We were lucky to catch up with William Davis recently and have shared our conversation below.
William, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Learning the craft is often a unique journey from every creative – we’d love to hear about your journey and if knowing what you know now, you would have done anything differently to speed up the learning process.
Knowing what I know now, to speed up my learning process, I would have networked/connected with a greater variety of more creatives sooner. The skills I find that are most essential in my creative and professional growth are: patience, flexibility and an enthusiasm for education. We are in a constant state of evolution, figuring ourselves out, and that informs our art and creations.
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.
For over 15 years, I’ve been a creative storyteller, producing dynamic content for public relations, marketing, broadcast and commercial teams. I specialize in video/photography, motion/animation, and new media/multimedia. I love creative collaboration, strategic production development, and pushing the boundaries of innovation.
As a kid, my love of building with Legos along with my enjoyment of movies like Star Wars and Indiana Jones inspired me to make home movies and stop-motion Lego animated films. I worked at my university’s TV station as a program manager and was involved in my college film club. In these roles, I gained experience in acting, voice over, screenwriting, and directing. Also at that time, I focused on broadening my skills beyond the camera by teaching myself the fundamentals of animation, 3D modeling, and VFX, to name a few.
My first job out of college was in VFX, rotoscoping for James Cameron’s conversion of Titanic to stereoscopic 3D (2012). After a few years of producing marketing projects and indie gigs, I took a video specialist role within PR and Marketing Communications at my alma mater. 10 years later, I am now the Director of Video & Photography in that department.
What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?
One habit I try to be self-aware of is artistic perfectionism, and I try to approach projects with a healthier balance of both creative inspiration and business acumen. What’s helpful is having clear goals, workshopping ideas, and having productive feedback sessions to deliver something high-quality that feels good to make. As far as backstory, I feel like every creative struggles with putting excess pressure on themselves; same pressure, different project.
Any advice for managing a team?
Some advice for managing a team is first and foremost, find a common vision. Having meaningful, honest and professional conversations leads to clear expectations. That paired with consistency through workflows and commflows helps us to utilize our time more effectively and enjoy the creative process. It is imperative to keep high morale within a team; it’s important to acknowledge everyone’s contributions and strengths and to give them the freedom to see their vision to fruition, with helpful guidance along the way.
Contact Info:
- Website: williamdavismedia.com
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/williamdavis01/
Image Credits
credit for “williamdavis_action_01” – Chrysander Mandragora – https://www.instagram.com/