99 Things That Changed My Life: Freecast Inc.

A video I was asked to create to explain our company to investors.

April 2014, marked an important date in my life. I was 27 years old and was back in college to follow my passion and get a degree in Digital Media. I was working dead end jobs after graduating with my Bachelors in Criminal Justice, and the recession was finally starting to recede. I remember having 100 dollars left in my bank account, and about 12k of credit card debt that I used to pay for Digital Media program in Valencia. I lived with my parents and my self worth was at an all time low. I borrowed some money from my parents to pay my car insurance that month, and proceeded to look for jobs online. I came across a craigslist ad for a company called Rabbit TV Plus, which was owned by a bigger company called Freecast Inc. I applied and before the day ended I had an interview.

The type of work I was in charge of creating later on.

The interview process was interesting. I have to admit I had no idea what the hell this job was about when I was being interviewed. All that I know is that the person who had my job was leaving in two days and they needed a replacement immediately. They hired me to be their videographer, and my day to day duties included filming awful "coming soon videos".

Not my finest work, but I was just happy to be working

After 3 months of working there, they offered me a salary position. I was going to be making a whopping 14 dollars an hour and I was thrilled. This was the type of money that could finally help me reach my goal of moving out! Sadly, a couple weeks after the offer, I was on the verge of being laid off. The lady that I recorded these videos of had quit, and they weren't going to replace her. My project manager walked into my office and asked if I knew how to make motion graphic ads/commercials, of course I told him yes, but in reality I had no clue. I had no interest in motion graphics at the time. In fact, the only thing I really cared about was doing Visual Effects. It was my dream to become a Visual Effects/3D Artist, and I really didn't even know how to operate a camera. I heard through the grapevine that if I wasn't able to create the ad they wanted, that they were going to let me go. The pressure was on, and I stood late for days working on something that would probably take me two hours to create now. I'm not proud of the video below, but this is the video that saved my life.

The video that saved my life

Vector Illustration Motion Graphics

I still had two more classes to complete but took a year off to focus on the new job. I went back to school and attended a class named Adobe Illustrator. At the time, I hated the class, it was a graphic design course and it was taught by graphic design instructors. I had to do a lot of print work and things I just didn't have much interest in. It did however make me better. I fell in love with Illustrator, and it has been a staple in a lot of my motion graphic work since then.

Social Media Post

As time went on, I become more and more paranoid about being laid off. I saw many friends come and go, and every 6th months there would be a culling of team members as the company tried to stay afloat. I started to do graphic design for the social media department to add more worth. Once again, graphic design is something I never intended to do, but I got pretty decent at it by accident.

Eventually, two co-workers stepped in as writers and producers. Together we created some pretty cool videos, but we all knew that our time left with the company was coming to an end.

Cool Hologram Spot

Another Well Produced Video

Making Ads for Our Mobile App

15 Second Spot

My friend Chris (Actor and Co-Writer of most of our videos)

I will always be thankful for my time with Freecast Inc. I would not be in the position I am today without my experiences there. I had the chance to fail repeatedly and learned how to turn my hobby into a profession.