3.5 years later - Matter and I have decided to part ways. In my time I at Matter I helped produce, shoot, and edit kick-ass award winning content. I became a grizzled road warrior logging 35K miles a year for domestic and international shoots. Most importantly I was able to learn from my peers and was encouraged to push the envelope in my craft.
I always have a good chuckle when I see cliched posts on Linkedin. You know the ones I’m talking about:
Salesperson talking directly into his phone while wearing Airpods
Best Practices For – insert buzzword here -
“Thought Leadership Article”
Shamelessly this is kinda, sorta, one of those Linkedin articles. Ok, it is one of those articles.
When I started at Matter to be frank – I didn’t know shit. As the late Anthony Bourdain once said,
“Skills can be taught. Character you either have it or you don’t.”
I was disorganized, unfamiliar with client etiquette, but was eager to learn. Most of the lessons I learned were born out of, “Hey Miles, we need X can you look into it?” I am a problem solver at heart; ask my friends they will tell you I’m the person who walks into Home Depot and is hell bent on finding the thing they need themselves. Heck, maybe even your dad or grandfather is like that call it stubborn if you must. Needless to say, this trait went hand in hand with solving other’s problems.
My role continued to evolve, I started to get sent on more and more shoots. The first shoot that I ever was the lead on, I forgot the fucking microphone.
Let that sink in, I had to call my boss and tell him, play it cool in front of the client, and then have my co-producer bail my ass out. Not a great start to my tenure. In the end my boss gave me advice that I will always remember.
“You’re going to make mistakes. You will learn and never make them again.”
Over the course of my time at Matter I made a lot of mistakes.
- Spelled a clients name and the company name wrong
- Brought batteries for C100’s instead of C300’s to a shoot
- Forgot a Microphone (see above)
- Shot an entire photoshoot in JPG instead of RAW
At the end of the day when I was beating myself up, that saying would pop into my head. What I am getting at is, I have grown as a professional but it’s only because I have been allowed to make mistakes.
