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

William, appreciate you joining us today. Can you talk to us about how you learned to do what you do?

My first ever camera was the Nintendo 3DS.

I know, nuts right? I didn’t use it in a professional setting, but looking back— some of my oldest YouTube skits came from that gaming system. I remember me and my friend would have sleep overs, and we’d have massive pillow fights. During these fights, I would set up my 3Ds to record our legendary epic battles. However, the fun part was watching those videos in-reverse; as we see pillows magically flying back to our hands as if we were in Star Wars, using the Force.

That was my first taste at video editing. And I thought I was pretty damn good at it.

Fast forward a few years and I finally got my hands on my first DSLR camera; the Canon Rebel T6i. It had so many buttons and everything was brand new to me. So I decided to consume hours of YouTube tutorials to learn what the buttons did and how to be good at photography. The rest becomes history.

But then COVID hit and I lost a couple of years of learning opportunity. My creative growth was stunted and I barely touched my camera. Instead, I focused on schoolwork & exploring other secular subjects that I thought would be impactful for my future career. To be quite frank, I didn’t believe in a career as a creative. I thought it was unrealistic and decided to hold myself back from chasing my dreams. Until one day, I watched a ‘day in the life’ video from a college YouTuber that re-sparked a small flame of passion in me to create again. So I picked up my camera and gave vlogging a try— leading me down a rabbit hole to discover other facets of ‘creativity’ beyond just photography or videography.

Looking back, I realized that curiosity is essential to growth and learning. Curiosity fuels your drive to discover new things and learn more about the world around us. I was able to pick up hobbies (or re-pick up) that has now turned into my career. Creativity has many branches & I am learning that as long as you keep a curious mindset, there will always be paths that can be opened up to you. And it all started with my Nintendo 3DS.

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.

It’s hard for me to tell exactly who I am.

My name is William and I am a freelance creative. I guess that’s like the best term I can use to tie everything that I do into a nice little bow. Some days I am a photographer, other days I am a filmmaker. But what I enjoy doing the most is putting together projects with the friends around me. When I am working with people, I want to make it a warm environment where it feels like we’re all friends working on something cool.

Think back to the days you and you friends did something together; you didn’t stress about making it good, you just cared about doing because it was fun. And naturally you become more curious. You start to pick up hobbies that you then wanted to get good at.

My favorite part about what I do is genuinely being able to collaborate with other talented creators, directors, filmmakers, etc. I find fulfillment when I am doing projects with a community of people who care about the same thing— whether it is music, commercials, brand deals, and more.

Which I guess brings me to the next part… I like to do EVERYTHING. If it’s a project that sounds cool, I am always open to doing it. It’s hard for me to say that I specialize in one industry because I like everything. But typically, I find myself working on music videos or creating content to grow my own personal brand.

What’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative in your experience?

I really like being able to see people’s reactions. It’s one of the most fulfilling things ever to be able to show my loved ones or my friends something really cool that I made or a brand new collaboration. A quote that once stood out to me about finding purpose with creativity is that while essential workers like doctors exist as a means of being able to live— being a creator means giving people a reason to live.

And I think that is a powerful mantra that I strive to live by; is to be able to entertain and inspire the community around me through my art.

Any resources you can share with us that might be helpful to other creatives?

I wish that there was a way to find a creative community during my earlier years when I first started out. Coming from a majorly STEM-focused university— it was really hard to find other creators who share the same passion. And it’s to no one’s fault; it was just the environment that I was in. A lot of the friends that I had made who were fellow creators were online. So while I was stuck in school working towards my degree, those friends were out chasing their dreams and I spent a lot of time daydreaming about those achievements.

Finding a community is really important in being able to foster your growth as an individual. Your environment has the capabilities to give you the necessary experience you need in order to become the kind of creative you want to be.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/wdoan_/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/williamdoan/