Ethan Fields

My top three hard skills would have to be:

• Sales
• Operations
• Marketing

I am an excellent sales person. I have a lot of charisma and am very good at reading people and understanding what they’re looking for and how best to approach the situation. I’m great with operations because I am very detail oriented and great at overseeing projects with many moving parts. Marketing ties back to sales, I am very charismatic and work exceedingly well with people, and I put passion behind my words and that really helps get people on board.

For my soft skills I would say:

• Adaptability
• Organization
• Time-Management

I have spent many years working in coffee shops and I can confidently say I have a great deal more soft skills than these three, but these ones I can confidently say I am outstanding in. I can work well in any situation no matter the pressure. I keep highly detailed planners and when at work I have a system to keep my high volume lines moving at an optimal pace. I have been a manager at a few different establishments where I would have to see the day to day goings-on of a particular shop. I made sure everyone got breaks on time, and that we were prepared for a major rush.

In the rest of my time in the creative academy the skills I would like to develop most are Risk Management and Accounting. I think both of these would lend themselves very well to my trajectory and detail orientation. Specifically I believe risk management would help me to strategize my projects while Accounting would help me budget the productions in a smoother fashion.

As for soft skills Decision-Making and Conflict Management. These skills would greatly boost my self-esteem as a director. I am very good at delegating tasks and keeping a team working together but it never hurts to learn more efficient ways to settle disputes and to be more confident in knowing that I have the ability to let others know what they need to do on a specific project.

My name is Ethan Fields and I am studying film & photography in Seattle Central College’s Visual Media Program. I am a queer director and cinematographer and a deep believer in the storytelling capabilities of film, especially the horror genre. I find horror films and the queer experience to be intrinsically linked. For many queer individuals’ real life can be just as scary as a horror film. I come from a small town in rural Appalachia where being yourself in the wrong place could mean VERY bad news. My dream is to create films that put often ignored stories like my own in the spotlight but on a backdrop of fear and terror with a beautiful, dark, and moody atmospheres that hopefully any viewer could connect with. Working well with people and bringing their hidden potential out is one of my biggest strengths and I am an asset to any set. I love working with other talented people to create a common vision that can resonate with so many others.  

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Our team decided to go with the theme of local Independent Theaters in Seattle. My specific theater was the Beacon Cinema located in Columbia City. I frequent this theater very often as a patron so I thought it would be fun to create some info panels about them. The panels were created through Adobe Illustrator as PNG files. For assets I used posters for the theater’s current week line-up from Mon, January 30th- Sunday, February 5th. I also used a looped gif of the film showing first out of the line up (Assault on Precinct 13). Then I used the same template used for the calendar for the Facts/Info sheet.

I originally wanted to do something really funky, cute, and unique but unfortunately I do not currently have the knowledge to build unique 3D figures. In the end, based on what models were available in the app I decided to do an Autumnal Equinox holiday card. It is one of my favorite times of the year and I really liked the little woodland character they had. I did not run into any particular challenges with this project. I mostly followed the tutorial we had in class and then added my own personal touches to give it some character. I never realized how simple creating these AR scenes could be and I ended up enjoying this assignment much more than I had originally anticipated.

When I started at the Creative Academy, I had a general idea about what direction I wanted to head toward. Now I feel an extraordinarily strong pull towards writing and directing films. If I had to start a personal project now that lasted throughout the duration of my time in this program, I would without a doubt choose to make my own personal short film. I want to make a film that reflects who I am and can act as a vehicle for my self-expression that I have never had before. I would love to tell the stories swimming around in my head for others to experience for themselves.  

If I was aiming for a 30–40-minute runtime, then it would probably take me most of my time in the program to finish it. I suppose I will gain skills and knowledge throughout my progress that could potentially speed up my process but balancing it with the demands of my classes I think approximately two years is a fair estimate. That would allow me time to develop a plot, write the screenplay, story board, gather cast and crew (mostly friends and fellow creatives working voluntarily), get equipment, shoot, and finally edit the film. 

Other than time this project would require equipment: cameras, mics, lights, tripod, etc. I would need to make time for strengthening my screen writing skills as well. I would likely need at least some outside funding to help accomplish my goal, with that I could potentially pay a knowledgeable actor. Lastly, I personally would need a lot of vocal support from friends, peers, and loved ones. As self-motivated as I am, a daunting long-term project like this could take a toll on my confidence and it would be rather easy to just put it down and never pick it back up. So, that support would help propel me to my loftiest ambitions for the film.  

In terms of funding and depending on the story I choose to tell my budget could vary wildly. For the sake of frugality, let us say I choose to tell a modern story with minimal visual effects, where all the characters just wore their assorted actors’ clothing then I think I could get away with <$1,000 for the whole thing. This is also assuming I have access to most of the equipment I need in the cage. I am a scrappy person and can accomplish most things on a shoe-string budget. 

As a fairly heavily tattooed person I was immediately drawn to trying out the Inkhunter app. Its goal is to give users a visual reference for how a particular tattoo would look placed on their body. A virtual tattoo fitting room if you will. My experience with the app is middling at best. I found the interface to be mostly user friendly, and there were a decent amount of pre-drawn designs available for the user to choose from. There are several choices of artists, styles, and colors schemes, but most are locked behind the 99 cent pay wall. The experience itself did not go very well for me. It works by the user drawing three lines vaguely in the shape of a smiley face where you want the tattoo to be placed. After you choose your design the app will real the “smiley face” and project the tattoo. I am sure that the target audience for this app is most likely people with little to no tattoos already who are indecisive about design, placements, etc. For someone with a lot of tattoos on their arm the app had trouble picking up the lines I drew and caused the image to project in very odd places around my arm. In the end I would not use this app again but if you are someone looking for a way to “try before you buy” it may very well be worth the dollar.

During my first quarter here at Seattle Central’s Creative Academy, we were tasked with many larger scaled, high-speed projects that had very quick turnaround. We would have to pre-plan, organize, set-up, and execute multiple photo and video shoots all within one week most of the time. Our guest speaker this week, Abdul Kassamali, discussed what it is like being a producer for a real production company here in Seattle. Many times, things do not go as originally intended and one must have back up plans for almost every single part of a planned shoot. Pivoting is a skill I had to learn quickly in this program. One of my assignments was to do a three-part shoot featuring the same model in three distinctly different lighting scenarios. I was thrilled with the assignment and had my model set and had the concepts ready to be executed. I was going to shoot in the early morning with my model dressed in an alternative style complete with euphoria grade make-up, wearing a big fur coat and utilizing tons of bold and punchy color choices. Part two was meant to be a low-key afternoon shoot where my model would be in her home surrounded by personal things like her vinyl records, favorite novels, and even smoking a joint to relax and make for a chill vibe. Lastly, for the finale we were going to find a neon drenched bar somewhere in Seattle to have dinner and get some awesome, gritty, colorful night shots. Alas, the morning of the shoot I received a massive thread of texts from my model flaking on me, mere hours before we were supposed to start. I did not have any back up in mind. I had been so focused on creating the best work possible for these singular shoot ideas that I had nothing left to fall back on. In the end, I got one of my classmates to pose for me and got the assignment done more than adequately at the last minute. That was the only time I needed to learn this lesson though. Since that day I have planned my shoots the very earliest I can and try to have at least a mostly developed back up plan to pivot to in case of necessity.  

As a photographer, I naturally chose my preferred medium to tackle this assignment. I’ve never thought about product photography, but listening to Steve Hansen talk about his career and passion made it seem like an interesting career path. I chose to photograph a can of one of my favorite brands of coffee. UCC’s Kona Coffee with milk is my go-to caffeine drink in the mornings when I’m running a bit behind and forgot to prepare my French press that particular morning. The roast is bold and rich with a strong flavor that is neither too bitter nor sour. I believe that the packaging is a great selling point for the product, too. In the photo I wanted to capture the deep golden sheen of the can and the beautiful contrasting red palm trees, reminding us of the roots of this delicious beverage. I used a pure black backdrop so as not to distract away from this delicious product. 

I got the idea for my AR Poster titled “Inuyasha & Kagome: A Love Story in Mixed Reality” from my favorite anime and mange series Inuyasha. The running joke about the show is that it can be summed up by the two main Characters shouting each other’s names at each other all the time. A friend of mine just got back from a trip to Tokyo and gifted me the two figurines I used in my video and I thought it would be funny to turn this project into a funny little dedication to my favorite series. I filmed the video and took the poster image myself with my Nikon D3500, and sourced the sound clip from Youtube. The biggest challenge I faced was trying to sync the video with the audio because it cuts very fast. I actually enjoyed doing this project and would am excited to explore AR more in this module.