THE VIDEO GUY BY JAKE HERMANN

On May 6th 2021, a war broke out between Israel and Palestinian liberation groups as they do every couple of years. Tensions rose and the world thought the conflict would quickly turn into a full-fledged war. On May 18th, a ceasefire was called and the conflict was put to rest for the time being. 

Just one week later, I boarded my plane to Israel to begin my summer internship. Filled with uncertainty, doubt, and understandably a little bit of fear, I became a citizen of Tel Aviv for the summer. My role was a “growth-marketing specialist” at an industrial tech startup in the surfing city of Netanya. I was enraptured to build upon my sales and marketing skills, but when I got there I was disappointed to hear the brutal truth: I was the video guy. 

My employer had stumbled across my YouTube channel and was captured by my ability to storytell in a visual medium. After sitting through hours of sales meetings learning the ins and outs of cold calls in Industry 4.0, I was presented with a multi-thousand dollar corporate imaging budget to tell the story of CoreTigo. 

I had free rain for the first time to express my creativity with all the resources I needed at my disposal. I went through my creative process beginning with scripting, followed by story-boarding, all in preparation for the big day: shoot day. I have never been shy about my creativity, and what started out as disappointment turned into a passion project I will never forget. Creativity is something that is very fluid for me and in trial and error, I believe I can find passion, and more importantly, achieve anything.