Today we’d like to introduce you to Micah Daniel
Hi Micah, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstory.
My journey to filmmaking started when I begin a YouTube channel at the age of 12, where I would edit and upload gameplay videos. I did that for two years before deciding that I wanted to focus more on editing other people‘s projects and not making my own. My adventure through post production and video editing led me to want to learn how to shoot my own videos, where I started to take digital photography and black and white film photography courses at Anoka Ramsey Community College in Coon Rapids. Those courses taught me about the ins and outs of cameras and how they worked, which gave me the confidence to learn how to use them for video. At 16 I made my first short film, and in the years since I have helped shoot and edit over a dozen more as well as a handful of feature films. During the day, I work in the creative marketing department at a electronic components distributor up north, shooting and editing marketing material and internal videos for the company, and in my free time I help shoot, edit, and direct short films and other videos for smaller businesses. My current project is a short film I hope to direct in the winter of 2025, “Leaves,” which is currently in pre-production.
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?
In my line of work struggles are half of the experience. No one film shoot goes exactly how you’d like it and after enough experience and practice, you learn to not look at such experiences as obstacles and more as part of the journey, part of the fun so to speak. The larger challenges are found in consistency and reliability of income. The arts is an incredibly unstable career path, and if you attempt to make it on your own at the wrong time it can be really demotivating and upsetting when bills go unpaid for too long and the practicality of living as an artist becomes too hard to imagine. That, and the personal struggles I have to face in my life are much more challenging than the obstacles directly related to filmmaking or film production.
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
I help film and edit, short films, feature films, advertisements, and other videographic material. My proudest accomplishments so far is in having films that I shot and edited premier in theaters before the age of 20 and, my ability to be self reliant on the income of my line of work without having to obtain a college degree, to name only a few. Outside of my creative abilities, such as editing, and knowledge of cameras, I am very well known for my positivity and strong connection with my creative partners. I love supporting and referring friends and colleagues I meet along the way during my creative journey, and if any amount of success I can achieve can benefit my friends, it makes me incredibly proud and happy.
If you had to, what characteristic of yours would you give the most credit to?
Resilience. My mother told me about a phrase my grandmother would use on occasion; “If you don’t quit, you can’t fail.” I am far from the hardest working creative out there, and some days I find it hard to even get out of bed, so I believe that any ounce of success I have ever experienced is based more on the support I receive from others and the fact that I couldn’t give up even if I wanted to, more than it is on anything else.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://micahdanielcreator.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/micahdanielcreator?igsh=Y3BpMHJhNWF2bjk0&utm_source=qr
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/micah-daniel-477911299?utm_source=share&utm_campaign=share_via&utm_content=profile&utm_medium=ios_app
