We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Christian Klein a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Christian thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Who is your hero and why? What lessons have you learned from them and how have they influenced your journey?

My heroes are the modern film directors that burst their way into the industry by making an undeniably incredible short project with their own time and money. A few examples of this are David Sandberg, whose YouTube short film “Kung Fury” is now getting a feature-length blockbuster adaptation, Gareth Edwards, whose independent feature film “Monsters” got him the job doing a slightly larger monster film called Godzilla (2014), and The Daniels, whose numerous low-budget wacky music videos led to larger music videos for famous artists and then eventually the Oscar-winning feature film “Everything Everywhere All At Once”.

To me, their stories truly show that anyone from anywhere can break into Hollywood if they find a way to make something good enough at the independent level. I hope to follow the same path, and put all my free time into the independent short projects that will serve as my calling card.

Christian, 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?

On the path to creating my own personal films, I have found that I also greatly enjoy the visual craftsmanship that goes into all sorts of commercials, promotions, and marketing content. I’m not a videographer, but I can do almost anything related to the visual aspects of post-production – edit a video, design a logo, animate title cards, do visual effects, etc. I’ve worked at many different scope levels too – from a quick fix for an individual to months-long contracts with large agencies that are marketing huge blockbuster films.

I’m most proud of my ability to spin something from nothing – I only need the slightest kernel of an idea or small set of brand guidelines to get the gears turning, and I always present clients with multiple different concepts/approaches when appropriate.

Any advice for growing your clientele? What’s been most effective for you?

Doing high quality work and being pleasant to work with! That’s how you keep getting word-of-mouth referrals.

Are there any books, videos, essays or other resources that have significantly impacted your management and entrepreneurial thinking and philosophy?

It’s incredible how many resources for learning visual post-production workflows are out there for free online. My favorites over the years have been Video Copilot, Blender Guru, and Eyedesyn.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.christianmklein.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/christianmklein/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/christian-klein-b469ba73/

Image Credits
Chandler Perry