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

Jonathan, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. We’d love to hear the backstory behind a risk you’ve taken – whether big or small, walk us through what it was like and how it ultimately turned out.

The entertainment industry can be glorious, frustrating, exciting, scary, but often more than none it can be so rewarding! I ask myself this question often, and that is “Jon is it all worth it? Everything we’re doing, the time we sacrifice, the dedication to making films, is it all worth it?” The answer will always be yes. I’ve found not only my passion in life but my purpose also. These two go hand in hand, and thus when questioned of the thought of giving up or to keep going. I can whole heartily say I’ll never give up because I love it so much. Yes there will be films that I create that won’t register for everyone, but there will be ones that inspire many. I know that I’m going to hear a hundred “No’s” before I hear that “Yes” that’s life changing. However you won’t see any of that if you give up. In anything you do to become better, you’re going to fail at first. That’s a part of the journey of becoming great! With each failure comes a new level of knowledge that wasn’t there before. Never giving up with each failure only leads to you getting closer to success.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

Open Gate Studios was created in 2012. It was really rough in the beginning as with any new business, because we didn’t have anything to show clients of how we operated behind the camera. Slowly but surely things began to pick up by us receiving work for music videos, photo shoots, special events, commercials, weddings, show reels, films, documentaries, etc. What sets us apart from the rest, is that you get amazing quality of work that’s compared to Hollywood for a fraction of the cost. I’m proud of myself for not limiting my knowledge to just directing. My talents include cinematography, editing, producing, writing, and now VFX! Challenges occur everyday, but with each challenge I become even better once I conquer them. This year alone I believe we’ve filmed more weddings than films lol. Which is ok, because the funds from the weddings go towards the bigger productions we have in mind. I’m getting ready to finally film my first feature film along with some other forms of media that i ca not speak on just yet. Next year focus is going to be EXCITING!!

What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?

One of the most rewarding things to me is seeing the finished product come to life! I believe every creative understands the tedious process involved in making art as a whole. From per-production all the way to final cut it’s a long process and can be very draining. Problems arise and you have to solve them if you want your final product to be everything you envisioned . However once its all said and done, you get a breath of fresh air and big sense of accomplishments in knowing you finished what you set out to do! I ca not tell you what that joy feels like in seeing your film on the big screen!! Something you created from nothing turned into something is truly priceless.

What can society do to ensure an environment that’s helpful to artists and creatives?

Well as a society we can help creatives thrive by letting people know that there journey is not going to be the same as though they see online. I see a lot of people compare themselves to others and become depressed because they are not on there level. Or that they feel they envious that others at a certain level and they are not. We really need a place for us to talk these feelings out and to deal with it, because all it does is boil up inside and will then blow up with some form of outburst usually in physical and verbal damage. Platforms need to create a campaign to deal with this because it’s only becoming worse and worse every year.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.opengatestudios.com
• Instagram: @opengatestudios
• Facebook: Jonathan Armour or Open Gate Studios
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCma9TTYGqAnULj6Cg0EDRig

Image Credits
Open Gate Studios