We were lucky to catch up with Adam Olinger recently and have shared our conversation below.
Adam, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. We’d love to hear about when you first realized that you wanted to pursue a creative path professionally.
I was around 12 years old when I went with my mom to “Jurassic Park” at the theater in 1993. I was instantly pulled into the brilliant story Steven Spielberg brought to life. That was the first time I really felt the magic from watching a movie. Granted, I grew up with Star Wars, Superman, The Goonies, etc. but that day at the theater with my mom really hit me. I knew right then that I wanted to dedicate a good chunk of my time talking about movies and creating my own entertainment for people to enjoy.
Adam, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?
We open in a quaint hospital room. A fresh-faced newborn has just been placed in his mother’s arms. His entire future is ahead of him and he can already see how it plays out in crystal clear detail. Okay, I’m joking. We don’t have to go that far back nor did I know anything as a stupid baby. Here’s a bit about me.
I’m 42 years young with a wife and two kids, that for some reason continue to get older. I have been with my wife (Lyndsi) since high school so there are zero secrets or surprises left in our marriage. I also joke around a lot (See previous sentence). I joke around arguably too much. That said, life is fleeting and serious people should rethink their lives!
I currently work two jobs (like a lot of folks). My main title is “Senior UX/UI Designer and Front-End Developer” for an awesome direct marketing agency, Infinity Direct. I’ve been designing and coding websites for around 18 years (I’m not that young). I think the job you want to hear about though is my YouTube career or whatever we can even classify it as. My YouTube carnival ride? My YouTube shit show? Feel free to come up with something. I started a YouTube channel around 14 years ago. A buddy and I debated films on a show we called “Movie Feuds”. I wanted it to be like a modern Siskel & Ebert since I really enjoyed their no-nonsense approach to film criticism. I thought that the internet could use something like that but more modernized. After a few years, my co-host dipped but I forged on. Rebranding the channel name a few different times, adding new shows, constantly making changes; essentially doing everything you shouldn’t do on a YouTube channel.
I think a big thing that separates me from other content creators is that I truly always have done my shows because I love doing it. Up until this last year or so, I always considered it a hobby. A hobby that makes some side income for the family. Now, I take it more serious from a business standpoint but I never lost my joy for making the content. I am far from the most popular critic in the space but I have one of the greatest groups of viewers out there. I think that’s because they know I’m in it for the love of the conversation and I genuinely give it my all with my videos.
Since I do love film so much and the entire process of creating something from front to back, I recently wrote a movie script. Now, I had made plenty of amateur films with my buddies over the years but to sit down and craft a real story was a truly special experience for me. Now I only have the easy part left. Getting the movie made (Again with the jokes)!
It has also been really cool to have actors reach out to me in the space, telling me they are fans of my unfiltered reviews. It’s always jarring to hear someone in the industry say they are a fan of mine. Especially when I just got done watching them in a movie theater!
I should have apologized in advance for how all over the place I will be with this but that’s also a good insight to my chaotic nature. Juggling a family, two jobs and just life in general can be pretty insane. My family grew up in Minnesota but moved to South Carolina 3 years back. This was entirely for the weather since I worked remotely for many years already. This was a much-needed change for my family as we felt ourselves slowing down so a change of environment would keep things fresh/interesting again. It worked! My wife started homeschooling the kids (she was a teacher) and I was able to really focus on growing my YouTube career. Now we are moving back to Minnesota because we got the ocean and sunshine out of our system and miss being miserable in the cold with friends/family. I don’t see us staying there for the long haul but it again provides a bit more of that chaos that keeps us pushing forward to that next milestone. Life is way too short to stay in one place.
What do you think is the goal or mission that drives your creative journey?
Absolutely. I don’t want to get too sappy but I lost my father at 16, just before Christmas. A week or so later, we found a gift in the garage that he had purchased me and was hiding. It was a video camera. My father loved going to the movies. My favorite memories of him revolve around ducking out of school early to go see a film. He was my best friend and he knew I wanted to make movies some day. Finding that camera, hidden away in a corner of the garage, honestly saved my life. I was devastated when he died and had zero will to enjoy life any further. That final gift from a man I truly admired not only brought me out of a dark place but also acts as a reminder of what I’m meant to do. I would be doing him a great disservice by not pushing forward with my goals and giving it my all. When I create a video or write a script, that old video camera (which I still own today) serves as a reminder. If he believed in me, there is no reason not to believe in myself.
Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?
Oh man, this is too easy of a question! I started my YouTube channel over a decade ago. It was a fun hobby that would eventually turn into a second job. Getting to that point though was incredibly taxing but only because I was my own worst enemy. The easiest lesson to unlearn was letting my ego get in the way of my product. When I started the channel, the idea was to battle two movies head-to-head. These videos picked up a lot of stream in the first few years, some of which would pull in a few million views. Instead of staying the course and really making that my brand, my desire to create different types of content got in the way. This was a HUGE mistake. Since I foolishly thought people were watching my channel for me and me alone, I figured I could make any type of content I wanted and they would watch. Had I just stuck with my main show, I would probably be looking at far more impressive subscriber/viewer numbers today. I think at one point, I was producing 8 or 9 different shows for my channel. It got so bad that people would actually start unsubscribing whenever a new video went up. Folks subscribe to channels because they like a specific type of video and voice. Well, when the creator stops giving them those videos or only sparingly sprinkles them in, why should the subscriber stick around? Sadly, it took me 9 years to figure this out. I had to completely retool my channel and offerings. Not only did I cut ties with all those different shows I was making; I actually removed the old videos too. I needed YouTube to understand what the channel was again while also not confusing potential new subscribers. That meant have a clear focus on one type of content and going all-in on it.
Contact Info:
- Instagram: adamdoesmovies_
- Twitter: adamdoesmovies_
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@adamdoesmovies
- Other: https://www.patreon.com/adamdoesmovies
