We were lucky to catch up with Thomas George recently and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Thomas thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Let’s start with education – we’d love to hear your thoughts about how we can better prepare students for a more fulfilling life and career.

I’ve always had a love/hate relationship with school. On the one hand, there’s nothing more profoundly fulfilling than learning for the sake of learning, the issues start arising when we need to commodify and homogenize the learning process. Our education system has the impossible task of serving a vast, unique, and diverse set of students with a rigid curriculum and methodology that they need to uphold.

All of this is to say that each individual learning needs to supplement their, largely, carbon copy education with learning that invigorates and fulfills their curiosity. In addition, these rigid guidelines lean towards socially acceptable outcomes in terms of joining the labor force, being a product member of society, and providing quantifiable value to our economy. All of these things are valuable in a capitalist society but are much less so to an individual with hopes, dreams, and complex life experiences. The sad truth I have felt and seen is that a disdain for our education is often conflated with a disdain for active learning as well and that the key, soft skills to being happy and fulfilled human often don’t fit within the numbers of a democratized education system and that’s a really sad thing. If you’ve made it this far, all I can say is it’s no one’s fault, but the onus is on you to learn how to enjoy your life and fulfill your passions.

Critical thinking is a buzzword that echoes from door to door in every classroom in America, but not one that most people critically think about. When you start to really dissect the things that the people, messaging, and society are telling you in a more critical way it does start to become apparent that the skills you are graded on within the education system count for frighteningly little in the “real world”.

With that in mind, the big changes I’d love to see implemented at all levels of education are a greater focus on mental, emotional, social, and financial development and the re-introduction of passionate learning for every student.

For the former, teaching anything resembling what a traditional parent’s role is going to have a hard time making it through the school board, but it is essential that people be prepared to be the stewards of their lives once they come of age. This means implementing more dynamic evaluation into an individual student’s academic profile by incorporating more than just test scores. Instead of waiting to get a “reference” until applying for college, students would receive more education, assessment, and support when it came to their sociability with other students and their mental well-being. In addition, it’s vital that a baseline of information be taught on financial competency. It is important that young people are aware of the vehicles that exist to support them throughout their lives rather than remaining ignorant unless their parents feel it is important. Too many people become indentured in cycles of corporate and monetary servitude because of a lack of knowledge and exposure to financial education. I know these ideas raise countless other issues, but let me spin a bit further.

For the latter, passion is not a term you often hear associated with our education system. People are forcibly taught the subjects that are deemed “valuable” without a thought to their inherent interests. I believe there can be a balance to create more individuality in the classroom and increase student’s passion for learning, without compromising educational standards. My thesis is simple, even if you aren’t interested in memorizing the year that the Gutenberg Printing Press was created, how many electrons are present in Boron, or the first ten digits of Pi, I bet there is an aspect of these subjects that could be of interest to each individual student. Maybe you aren’t into European history, but you’d love to explore the history of hip-hop music. The idea here is to find ways to weave learning for pleasure into learning for value and find a way to reclaim learning and education as a positive experience that people will carry forward for the rest of their lives.

Again, putting aside Pandora’s box of infinite other chain reactions resulting from changes such as these, our education system does not prepare us to responsibly have a life and find meaning and purpose in our passions which is a real shame. I know in my life, it took graduating to realize the immense opportunity afforded by being a student to gain experience and explore my interests without my next rent payment leering at me from around the corner. Maybe I’ve taken this prompt too off course, but I truly feel that the root of many issues that persist in our professional landscape, and even in my profession (the film and television industry), can be traced back to what our education told us to prepare for in the “real world” and what the Real World actually demands.

I’m not in academia and I’m sure I’ve written an essay here that would make my High School English teacher cringe, but I do feel strongly and passionately that young people’s student years are the most critical time to explore their interests and passions, find out who you can be in our complex and ever-changing world, and discover a lifelong love for learning that will carry you to fulfillment in whatever industry you set your eyes on

Thomas, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

I’m a Los Angeles-based cinematographer and producer, specializing in narrative and commercial storytelling. Originally from Wisconsin, I love the excitement of a new project and am always looking for the best way to realize a director’s vision through my intimate knowledge of lighting, camera, and visual storytelling. I am experienced with and passionate about digital and film cinematography. When not behind a camera, I’m a pizza and frozen yogurt fanatic, a frequent chess player, and ping pong enthusiast!

Is there mission driving your creative journey?

As a creative my goal is not one that is always the best to promote, but F it. My motivation comes entirely from being able to be present and focused on my family in the future. I’ve worked with people in the past who told me stories about the sacrifices in their personal lives, especially in their marriages and with their children, and I realized that I would rather spend a day doing nothing with my family than be remembered for some legacy-defining piece of artistic work. This doesn’t mean I put any less passion, energy, and focus into my work and, on the contrary, I feel having a real personal life elevates my work by giving me more inspiration to draw from and replenish energy reserves to pour into my next project. What this mindset means is that when I get to the end of my working career, my life and success will not be measured by the staying power of my work amidst an ocean of equally talented voices, but instead will be measured in the depth and wealth of my personal relationship and family.

We’d love to hear the story of how you turned a side-hustle into a something much bigger.

My side hustle didn’t turn into my main business, but it did turn into a much bigger part of my business than I ever intended. Film productions always need equipment, so buying and owning rather than renting becomes an attractive solution pretty early on. Because I was always working with cameras and lighting equipment but everybody and their grandmother owned a camera, I decided to get into owning lighting equipment to use on my productions and occasionally rent out. Through just working on my own productions and occasional projects through my network and via word-of-mouth, this rental side of my business has expanded 10x over and is a core tenet of my business when for the longest time it was just an after-thought that turned profitable.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.thomasgeorgedp.com/
• Instagram: @thomasgeorgedp
• Other: Instagram Production Company: @allaprima_prod