WRITER / DIRECTOR / PRODUCER
I love telling stories. Here’s mine…
I started out in the tech industry, first as a Software Engineer, then as a consultant helping enterprise organizations implement major systems changes. It was as boring as it sounds.
A few years later I brought that expertise to a scrappy marketing startup called HubSpot. That was much less boring. I joined as employee 130 and saw the company explode to over 2,000 employees in less than a decade. Talk about growth. I said, goddamn!
I quickly grew into a Director role overseeing multiple teams across Product, Engineering, Services, and Operations. I won a few awards for excellence that came with hefty stock bonuses, which would come in handy later (foreshadowing?).
Overall, it was a pretty sweet gig. I enjoyed it tremendously.
But it was also quietly killing me.
Here’s the rub. I graduated with dual degrees, B.S. in Computer Science and a B.A. in Interactive Digital Design. So, while the logical part of my brain enjoyed grinding out these highly technical business problems, the creative part of my brain was beginning to atrophy. When I hit the ten year mark, I realized there wasn’t much left in the tank.
As luck would have it, just as my burnout peaked the HubSpot stock price exploded. I decided to cash out some of that stock and take an extended sabbatical to pursue creative endeavors.
I started with writing. I published a few detective novels and wrote a few screenplays. It was a refreshing change of pace from managing large projects with lots of moving pieces. I loved doing something creative simply for the pleasure of doing it. My only goal was to create a good end product. Nothing else. Art for art’s sake.
After publishing my second book in a year, my body could no longer stand the task of sitting for ten or more hours a day. So, I took a break from writing and turned to one of my earliest passions – filmmaking.
I had made a few short films on VHS as a kid, and again on DV in college, in those early days when you just couldn’t get a quality image on consumer video. Sure, it was fun to shoot with these lightweight cameras, but the image quality was, well, crappy at best. Nothing would ever look like the movies, no matter how hard you tried. Oh, how things have changed.
Technology has caught up. Big time.
Shooting crystal clear images in 4k resolution is possible at a very low price point. Mammoth RAW files can be stored on low-cost storage drives. DaVinci Resolve, the software used by professional color graders, has a full featured free version.
For the first time in film history, major Hollywood productions and indie filmmakers are using similar cameras and similar technical workflows.
I dipped my toe in the pool. I shot some iPhone footage in 4k HDR. The image quality was stunning. The editing and color grading workflow was straightforward. High-quality gear for lighting and sound could be bought on the cheap.
All I needed was a story to tell, and a small team of passionate filmmakers to tell it.
And so, Brother Shamus Films was born.
Want to work together? Give me a shout.
TJ [at] BrotherShamusFilms.com