Meet Wesley Kirk
We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Wesley Kirk a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Wesley, appreciate you joining us today. Alright – so having the idea is one thing, but going from idea to execution is where countless people drop the ball. Can you talk to us about your journey from idea to execution?
I first started my business in 2007 as The Vision Beautiful, because people liked my photos and wanted to start paying me for it. I didn’t put much thought into it. People would just come to me with a film or photo project they thought I’d be good for, and I would take their money and deliver them something I thought they would like. After a decade of that, I realized that a lot of the projects I was doing weren’t creatively fulfilling, and the jobs that I really enjoyed were getting fewer & farther between. I was doing such a wide variety of stuff that no one knew how to describe my work, or what to recommend me for. It was in 2017 that I decided I was going to rebrand my business. I was going to create an entirely new portfolio from scratch, showing off exactly the kind of work I enjoyed creating, and displayed the sorts of projects I wanted people to come to me for. I met with a graphic designer friend, Claire Morales, who helped me brainstorm who my ideal client was, what my dream projects were, how to describe my business and my work to people, and more importantly what my business was not. She even helped design the logo for my new business, Vision & Verve.
I wanted to create unique projects that had a playfulness to them, with handmade sets, props, and costumes. With vibrant colors & contrast, and visual gigs. Images that instantly told a story. I spent a year coming up with new concepts to shoot, assembling all the art direction for shoots, investing in so many silly things. In January 2018, I launched the rebrand of my business.
People instantly saw the difference, but it took a while for the clients I was after to start rolling in. After all, I still had to keep my business afloat, which meant still accepting clients from my old business, but not advertising that, and instead talking to those clients about the projects I was excited about. Again & again I’d have to keep talking about what I wanted to be doing, and projects I was starting that I was excited about. And slowly over time new opportunities for those projects started coming my way. By 2020, I was able to hire 2 employees, and we got in a rhythm with clients who paid the bills that we didn’t advertise, and projects we were excited about that were building us some real momentum in the direction we wanted.
Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers?
I’ve been lucky enough to never have a real job. I got started with film when I was 13, simply because I had an idea for a film that I wanted to see, and started with photography around that same time as a way to keep my skills sharp between film projects. When I was 17, people wanted to start paying me for my work, and I’ve worked for myself ever since, making a living with a camera. I went to UNT for film, but quickly realized that the school could teach theory & history, but not production. So I founded UNT Short Film Club in order to fill that gap and teach everything I had learned about production. By the time I graduated, we were the largest, most active club on campus, and the teachers started to use my lessons in their curriculum.
My film & photo production business is called Vision & Verve, where we make human-centered stories with vibrant, playful visuals. We’re based out of Fort Worth, TX.
I might be best know for my project The World We Knew Is Gone, where I spent 18 months off & on traveling around deserts across the southwest taking self portraits in a spacesuit. It’s a series of 29 photos, and a short film.
What do you think is the goal or mission that drives your creative journey?
As a business owner and something who creates things, one of the most important things to me is to always have fun. When I’m thinking about projects to take on, I will always favor projects that sound the most fun, regardless of any other details. I don’t particularly care if it isn’t the most profitable project, because as long as I’m not losing too much money on it, it’s worth it for the joy it brings in my life. Life is short and it’s important to me to enjoy every opportunity that comes my way.
For projects that don’t seem fun, I will always look for ways to make the experience more fun for the viewer, especially because then they’ll be more engaged. Whether it’s a visual gag, some editing tricks, or just adding bloopers throughout a video, it makes the experience more enjoyable. I remember Brad Montague saying that he likes to think of his videos as gifts people give each other, and that helps him frame the joy he wants to create in the world for people to share.
And if it doesn’t seem fun, and I can’t make the end product fun, I at least want everyone involved to have fun. I like to take it easy on set, make sure everyone is well taken care of, leave plenty of time to plan ahead and finish early, create a stress-free environment, and surround myself with people who are always down to roll with the punches and crack some jokes. Because at the end of the day, it’s not that serious. It’s not life or death. And making things should be fun.
What advice do you have for non-creatives?
One thing I constantly want to stress to people is that there is no such thing as “non-creatives”. There is not some separate group of people with this innate talent for creativity, and only they are allowed to create things.
No. Creativity is a muscle, and you have to exercise it. Everyone is born with the need to create, but I feel like as we grow up, some people feel encouraged, and other people feel discouraged, and it creates this divide that is arbitrary and unnecessary. Everyone is capable of amazing ideas and incredible talent. Some people have more practice & experience than others but that doesn’t mean that it isn’t worth practicing for everyone.
Also some people feel like if they’re not good enough to do it professionally, it’s not worth pursuing, and I think that is ridiculous. One of the things that inspires me the most is “bad” art. (I don’t believe there’s such thing as bad art, but I hope you know what I mean). Because some of the best ideas I’ve seen have come from art that people dismiss, and some of the most boring empty art I’ve seen has been in museums.
If everyone were to flex their creative muscles, to make things for the sake of making things, to create something new & interesting that only they could bring into the world, we would live in a much more vibrant world than we do now.
