We recently connected with Joey Min and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Joey, thanks for joining us today. Can you open up about a risk you’ve taken – what it was like taking that risk, why you took the risk and how it turned out?

I think, one of the most obvious life changing risk I took was to go all in into being a Youtuber.

But the truth is, long before YouTube even existed, I was already telling stories. In my younger years, I was that kid with a camera, filming martial arts shorts and sharing them on Myspace or niche filmmaking forums. This was during the time when you had to pay for web hosting just to get your videos online.

It wasn’t about fame. It was about passion. About the love of storytelling and martial arts.

Then in my 20’s, through the combination of bad genetic lottery and injuries, my life took a turn for the worse with health issues one top of the other. And for years after, I was unable to shoot videos like I did or even practice martial arts.

But despite all of that, I was still editing what I could; everything from video game videos, machinima, or using legos and RC cars to still craft narratives short films.

Eventually, I reached a point where I had to ask myself: If my health is going to be a ticking clock, how do I want to spend what time I have left?

So, I jumped.

I quit everything else and poured all of myself into YouTube. I uploaded vlogs, martial arts tricking videos, fighting game tournaments; anything that let me craft and share stories again.
Over time, people started to join me.
First for sketches.
Then for short action scenes.
Then actual short films.

Most of those people have come and go, but the ones that stayed….they became family to me.

As someone who spent much of their 20s isolated by disability, trusting others was its own kind of risk….
But they have been one of the greatest treasures in my life.

And so, those Youtube comedy sketches evolved into short films.
The short films took us to film festivals.
Those festivals led us to make a feature film.
And that feature film opened doors for us, from distribution deals to eventually making action scenes for a major movie.

Every step forward was built on the first leap of faith: choosing to chase a dream that felt just out of reach for average people like me.

To be honest, I don’t know how it will all turn out since I’m still on my journey but if there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s this:

You will fail.

Again and again.

But if you’re persistent, if you keep moving, you’ll learn to fail forward. Every fall brings you one inch closer to the goal.

And then one day, you fall forward, one inch past the goal.
It was really never about talent or luck, you learn all of that along the way when you’re failing forward.
It was always the drive, to chase the impossible.
Then part of you realizes that chasing the impossible, is what makes the impossible happen.

Joey, 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?

Hello! My name is Joey Min, and I’m the creative lead at Art School Dropouts, an independent filmmaking group focused on martial arts action-comedy. We primarily share our work through YouTube, where our sketches, short films, and features are all available to watch for free.

You can find us at:
🌐 artschooldropouts.com
📺 youtube.com/artschooldropouts

Our creative roots are deeply inspired by legends like Jackie Chan, Sammo Hung, Lau Kar Leung, and Jet Li. We’re passionate about preserving and evolving the genre of martial arts action-comedy…a style that seems to have faded from the mainstream, but one we believe still has so much to offer.

Beyond filmmaking, martial arts is a shared foundation among us. Despite coming from different cultural backgrounds, styles, and disciplines, our dedication to the martial arts connects us; it’s at the heart of everything we do.

On our YouTube channel, we don’t just share finished projects.
We open the doors to our entire creative process. From behind-the-scenes footage and pre-production insights to client work like martial arts promos, tournaments, and even industry gigs on major films.
We aim to be transparent about the journey – both the highs and the lows.

Our goal is to not only entertain but to educate and inspire the next generation of action filmmakers. We share what we’ve learned, the successes, the mistakes, and everything in between so others can take what we’ve done and go even further.

Thanks for checking us out, and we hope our journey can be a part of yours.

— Joey Min
Creative Head, Art School Dropouts

Is there something you think non-creatives will struggle to understand about your journey as a creative?

I think the best way I can explain my purpose of my creative is just that: purpose.
i think as humans, we all value purpose but in different types of way.
Believe it or not, I do have a science background and I completely understand both form and function.
Filmmaking, more or less, is the adequate application of problem solving in EVERY regard.
Especially for no budget filmmakers like us.
While creative insight is boundless and unlimited, creative expression is not.
We only have a finite amount of money, talent, time, etc.
So when you resource-less you have to be resourceful.
That means what you see in our videos that express storytelling and aesthetics have to be backed with structure and utility.

But in the end, both sides of me (the creative and the logical) still have a desire to make something that -matter.-
A beautiful shot.
An efficient system to support our filmmaking.
Both are 2 sides of the same problem.
Creativity NEEDS structure to thrive, and structure OFTEN benefits from creative solutions.

And that’s my purpose: to entertain and to inspire through our stories, our cameras, and a couple of punches and kicks.

We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?

Quality over quantity.

That’s something I used to live by… and to some extent, I still do.
Though over the years of running a YouTube channel, that mindset has evolved into something I believe fits even better:

Quality -through- quantity.

It’s a phrase that, I think, martial artists especially can relate to.

When we finally committed to taking our YouTube channel seriously, we set a release schedule and stuck to it.
I made it my mission to upload a new video every single week. I kept that up for over 10 years; and yes, not every video hit the mark.
Some weeks, I knew I was releasing something that didn’t meet my own standards.

…but that process taught me something deeply valuable, something I had already learned through martial arts:

Discipline will take you further than inspiration ever will.

It’s easy to create when you’re feeling motivated, but showing up when you’re tired, sick, or discouraged (and still filming, editing, and uploading) teaches you something else entirely.

It teaches you self-respect.
It teaches you to trust yourself even when things aren’t perfect.

You learn to grow not just from your best work, but from your worst days (and videos, lol) too.

You also start to see that failure isn’t the end – just a new route.
The more wrong turns you take, the better your instinct becomes for finding the right path.
And over time, all those repetitions, those imperfect efforts, shape you into something sharper, stronger, and more capable.

That’s why I believe in quality -through- quantity; because every attempt, both good or bad, is a step forward.

And if you keep showing up, the quality will come.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://artschooldropouts.com
• Instagram: @thatguyjoeymin, @artschooldropouts
• Youtube: https://youtube.com/artschooldropouts