We were lucky to catch up with Ethan De Aguiar recently and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Ethan thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. We’d love to hear the story of how you went from this being just an idea to making it into something real.

I started my professional career in the wedding industry working for a local company. After about 2 years I just found myself not enjoying it anymore, mostly due to not being able to fully express myself creatively. It started to feel very formulaic and repetitive. I decided to pursue my passion and go all in on myself, so in January of 2020 I quit the wedding industry and started my independent journey. It was not easy at first, especially since March of 2020 everything went into lockdown because of Covid. Although it was a slow grind to start out, I started to make connections and a name for myself relatively quickly. I was very lucky to work with so many local organizations like New Bedford Creative, Explore New Bedford and DATMA, along with many other local businesses. My network expanded and even though it was stressful because I had so much more responsibilities now, I welcomed that stress because I finally felt like I was where I belonged. I was able to start being more myself through my work, taking creative risks that paid off and started to get my name out there. Fast forward to today, I’ve now worked with almost every organization in my city, met so many other other filmmakers, worked on a bunch of really fun creative projects, created an award-winning documentary, started a film festival and after 5 years, it feels like I’m just getting started.

Ethan, 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?

I’ve always been into filmmaking, ever since my best friend Tim from high school gave me my first camera. I was a skateboarder and had a great group of friends. Everyday, we would skate after school until the sun went down, and I had a blast capturing all of our adventures on camera. I started making videos of our good times and my love for storytelling grew from there. I went to Bridgewater State University to pursue a degree in Communications, but it wasn’t until I graduated that I really started coming into my own. I would film everything everywhere I went. As the years went on and I started to develop my skills more, I realized the reason I love filmmaking so much is because I love stories. I love hearing stories or watching stories and I love telling stories, whether they’re my own or from others. To me, storytelling is one of the oldest artforms we have and it’s very fulfilling to share this gift with people. Everytime I work on a video, it’s very personal and I put a lot of myself and my style into my work, but then I release it out to the world and it’s no longer my own, it’s everyone’s. Awards are nice, but nothing compares to someone telling me how my work made them feel. That 1 on 1 connection this artform creates with people is what I love most about it.

Professionally, I pretty much do it all. I’ve worked on wedding videos, music vidoes, tv series, documentaries, corporate videos, social media videos, etc. I love every aspect of video work so I learned as much as I could about each part of the process and I continue that to this day. I’m always looking to get better in multiple areas and I like being involved in every part of the process in some way. I think my super-power lies in taking a deeper approach to storytelling. I like artists who give attention to detail and I emulate that in my own work. I want every frame to say something. Sometimes a small seemingly insignificant aspect like a subtle piece of sound design or a simple re-framing can have a huge effect on the end product. I try to make every video beautiful, not just visually but with what is being said through those visuals.

What I’m most proud of is the work I’ve been able to do for my hometown of New Bedford. I’ve been able to tell stories about this beautiful magical city and the amazing community here. New Bedford has given me so much and this community is the reason I am where I am today, so anytime I can give back is immensely rewarding.

Is there mission driving your creative journey?

My main mission, especially in my professional work is to remind people that good storytelling IS good marketing. So many commercials and other video works seem to be following the same formula and can get repetitive and boring. I want every videoshoot to be fun, every project to inspire and every video to stand out. I want to make videos that not only sell products or promote businesses but that change minds, get people thinking and feeling more deeply about everything. Whether it’s a serious documentary, a social media commercial or a fun VLOG episode, I want people to leave with something to think about and ponder further once the video is done.

Have any books or other resources had a big impact on you?

One of the biggest influences that really helped me on the entrepreneurial (or ARTrepreneurial) side of things was a YouTube channel called The Futur with Chris Do. His artistic approach to business was as refreshing as it was informative. There are countless videos on there that have served me in many areas, especially dealing with clients and charging what you’re worth, which I know every creative struggles with. His videos are fun and easily digestible. Even though Chris himself is a graphic designer, he teaches things in such a fundamental way that you can apply it to just about every other art practice.

I think it’s equally important for creative business people to foster their creative side and not always focus on the business side of things. A great quote I heard once was “don’t let the artist run the business and don’t let the business man make the art”. You need to be both of those things, but be able to separate them into their own places. One book that really helped me out in this regard was “The Creative Act: A Way of Being” by Rick Rubin. The reflections, meditations and teachings he offers in that book changed the way I thought about creation. It was a good mixture of things I had never considered and things I already knew, but even the things I already knew, he framed them in such a way that it gave words to things I couldn’t always explain to people or myself. I think every person would benefit from reading this book, but especially creatives of all kinds.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ethan.de.aguiar/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ethan.deaguiar.338/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@ethan.de.aguiar

Image Credits

Josh Souza
Nick Doyle
Elizabeth Friar
Ethan de Aguiar