All About Him!

Donovan Kelly is a professional photographer with a degree in photography who graduated from Brigham Young University. He currently works as an overall media manager at Artec Industries as their Media Manager and Videographer/Photographer.

Career Journey

Donovan decided to work in media after filming and working in the industry prior to and after starting college. After taking classes at BYU he decided that this was something he could do that can sustain him and his family while doing something he truly loves at the same time. After speaking with him, he doesn not believe that his college education prepared him too much for working in the industry.

He went on discussing how he had to self teach himself many aspects of media. Having his degree did help him get his current and past jobs as it proved he had real experience in the field and was educated in those aspects. He previous worked as a podcast videographer and editor for the Brigham Young Nursing program. He would create graphics for them as well as help with their website. He believes his experience that truly helped him get into the industry was his job that he had while in college. He was a sports photographer and editor at BYU, supplying many of their media posts for their platforms as well as their websites. The experience he gained about having deadlines and certain expectations helped him have great success as his past and present job, being able to complete projects in a matter of hours.

      The project he is most proud of was actually a video he did for BYU. He helped the photoprogram grow their social media platform by thousands. He came up with an idea to teach people how to film sports. They made a video and posted it to YouTube, that later became their most viewed video and led to them starting a video series about how to film and take photos for certain sports. Having that impact was such a great feeling for him and being able to grow their following imensly was a great thing for his resume.

Professional Development

  With the evolution of technology and new social media platforms being devoloped, the media industry has changed so much since Donovan started in the field. He went on to talk about how AI has been a huge impact on the way media is done and presented. The way it is continuously deveoloping, has to stay on top and learn how to use it to effectively improve their platforms.

            His way of staying current is by learning how to use AI, staying up to date on new platforms, and following trends. When I asked him how he stays up to date on trends, he said sometimes its as simple as scrolling on social media. “Sometimes I will just sit and scroll on tiktok or instagram. If I see simlar videos that have a lot of likes and shares, I know its something that people are not only doing, but interacting with” (Kelly).

Advice

           He gave some amazing advice that I think everyone can apply to their career, especially with media communications. “Just get started”. Starting with small things can lead to some of the biggest opportunities. He talked about someone being interested in joinng this type of profession, they just need to get started. “Go out and film those videos, network and discuss with people who are doing what you want to do, and post!” (Kelly). Starting a social media or a website/blog can help someone get started. He described it as working with pottery. The more you practicea and work, the better you will get.

He said if you focus on working on one thing, you wont be able to get better, so branch out and work! Being able to look at your work and being able to surround yourself with poeople who will be honest. You need people to tell you the truth about your work so you can improve and become better, not just stay the same. He does wish he knew the importance of finding a balance between being creative and being a good storyteller. He went on to say you can be a great storyteller, but if you cant get it on the page and out there in a great way, it wont mean anything. And likewise, if you are great at keeping up with trends and posting but you cant get a point across or your purpose, it wont matter. So he wished he was taught how to be good at both.