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

Kendall, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today. What sort of legacy are you hoping to build. What do you think people will say about you after you are gone, what do you hope to be remembered for?

First, I just want to say thank you so much Canvas Rebel for allowing me to share my story. This is truly an honor.

To answer your question, I hope that I can be an individual who is remembered for always protecting their art and creations no matter what. A person who always follows their artistic gut, whether things work or not. A true artist, a true creative knows how difficult it is to be themselves unapologetically in this society. Creatives are often torn down, laughed at, and bullied into following typical societal standards. Many creatives get worn out to the point where they actually cave in and try to act like normal, bland individuals. While I continue to be fearless, I admit I have much fear that this will happen to me. Late stage capitalism is one reason why many brilliant, creative, innovative souls never express their ideas or their art. It’s simply because they don’t have the time or opportunity to. Most of these individuals are likely working a job they hate just to survive.

I will always stand for art, I will always stand for human beings who are about creativity and see things in an abstract way. I will always stand for human beings who question societal norms, instead of those who causally prance through life not questioning anything.

I just want people to remember me for mostly displaying some sort of artistic integrity. A person who loves creating and going outside of the box. In my opinion, it seems people like that are truly only appreciated after they have left this planet.

Kendall, 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?

Absolutely. My name is Kendall Davis. I am a 24 year old videographer and content creator based in Columbia, South Carolina.

I am a 2021 College of Charleston graduate. My years in Charleston were some of my most formative. I grew up a very shy individual, as I didn’t express myself as much. If there is one thing I’m thankful for about college, it’s that college made me get out of my comfort zone. It made me interact with people my age from different backgrounds, something that gave me a high amount of anxiety in high school.

My senior year of college is when I started taking my art more seriously. It was 2020, and Covid was still in its horrid phase.. That period made me realize that life is short, and I can’t keep worrying about what people are going to say if I want to start creating art. 

For years,  I had been obsessed with films. It was something about watching moving compositions and the way a story was told through visuals that just made me extremely happy. Although I love feature films to the core, documentaries are where my heart will always be. I love the realness, and grit of documentaries. Everything was natural, no Hollywood gimmicks were needed to tell the story.

In my senior year, we had a Capstone class. It was the final class you took in your major before graduating. In the second semester, we had to do a final capstone project. This project specifically, we had to tell a story and convey why this story needed to be told. 

After many failed ideas, I finally came up with my project topic. I was gonna do a short documentary on my life. I thought my life was an interesting story that centered around black generational trauma and learning how to navigate predominantly white spaces as a black man. I thought this was a subject that needed to be touched on because I always felt I had faced an identity crisis growing up. I was made fun of for being too dark, yet I still wasn’t considered “black enough” by many peers I went to school with. I wanted to voice this confusion in my project because I knew there were people out there who felt the same, but maybe didn’t have a safe space to talk and voice their feelings.

I also touched on the lack of mental health awareness in the black community and how that affected me. When I was six years old, my birth mother tragically took her own life. In addition, I myself experience mental health struggles as I deal with depression and ADHD. I knew I had a lot of experience relating to this topic and I wanted to express my own trials and tribulations with mental health to a larger audience.

When I showed part of my doc to the class, it was very well received. Some of my classmates even reached out afterwards to personally tell me how much the doc inspired them. I was very honored someone could be that moved by my story. That moment is when I knew I wanted to go into filmmaking.

I’ve been shooting videography content for over a year and half. I started in January 2021 with ZERO camera, video editing, or audio knowledge. I had a vision of what I wanted my content to look like, but I knew I had to put in alot of work to better my craft. My first 5-10 videos I shot were absolutely atrocious. Many shots were out of focus, the audio was always peaking, the footage was often shaky. It was evident I had no clue what I was doing. During that time, I was spending many hours on Youtube researching video tutorials on a multitude of topics. I needed help with EVERYTHING! By the time I graduated in May of 2021, my videos started to look much better. I had a much better understanding of the fundamentals. Over time, I started to invest more money into video equipment. By the end of 2021, I had a gimbal stabilizer, multiple mics, multiple lenses, a tripod and was even taking some editing courses.

I would describe my videography work as raw, with a clean look to it. I try my absolute hardest to have the most cinematic shots, most engaging sound bites, great unscripted moments, but still have a well thought out and executed storytelling structure going one as well.

Along with my videography work, I am also a content creator. My social media related content is mainly a mix of out of the box comedy skits, talking point videos where I explore topics that pertain to things I take liking to such as music, movies, pop culture, social issues, etc.I started doing content creation in April of 2022. I always wanted to show people how funny and entertaining I was, but my shyness and insecurities would always get in the way. 

One day when I was in my room, I just came up with this skit idea on Diddy and how he’s always dancing in his artist’s videos. I ran to a few stores to get the attire right. After that, I just went for it. I was petrified of the response I would get. I had never put myself out there in a funny, joyous kind of way. Before I did content creation, all my video projects were all artsy, serious, and cinematic. But I just had to learn to get out of my own way and just create what felt good in my spirit. Once I uploaded the video to Tiktok and Instagram…BOOM!!! It was a hit. Well, at least to me lol. So many of my peers told me how funny and accurate the video was. That feeling of your work being received well like that was so satisfying. That encouragement is just something special. I know an artist’s work shouldn’t always cater to external validation, but it is nice to see that people recognize your talents. 

As time goes on, I am still finding out the true identity of what I want my video brand to be, but it’s been a heck of a journey being able to experiment with different ideas see how people receive them. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. But the rush I get when I have fully executed a video project is why I love creating.

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

I personally believe non-creatives struggle seeing a world where that isn’t traditional or aligned in “this is the way things are and they will always be this way” perspective. Us creatives are always trying to get people to see the world in different ways and most times we’re not able to get the message across thoroughly. Enlightenment is a difficult thing because one can have all the insight and wisdom in the world, but if people choose not to listen, then you grow frustrated because at that point, there isn’t anything you can do unfortunately.

How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?

My whole life is one big Kobe Bryant pivot move after another. It’s always been about readjusting to different circumstances. I grew up in a military household, so pivoting was in my blood. I never had the time to cultivate relationships when I was younger because I was always in a different school, a different state, and a different home. Honestly, I still have trouble cultivating relationships today because of it.

Then on a more morbid note, there has been a lot of tragedy in my life. By the time I was 21 years old, I lost my birth mother, stepmother, my grandmother’s birth mother and stepmother’s side, and many other relatives. These deaths hit me hard, but none worse than my stepmother’s passing.  My stepmother was my primary caretaker growing up after my birth mother passed.. She raised my four siblings and I when my father was not around, which was a lot due to him being in the military. I was there when she had been rushed to the hospital, in addition to being present when the doctors alerted my siblings and I that she had officially passed on. During these tragedies, I had to learn how to push forward even when I didn’t know how most times.

Another example of me having to pivot is  literally right now as a post college graduate. To be honest, it’s been an incredibly hard and depressing road trying to find jobs in my desired field right now. It’s a road many don’t warn you about. When you graduate, you sincerely believe that there will be a great amount of opportunity for you as a college graduate. You think, “Yes! I finally made it. All those years of studying, joining clubs, doing internships, all those years busting my butt in the academic setting will pay off.” This is what people in my generation honestly believed because we were told this by our parents, grandparents, teachers, etc. As you get rejected and ghosted from hundreds of jobs, it gets very discouraging. After a while you start to think, “Am I ever going to get where I want to go? Or am I going to be another cautionary tale of a person who had potential and talent, but didn’t live up to it?” Those thoughts are scary to think sometimes. Ever since graduating in May of 2021, I’ve worked as a Shopper at Whole Foods, a VFX Film Production Assistant for a Sony Pictures film, a Doordash driver, and other odd jobs like film extra gigs. I’ve moved to three different locations since graduation. Not going to lie, times have been hard recently. But In times like these, my videography and my content creation work is what keeps me going everyday.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://kendalldavis.onuniverse.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/scoutmasterkd/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kendall-davis-353615175/
• Other: http://www.tiktok.com/@scoutmasterkd

Image Credits
Kendall Davis
Ana Rucker

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