’s say I do a lot.
I have been told multiple times I should niche down and not spread myself so thin, and maybe that would help with deciding a name. I think that defeats the purpose of what I like to do. I have never been a fan of my last name. Also, I wouldn’t say I like attaching words to the end of the name like productions, studios, films, etc… like so many others (don’t hate me people with those names). In the end, I had to ask myself, what do I do? And then it clicked, Mike Makes.
You can hear me ramble more on the La Crosse Local Podcast. This blog’s future will be behind the scenes, my process and workflow, film camera reviews, collaborations, and more, so stay tuned!