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

David, appreciate you joining us today. Let’s start with a story that highlights an important way in which your brand diverges from the industry standard.

I think one of the big things about the creative industry is that we are so focused on our creativity and expression and we are so driven to perfecting out work because it’s our baby! And I’m constantly doing that myself, where I self evaluating the project and go chip away. Is there something I could have done better from a story standpoint, a lighting stand point, a performance standpoint etc. Because our work is a representation of us and most of the time we are our own critics. But once I sat in on a marketing mastermind with one of my clients and I’ve began to see how other sectors of the world see the medium of video and now I’m all for trying to bridge that gap between the business sector and the film industry sector and have those conversations that educate both parties. I think there’s definitely a middle ground where visual storytelling and business outcome can come together.

David, 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?

So my name is David Yang, my friends call me Sheep. I’m a gaffer turned Director and owner of DenimStitch Creative. We are a group of creative rebels dedicated to fueling brands and agencies with unapologetic narratives. Our focus is on brand stories and helping businesses resonate with their target audience. We want to tell bold authentic stories that businesses can proudly back up and say: “yup that’s us!”.

One of the cool things we currently do is we are constantly trying to commit to help one small business each month for free to create a 1 min or under piece to help them elevate their brand image to their audiences. I think that really helps build confidence for them but also we get to create portfolio pieces that we are proud of when money isn’t party of the equation it can really become just like a collaborate project we used to do in film school where everyone is there just to create a work instead of worrying about the other stuff. Recently we worked together with Morning Baseball an up and coming baseball clothing brand that seeks to bring great clothing for the baseball fans around the US and we helped them create a brand video to help them kick start a strong launch for their 5 AM Club drop.

We’re really not for everyone. We want to work with clients who are fostering a community and being true to the imperfections in their brand and understand the value of authentic storytelling through video.

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

I think it’s just being genuine and straightforward in your communication. Realizing that you are there to essential solve a problem from what we do best and love — creating visual stories. Also having systems and processes in place and always improving upon your work and process. These are the things that carry us out, we don’t want to have clients we want to foster relationships and understand what they are trying to accomplish and how to emotionally communicate that through cinematic narratives.

Is there something you think non-creatives will struggle to understand about your journey as a creative? Maybe you can provide some insight – you never know who might benefit from the enlightenment.

I think one big mindset change is understanding the difference between hiring a videographer and video production team. I constantly hear businesses address our work as “oh they’re my videographers”, or “that’s my cameraman”. In truth they are very different things and carry complete different skill sets. I don’t have videographers on my team. We have trained professionals who specialize in a specific sector of video production just like how a company operates you have different departments that specialize in their own sector. So a lot of my communication between clients is also figuring out do they just need a one man band to do it all for them, or are they looking for an actual team to execute a bigger scale project that requires expertise and man power, because I’m all for helping make it affordable and sometimes cutting down the team to 3-4 crew members is all you need while other times hiring a videographer is going to be the best bang for your buck. And we can make those recommendations. We rather you find the right fit than come back days later with buyers remorse. We want to build relationships with clients that can trust us and understand what they are getting in return not force a marriage.

Contact Info:

• Website: denimstitchcreative.com
• Instagram: @David.y.sheep
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/david-y-52449aa6/

Image Credits
Jia Xu Angus Cheung Carrie J. Liu Lydia Lee