Today we’d like to introduce you to Samuel Clark.
Samuel, we appreciate you taking the time to share your story with us today. Where does your story begin?
Use what you want out of this. I have quite a long story. I’ve always been an artist and I’ve always love drawing and taking pictures and filming so when I was maybe somewhere between 10 and 13 years old, my parents bought me a Tony Hawk helmet camera which was kind of like the original I guess GoPro and it came with a really poor editing software, and I started making films with this horrible camera and horrible editing software, but I was able to do it and and I started just getting a passion for film and making stories and editing. And so that’s kind of where my passion for film came in. On down the line I went to school for videographics photography, websites, social media. I went straight into the industry getting out of school. I used to search for on craigslist for photo or video or graphic jobs. I ended up working for a church on their video side just making like $100 a month I was also doing a full-time job with just car photography. And during this full-time car photography position, I got married and I bought a house. And something odd kind of just kept on happening with my equipment when it would come to the car photography and I started getting this feeling that I shouldn’t be at this car photography job. And I started to think that God wanted me out of this company for some reason even though I just got married and just bought a house so quitting my full-time job obviously wouldn’t be a smart idea but I ran it past my incredible wife that is very supportive and I said I think God does not want me to be in This car photography job anymore and I think that I just need to lean on God on what is going to happen next. And she agreed. And so I gave my two weeks notice. I was sitting at home for two weeks and this random producer that I’ve never met never even heard of calls me and says I saw your work at a church and I really like that I like your work would you like to produce TV shows with me. And I was like and there’s the answer that’s that’s why I quit car photography. And so I ended up producing five TV shows with this guy. This was about 10 years ago. And so from there, I went on producing tons of commercials and TV shows and then our sponsors would ask hey, do you do website websites? Hey do do Social Media hey, do you do graphics? Hey do you do package design and I would say yes every time and from doing that so often and being known at least in that small TV world for a little bit, I was able to make a company off of that and build from there. Some of the jobs that I have had are just insane like I used to go to Baltimore to film and do graphics in a website in social media for a company called persistence surveillance systems lose a time I had to hide from getting shot there in a van because people are really against persistent surveillance systems even though we’re just trying to stop the murder rate. I’ve filmed for Ferrari YouTube channel and we got the hang out at Ritz Carlton and a Ferrari. I told my brother who is one of my employees said what are we doing here? We are from a very rural town and we are walking out of a Ferrari at Ritz Carlton and just come incredibly blessed. I’ve done a lot of work for Dr. Youn the influencer. I’ve done a lot of work for Glad trash bags. I have three employees and all of them are absolutely incredible. One time I was filming for a fishing lure commercial and had to jump from Boat to Boat while both were going. I was on a nine day hike out in Idaho for another video shoot and it was absolutely miserable, but it was worth it. I had to sleep under the snow and carry about an 80 pound bag on my back up for all the batteries and camera equipment and I was at the infield producer and we ended up getting fourth place out of 50 films for for that. One time I was working for a company on the stock market and I got to meet and eat with a billionaire in Louisiana. One really cool thing about my team is if somebody needs something done fast, we turn it around really quickly, and we will stay up through the night to get something done, one time somebody found my company on the Internet. They called me and said hey Sam, I need you to film my bug net for garage doors. Could you film that for me and I said yeah send your product over. I have a cool garage door to film it on. And he said no I want it on my garage door. So I said that’s fine. I’ll film it on your garage door when and where. And he said tomorrow in the North Hamptons, New York. So I said buy a plane ticket and I called one of my employees and we flew out the next day. We were there for 23 hours filmed this bug net on the front of our garage door on a mansion in the North Hamptons and flew back and it was an awesome ride. We have filmed for the royal Marines and we were even given a past to go into Quantico and film them play soccer that was such a random job, one really cool about having a creative marketing job is I try to immerse myself in the industry that I am working on so I can understand how to tell the story better. So I get to experience so many different industries and see so many different industries and try to become an expert in that industry that we’re doing a project on so I can understand it better and I feel like we do a really good job with that. But that’s one awesome thing about owning a creative company is just being able to have something different every single day that you were working on. Very rarely do we have our repetitive project. One thing I would say I’m different from a lot of other marketing companies is that I don’t talk often in a meeting unless they’re asking me a question but I like to listen more than speak and so I let other people talk a lot more than me until it’s my time but I really try to get as much info out of somebody as I can before I talk much just so I can understand their side and be in their shoes and one thing that I really try to follow is truth and grace, and no anger in the front and really try to understand where companies are coming from so I can see what they want when it comes to a creative side of things. One time my team got to film for a company called Forge line. They took us to Detroit Michigan to film and Corvettes factory at Pratt Miller, and at that time we were the only ones that were allowed to fly a drone in the Corvette factory at Pratt Miller and so Pratt Miller was even like send us the drone shots cause we’ve never been able to get a drone pilot to fly in the Corvette factory and that was really cool that we are allowed to do that. We’ve also got the film at the Brickyard and film an incredible race there and made an awesome small documentary for this guy that was passing away and there was a whole race for him and it was so hard to edit. I had to stop many times because I was just crying too hard to edit. It was a very emotional documentary and I was very attached to it.
I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
That’s one odd thing, it has been a pretty smooth road. And that scares me. I am maybe it’s my way on how I view a story or the world cause it’s very hard for me to get a depressed and it’s very hard for me to look at something negatively so maybe it’s just my way of viewing. But I haven’t hit a large wall yet and that makes me think when is that wall going to hit.
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
I am very proud of the scope that I have been able to accomplish at 34 years old. I’ve traveled across the country so many times and been able to film things that most people don’t even get to see or do. I’ve worked on a lot of a Glad trash bag products and even been able to completely design a product and and been able to go to multiple Ritz Carlton‘s cause one of my clients wanted me to and I’ve already been a marketing officer for a company on the stock market. I’ve have some of the biggest companies in Dayton, Ohio that choose to use my small four person, Company and xenia and it blows my mind. One thing that sets me apart from others is I choose to listen more than I talk and that is a very big thing that I see with other marketing people Marketing people love to talk. And I really try not to talk. I wanna hear what they have to say. I need to understand where they’re coming from put myself in their shoes so I can tell the correct story with my creative company. And I tried to lead with a grace and understandability and no questions are dumb anything like that. And also what makes us different is that we stand at a creative point. We’re not just this number is very business marketing firm. We are straight up a big creative goofy group that can completely knock campaigns out of the park.
What do you like and dislike about the city?
Xenia is absolutely incredible. I brag about xenia so often how many people in xenia Thrive for excellence their drive for excellence blows my mind all of our organizations in xenia and nonprofits in xenia help out the community and we tried to really help those organizations out and that right there are the community that wraps around those in the community that wraps around all the churches in xenia, blows my mind and so many important people come from xenia I don’t know why it is but xenia thrives and drives and strive for excellence
Contact Info:
- Website: https://Apollos.net
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ApollosCreative/
