We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Lucas Takano. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Lucas below.
Alright, Lucas thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. One of the toughest things about progressing in your creative career is that there are almost always unexpected problems that come up – problems that you often can’t read about in advance, can’t prepare for, etc. Have you had such and experience and if so, can you tell us the story of one of those unexpected problems you’ve encountered?
One of the things I didn’t expect when I started working as a creative was the job as a freelancer. Understanding burnout, creative freedom, meeting clients expectations, communicating/negotiating jobs, business side of freelancing and balancing business with artistry.
Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.
Hi! My name is Lucas Joji Takano, but I’m not related to the artist Joji that used to be part of 88rising. I’m a filmmaker and photographer. I studied 3 years of graphic design in Brazil but I dropped out after feeling incredibly unfulfilled, not sure if it was a personal issue or I just didn’t fit in with their educational system. 2 years later, after many discussions, I had the opportunity to move to California in 2014 to go to college, however I didn’t have a plan in mind. I came in blind, no expectation just diving head on into this new world. Maybe I was just escaping from my problems.
So through my life in California in my first 4 years I was just exploring and adapting to the new culture and also using my practicing my photography that I learned in graphic design. Until one day a friend of mine who was also a designer and photographer told me that she enjoyed my work and I should make it my career. A whole year passed, as I tried to navigate through this strange industry of collaborating with influencers and Model Mayhem models and honestly I barely made 200 dollars that year. But surprisingly, it led me into a gig into a film set to shoot BTS for a feature film that I’m not even sure if it got released. And it was just fascinating to see how a production crew worked to make a vision come to life, but also intimidating as for someone who grew up extremely skeptical with group work.
So that experience stuck to me for a while and it led me into taking a scriptwriting class just to fill up credits. And the one thing that the professor said in the first class that stuck to me until now is that we can make amazing stories with our phones with minimal crew and immediately I was hooked.
After many experiences in film school good and bad I felt finally fulfilled besides all the obstacles that I would have to face, I found out that I love storytelling, whoever love for a craft is not enough to succeed.
Skipping through a lot of my college experience and the first few years working in the industry. I learned that the most important thing as a creative is to understand who you are and be able to step out of your own ego in order to meet clients expectations to pay the bills. Also understanding personal brand, business, networking, finding clients, and communicating expectations as clear as possible will dodge unnecessary headaches.
And something incredibly important that I learned recently is to ask yourself “how can I add value with my art to my clients?” because this way it’s not just about your art anymore, it’s about how your art can help business or people to grow or feel good about themselves.
And it could be through entertainment, comedy, emotions, social causes, awareness or personal development, it can be through anything as long as it makes people feel something.
As for myself, I’m heavily inspired by hip hop/underground culture. Mixed with Japanese culture and personal development. I hope to help people understand themselves better with my art and content and hopefully help brands to grow as well.
For you, what’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative?
I think when people tells me that they love my work and it helped them feel better about themselves. I just want to make a positive impact and live freely without having to worry about bills.
What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?
Unlearn that its okay to fail, but its not about being reckless or doing terrible things to other people. I grew up always being compared to my peers and every time I failed I was looked at as if I was a disappointment.
So creating a safe mental space for me to try and fail at the things I wanna do allowed me to evolve quickly and eventually become good enough to an extent that I can sell it.
Contact Info:
- Website: tknovisuals.myportfolio.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tkno__/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCIVfpeRZgUGNMC23Laj4AQw