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Author Archives: Gerard Williams
Posts: 4 (archived below)
Comments: 8
Abandoning Textbooks and Tuition, For World Travel and Running a Business
Kiunte Watkins editing a recently shot music video.
Fresh off of a flight from Dubai, 22 year old Kiunte Watkins barely realized what he’s accomplished after a year of launching his video production start up. A kid from Queens has just experienced international business travel, armed with his DSLR camera, Apple laptop, and his creative talent.
Successfully transitioning from college student to business owner didn’t register as a definite possibility just a few months back. At that point, still a student of NYU’s film production program, Watkins found himself at a forked road. He had the option to take out student-loans to continue following the traditional college route, or he could take a shot in the dark and build a business from the ground up. “College got too expensive forcing me to take a semester off,” said Watkins. Stuck between the choice of continuing with the perceived “safety net” of academia or following his passion for photography without submitting to the academic machine, Watkins chose the latter, and is thankful he did.
According to a recent Georgetown University study, “Unemployment rates are generally higher in non-technical majors, such as the Arts (11.1 percent).” However, incurring debt that may not have had a substantial return on investment was now just as much a risk for Watkins as leaving school to start a film career from scratch.
Watkins’s company Exit 91 Productions technically began as an unpaid hobby. “My freshman year of college, I purchased a DSLR camera to shoot music videos for me and my friends.” said Watkins. “Word got around that I did videos, and from there, I got a large number of inquiries. It just so happened to pick up when college got too expensive forcing me to take a semester off.”
The trials and tribulations of going from hobbyist to professional can factor in much joy, but also much doubt and the inevitable hurdles of failure. The ability to push through failure is one of the entrepreneurial qualities Watkins possessed at a time it was much needed. “My camera fell out off my bag while traveling. It was tough because I had so many plans and inquiries.” said Watkins. “People constantly asked when was I getting my camera back, so I took it as a sign to continue.”
When building a business, any sign of failure can be soul crushing. The broken camera situation crept up on Watkins, but turned out to be an indicator of potential success. Once he viewed failure as an inevitable hurdle on the path to success, there was an incentive to push through that specific tough time. Not letting a broken camera end his brand new career as a film producer–afforded Watkins the opportunity to not only work in different parts of the States, but also different parts of the globe.
Photographing in different environments can have an effect on the direction of a photographer’s creativity. Working in New York may provide different artistic inspiration than working in Asia. Watkins has worked in both. “Anywhere I go scenery is key. The vibe, the smell, the idea of interest, what kind of people reside there. all of these things play into the awareness of one’s surroundings.”
The opportunity to be a 22-year-old entrepreneur with a network of reference experience and professional connections in different parts of the world is positive reinforcement to continue working. No longer is a Master’s degree in Fine Arts needed to build a business surrounded by a fine art, all thanks to the connective possibilities of the internet.
A close look at Kiunte’s production editing.
Networking has become easier through the medium of the internet and more specifically, social media. We’re in a digital age where someone from China can scroll through someone from the US’s social networking page.,” said Watkins. The perceived branding that being a New York photographer provides can be exploited through social media at the click of a button, and Watkins certainly takes advantage of that fact every day.
Abandoning college textbooks, and putting his all into the art of entrepreneurship has certainly paid off for Kiunte Watkins, at least so far.
Posted in Small Business
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Long Island City Backgrounder
(photo credit: Chris Goldberg)
Located as the East River’s bordering Queens neighborhood, Long Island City is home to a diverse community of businesses and residents. In 1870, LIC was given its name, and became an official neighborhood of New York City just 28 years later in 1898. Well over a century old, the community is now the crossroads of Queens and Manhattan. It’s the first place you’ll arrive in when entering Queens from Manhattan by car, public transit, or if you have the desire to walk over the Queensborough Bridge; and the last Queens location when crossing the river back into Midtown.
Long Island City is home to over 191,000 residents, according to 2010 data collected by the Census Bureau. The same study cites the neighborhood’s ethnic makeup as roughly being 45% Caucasian, 9% African-American, 14% Asian, And 27% Hispanic. It is estimated that there are 80,319 housing units in the particular area.
Located in LIC are a number of public grade schools. There are 13 elementary schools, 5 junior high schools, and 5 high schools. The community is also home to 12 privately run grade schools, and CUNY’s La Guardia Community College. The NYPD’s 114th precinct is the police station that covers the vast neighborhood. L.I.C is also the home of four NYCHA developments: Queensbridge, Woodside, Astoria, and Ravenswoods Houses. Being that Long Island City borders the East River, the majority of NYC’s visitors who arrive by plane at either John F. Kennedy International Airport, or La Guardia Airport pass through the community whether traveling underground through the Subway system, or by car over the 59th Street Bridge.
Silver Cup Studios and Kaufman Astoria Studios are two renown production facilities that are located in LIC. Well known companies such as JetBlue Airways and Steinway & Sons Piano have their corporate offices operating in the heart of Long Island City. Even though these big names operate out of this historical Queens neighborhood, there is still enough room for the hundreds of small businesses and entrepreneurial endeavors that also operate in the same area. Many of them located along the community’s shopping districts, Broadway and Steinway Street.
Posted in Backgrounder
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Amanda Burden
The Amanda Burden profile is a well written depiction of a city planner working in the middle of two New York City worlds that fail to understand each other.
One side for innovation and making the city a “better place.” The opposing side looking to keep Ms.Burden’s side from doing that.
The author of this article Julia Satow did a fine job of keeping her personal viewpoint of this ordeal out of the piece. That’s how a profile should be written; unbiased. She gives both arguments, and allows the reader to make sense of it all, for themselves.
A problem with the article is the lack of substantial representation for the opposing side. While the article is full of quotes that make Ms.Burden seem like a woman who has New York City’s best interest at hand (at least from an economic standpoint), all of the arguments against her work seem emotion filled and to not be saying anything of substance nor logic.
For instance:
“The High Line didn’t create any new affordable housing, only condominiums for the rich, and the park itself has no open spaces for kids, but is more something for tourists to walk through,” said Miguel Acevedo, president of the tenants’ association at the Robert Fulton Houses, an affordable-housing development in the neighborhood.”
Mr.Acevedo conveniently ignored the statement made by Ms.Burden about The High Line creating 12,000 jobs and accounting for 2 billion dollars in revenue. The problem isn’t that he skipped those stats, the problem is that he’s complaining about a promise that was never made—not being fulfilled. He’s complaining about condominiums being built for “the rich,” all while holding the title of “President” for the tenants’ association of an affordable-housing development in the same neighborhood as The High Line. His claim of there being no space for kids can be debunked when there are plenty of kids who don’t seem like the park isn’t up to their standard.
Most of the arguments against Ms.Burden’s work are attempts to vilify the rich, which is fine if you have a substantial argument, but none of the arguments included in the article did. I feel Julia Satow should have dug deeper for a more even keeled, opposing argument. Without a stronger opposition than what was quoted, this article ended with Amanda Burden seeming as if she’s NYC’s developmental savior.
Posted in Amanda Burden
1 Comment
Long Island City, Queens
Positioned in the north western end of Queens, Long Island City is one of the most culturally diverse communities in the world. The tightly condensed ethnic variety leaves little room for prejudice. This is a place where you grab morning coffee from a Korean convience store, order takeout from a Cantonese restaurant, and spend Saturday mornings getting your son’s haircut at a Dominican owned barbershop; all of which are located next door to each other as if the corner of 48th Street and Broadway is some sort of small business united nations. L.I.C. can be viewed as a melting pot within a melting pot; neighbors who migrated from Greece, Jamaica, Ecuador and many other countries spend their week day mornings waiting to board a train that will have them in the big sister melting pot of Manhattan in less than 4 stops.
The Kaufman Astoria Studios stands with a subtle sense of importance on 34th Avenue as Policemen from the 114th Precinct patrol the neighborhood. Long Island City is home to the world renowned Steinway & Sons piano company, an array of family run businesses, Jet Blue Airways, and many entrepreneurial endeavors. The subway lines N, R, Q, M, and 7 make it extremely convenient for residents to access the most efficient public transit system in the world. With hundreds of cultural backgrounds represented in this community, it would be impossible to have the same amount of ethnically themed businesses consume it’s main streets; but with a hopeful economic future, there may be room for a wider range of ethnic businesses that will appease a larger percentage of the diverse 191,000 residents.
