-Casey Neistat
I'm sure you have heard of Casey Neistat. Mr. M has talked about him in class, wrote it in his blog topic, and I even made a blog about him a year ago. If you aren't familiar with him, Casey Neistat is a filmmaker who makes movies, or vlogs every single day on his YouTube channel. He shows his whole day, but manages to find a lesson or story within each day. He's very successful, and well known. However, it wasn't an easy journey for him to get there. Today for this week's reflective response, I will be talking about Casey Neistat again. But this time, I won't be talking about the technical side of his videos, not his editing or cinematography. Today I will be talking about his principles on life. He's a great role model in my opinion. I admire his values, his determination, motivation, and his perspective on situations. He's a very optimistic person. He always have a very positive outlook on things. He believes that being negative is so easy to do, that it's much easier to say something mean than say something nice. Therefore, negative people are much lazier. Though in my eyes, being a positive person is a much better alternative to being a mean negative person. He makes vlogs everyday to keep up his motivation for creating. He really believes in the quote, "Without a goal, you can't score." I totally agree. If you don't have a deadline, how long would it take you to actually complete something, and would you actually do it? If we didn't have our set deadlines for our PSA's, how many of us would honestly get them done? Vlogging for Casey has forced him to make a movie every single day. Casey created his own business, so he's the boss of himself. But to get there was not an easy thing. When he was 16 years old, he had to drop out of high school to get a job as a dishwasher to support his girlfriend and his baby. Despite that, Casey has a very profound out look on that situation. He is highly against complaining and whining. He reminds himself that there are other people that are much worse off. He didn't go to film school or even college, and had to work hard for everything he has. He got there through working hard, not all from natural ability. For example, many people look at a talented musician and think, "Oh, that's natural talent." Many of them have to work hard at what they do, put in the effort. For Casey, it may not be music, but it's the same thing with his passion for filmmaking. To become successful and to actually make something out of his passion, he had to work. His motto is to always keep yourself busy. You shouldn't have free time or be bored, because if you do, you're being lazy when you can become so much more or create amazing things. His favorite day of the week is Monday, because it's when he goes to work. He loves work. It's the only way you're gonna get progress; by working, not by sitting down all day doing nothing. As his mantra states, "Do More." One more thing I'd like to say about Casey. His view on gear is truly important, and cannot be stressed enough. If you watch his vlogs, you'll see in some clips that he'll drop his camera or have shake in them. Gear doesn't matter. Story does. That's why whenever I see a notification for a new vlog from him, I'm excited about what story he's going to share that day, not how high quality his footage may be. This video below is about 32 minutes. It may be long, but it is certainly worth the watch. It's a compilation of great quotes, wisdom, and life lessons he's shared over time in his vlogs. His words can change your perspective on how you view things, which definitely affected mine. Well, that is it for this week's reflective response! Thanks for reading! Bye!