Today we’d like to introduce you to Cody Jackson
Hi Cody, we’re thrilled to have a chance to learn your story today. So, before we get into specifics, maybe you can briefly walk us through how you got to where you are today?
I got started as a creative at age 9. Me and my best friends started a YouTube channel that was inspired by Smosh. We made a bunch of skit style videos, mostly comedy. Some horror. We did that channel for almost a whole year. We took it pretty seriously and actually tried to be successful with it. Our most viewed video was 5.5k where we created rig juice from “Regular Show” one of our favorite shows at the time. My friend and I kind of lost touch because he moved to a different school, and the YouTube channel basically died at that point. I started conforming to how I thought people wanted me to be. So pretty much what I’m trying to say is I was too afraid to express myself and make videos because it seemed like everybody would just judge you and make fun of you if you tried to do anything like that. In fact, in high school, I pretty much went the opposite route that I felt I was supposed to be doing. I felt like I always had this creative thing inside of me that I wanted to express but didn’t want to deal with the judgment of others. I pretty much dedicated my high school years to football because that was what people accepted. I even went as far as to go to Southwestern University in Georgetown for football. That was an easy way to figure out that that Football was not what I truly loved. College was as it is for most, an opportunity for me to figure out who I really am, and touch base with that inner urge to create again. I wasn’t worried about what people thought anymore and I started another YouTube channel. For most of college, I made videos in some cases every single day. There was a focus for my channel around fitness, but I made so many different kinds of videos that it didn’t really seem like it was around fitness by the end of it. When graduation came I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life. I did know for sure that I didn’t wanna get a normal job, and I couldn’t see myself in any position that I would be fulfilled in. So as soon as I graduated, I decided I was going to start a video business and make videos for other businesses to help them with advertising. I started by picking a few different industries that I might be interested in working with and I made some fake ads for some popular companies. Then I made myself a website and put these videos up on the website and started trying to get my name out there. I got a job working with a marine mechanic shop, and everything luckily aligned perfectly and the video turned out really really good. I posted it and shared it with as many people as I could and people just kept reaching out, asking if I could do the same for their business. This process pretty much just kept going and that’s what I’ve been doing ever since. I’m still not where I’d like to be but I am to the point where I make all of my living making videos so I am satisfied to say the least. Something that is different in how I do videos compared to a lot of other companies is I pretty much do everything on my own. Most video production companies have a team of people that specialize in the specific aspects of each component of a production. I take care of all of those things on my own. I also believe stories can be told in an amazing way regardless of the equipment used. So I take the lightest weight of equipment with me on shoots and I’ve developed a knack for knowing just the right amount of equipment I need for a shoot. I think there is something cool about making a video that looks like it’s crazy high production value when it was shot by one guy with a camera. It can be really hard and stressful at times to do everything alone but I find the end feeling of accomplishment is much greater going through the struggles of doing it on my own. Even though productions can get stressful sometimes somehow the ideas are never hard to find for me. I can’t really explain what I mean by that but it seems like after I get out of a call with a client and we decide to do a production the idea for the video just kind of hits me and I’ve never had a moment where I can’t think of how I’m gonna go about production. I remember one time, I thought I was showing up to a shoot for one of my clients products. I had the idea planned or that, but when I walked in they told me they wanted a creative commercial instead. I pulled our my notebook and scratched some notes in the corner for like 15 minutes and we started shooting. That commercial ended up being the most successful project I did with them. My point is I think there is value in trusting instincts with shoots. Sometimes planning every little detail out like the film industry is taught to results in a worse product. Anyways, that’s about where we are now just continuing to try to do more work and help more businesses with their advertising.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
It definitely hasn’t been a smooth road. I think for my line of work the biggest struggles are mental. When you’re putting your creative work out into the world there’s a lot of self doubt that can creep in. You’ll go through periods of time where you just feel like you’re not good enough and you’re mind will start spiraling. You’ll be looking for alternative careers because the weight of relying on your creative abilities to provide for a family can feel too heavy sometimes. Most people learn a technical skill and do that skill every day for a set amount of hours and as long as they show up and do what they’re supposed to do they get their paycheck and go home. For us there’s always a chance that our creativeness just won’t happen. Sometimes that spark isn’t there and when that happens, you never know how long it’s gonna last. You can’t just be disciplined and force it to work like you can with most jobs. It just Has to work itself. So there’s always this constant pressure going on in my brain and work just doesn’t feel consistent and it doesn’t feel reliable. But if you talk to almost any creative, that makes money off of it full time this is how they feel as well. I think it’s just the price you pay for getting to create for a living instead of having a typical job. Over time you eventually get better at controlling it and I’d say now it’s pretty manageable.
Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
I started a business where I hope Austin entrepreneurs and business owners step into the online game using video production. As most people already know, how your business is viewed online is just as if not more important than physically these days, and I help businesses make that transition.
I do this through creative video production mixed with my advertising and marketing expertise. I believe in today’s world where creating content is so accessible. You can’t just have one or the other..
Are used to be that businesses could have an internal marketing team that does their marketing for them and this can work to an extent, but there’s a certain level of creativity that’s required in today’s world.
There are so many different people all over the world, making videos all the time, and it can be overwhelming for businesses to try to even try to join in.
Well, my expertise is creating videos that look different and feel different from most of the contingency nowadays. I take a hybrid approach to video production using old school film in movie techniques that make my videos look professional as if they were filmed on a professional 50 to 100 person set. But it’s just me making the videos for the most part.
I figured out a system to producing videos. That’s affordable and maintains a High production quality.
I partner with CEOs to come up with creative ideas to tell their business a story in effective way that engages audiences. I usually like to do this through humor.
It’s an interesting level to see how far business owners will let me go with my humor. I’m a firm believer, that the farther you let me go the better results you’re gonna get because the video will be funnier and more relatable to the general public.
Advertising is so general and always kind of has been so I think it’s so powerful to step outside of the boundaries, but of course, most businesses are hesitant to push those boundaries because brand reputation is something that they care deeply about and I do too.
But anyways, I would say I’m known for creating marketing videos that look like they were filmed on a professional set, that are doable for less money given it’s one creative mind and person, rather than 100. My technical abilities combined with a little creative dust from a place I can’t describe, makes for some pretty engaging and powerful videos for my clients.
Can you share something surprising about yourself?
Something that I think comes as a surprise to most of my clients is my background in sports. Most of the people I work with are used to creatives sitting in a certain category of person, and that category is typically not aligned with the sports the category.
But in reality, I actually Have been involved in sports and athletics for much longer than I’ve been a creative. I’ve always had a little creative voice, whispering at me in the back of my head, telling me to do creative things, but the way I grew up in a small town called Lago Vista outside of Austin. If you try new things like creation, you got made fun of so I chose the easy route and played football.
I played all the way up until college when I broke my back. It sounds worse than it really was. It was a small fracture on the very lower part of my spine but my athletic trainer in college told me if I were to get hit in a wrong way I could easily be paralyzed.
Obviously, as soon as I heard that I immediately stop playing and try to figure out what I wanted do..
Music let me into video, and I’ve been doing it ever since.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://Tradesmenvideo.com
- Instagram: Tradesmenvideo
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/tradesmenvideocompany
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/codyjackson3/
Image Credits
Cody Jackson
