We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Jason Spicer. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Jason below.

Jason, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Earning a full time living from one’s creative career can be incredibly difficult. Have you been able to do so and if so, can you share some of the key parts of your journey and any important advice or lessons that might help creatives who haven’t been able to yet?

It started with only wanting to create just to create any money that came from it was just an added bonus. People would offer to pay me, which helped me realize that I could monetize my skill. I started as an airbrush artist, which put me in the realm of creative customer relations and learning how to satisfy a client by bringing their visions and ideas to reality. That slowly turned into a graphic design career , which then turned into a web design career. While doing websites for a wide range of clientele, I would run into photographers and local magazine companies. I would shadow the photographers often, retouching their photos and adding cool manipulations to their photos. After a while, one magazine company gave a proposition, that they would give me a camera and I would take their pictures and continue to manage their website. As I continued working with photographers, I also wanted to make a name for myself. That was when I realized no one was aware that I was the artist behind many of the edits I would create. I discontinued any retouching and editing work with photographers and focused on building my own brand. After a year or so working with the magazine company and doing multiple promotional videos for them, I decided to start Eyeroc Media, providing photography and video services. At this point, I was still working a regular job. It wasn’t until the desire to create more often came into conflict with my normal occupation. One major step was when the ultimatum of quitting my steady check for freedom of creativity and monetizing my craft became and serious question. and accepting that the excitement from the creative work would likely take a back seat for a while in order to pay the bills. That was when I knew that the sound of a paycheck would come knocking again. I didn’t not jump without any cushion, I did wait until I saved up three to four months of expenses before jumping and I had to make sure my order process was legit from visiting then website, custom quote forms, payment processes, invoices, execution and delivery.

I was not only doing photography and videography, but still doing graphic, logo and web design. I was pretty busy until the larger budget clients started to pour in. That process only started after I did many collaborative projects that were often free work. That’s when I learned how to make time from collaborations, which also fed my creative spirit and kept my motivation high. The process couldn’t have went any faster as I was fully committed each day. What could have changed the pace would have been to begin focusing on one niche and not several all at once. From what I know now, I could have recognized the amount of people willing to collaborate and the resources that were at my finger tips that were overlooked because the bills needed to be paid.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

My earliest memory of being an artist was 11 years old, it never left since then. It stayed with me throughout my life, taking many forms. In high school is where I made a small name for myself as an artist by drawing and Airbrushing portraits for people for a profit. Well-known airbrushers visited my school one day and I was able to show off my current level of skill. They offered me an apprentice at their shop where I would then work for the next 5 years. That is where I built my clientele and my name as an artist in the city. The clientele there would range from painting mural to doing logo and graphic design, I built a pretty good base of people who knew my name as an artist. That is where I would meet photographers to shadow and clients for web design, on the basis that these where people who were in the beginning phases of their business, therefore pitching a website came without much pressure. That is where I learned how to carry out good business practices. When it came time for me to introduce myself to being a full time entrepreneur I had a healthy amount of confidence. Eyeroc produces videography projects and movie narrative projects and myself as the director. Being the photographer for the Cleveland Cavaliers dance teams was my first big milestone and big client. I worked with them for 3 years before moving to Florida.

After that I focused on editorial photography where I learned how to execute directing others all the way from the view finder itself. Moving forward, the effort that I once drove into being an entrepreneur for is now going into Film Directing. Collaborating on shooting short scenes and films continues to be a major goal. , while we work on a feature film title “Delphi City”. I’ll be taking everything I’ve studied and using it to it’s fullest with directing, from the grit and grind life of working full-time, my understanding of directing and editing and on-set experience and above all, art. Eyeroc is still the entity providing narrative video services, but the focus now has been on directing shorts and movies.

Is there mission driving your creative journey?

Artists and creatives often go unrecognized for their brilliance. This includes actors, comedians, musicians and dancers. I’ve witnessed many creative worlds who all share the same sentiment of being unappreciated or taken advantage of. With the rise of Ai, there has never been a better time for artist to wake up and get ready to pour harder in society than we’ve ever went before this means pushing the limit and reaching the edge. Not only will creatives not go unnoticed but what will be produced will/should shock the world. Bring back the appreciation of personal creative expression and the longevity of real art and the beauty that it produces.

Can you talk to us about how your funded your business?

Calculate your next year of expenses and how much it’ll cost , save that up, work on your work order processing to delivery. Work for free and collaborate, Build your portfolio. When you finally get the portfolio and confidence to step out, Rent!, rent what ever you are capable of producing at whatever speed and quality you feel you can handle, do so by renting the equipment and materials at a cheaper rate and just include it in your pricing. This will not only help you make a little extra money, but also work with others for a decent price while gaining experience. Your prices should always increase over time, not only because of the ever-growing financial environment around us , but also so that you can find your value. Eventually, you will have a decent price sheet based on industry standards sprinkled with what you feel your value is worth. This may seem like its directed towards media, but in theory it should apply to most business that starts with offering a service to clients.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.eyerocmedia.com
• Instagram: instagram.com/eyerocmedia
• Facebook: facebook.com/eyerocmedia
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jason-spicer-329b6993

Image Credits
1st image ,Steven Fage. 2nd image, Elizabeth Potter and Jow Bach, 3rd image, Katie Kim 4th image, John “Fabz” Fababe