Today we’d like to introduce you to Michael Metzler.
Hi Michael, so excited to have you on the platform. So before we get into questions about your work-life, maybe you can bring our readers up to speed on your story and how you got to where you are today?
(Full name: Michael Metzler Jr.) I started out when I was ten writing stories and poems, a few years later I started making a bunch of fun music videos with my siblings, to teach myself how to use a camera for storytelling more effectively. I went to college to study film and outside of classes began making short films – one of them one almost every award category at my first student film festival when I was a junior in college. After college, I made a short film with my brother in law Grant Clover for almost zero dollars – I shot, directed, and edited it, while he directed as well, and wrote it. This 7-minute long short film we made for $500 was called I Walk With Ghosts – and it went on to win over 60 awards and appear in over 80 festivals in fifteen countries around the world, including Rockport Film Festival, IndieFest (where it won an Award of Merit), NFFTY, the world’s largest film festival for filmmakers 24 and under, and take a nomination from the World Film Festival in Cannes.
From there, we made our next short film Portrait of a Smile, which we recently put on YouTube after another relatively successful film festival run. We had the honor to work with several very talented people with this short film, including the Emmy award-winning sound designer of Queen’s Gambit, as well as the score producer of The Witcher. We submitted it to far less film festivals this time, and still took home 19 awards from a wide variety of festivals. The film Portrait of a Smile raises much needed conversations surrounding suicide and mental health in general, so we’re glad for the audience that’s already received it, and are looking for more ways to spread it around, in partnership with nonprofits, schools, etc.
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
The years through college were probably the times I had the most fears about my future – especially in my passion for filmmaking and storytelling, I constantly wondered how I would “break in” to this world and financially support myself, much less a family in the future. I felt like I was sort of floating through most of college without a clear direction, only a bunch of ‘hopes,’ but what I didn’t realize looking back on my past, was that I was doing so many little random things that would eventually lead me step by step to where I am today, things that at the time I thought nothing of, but built my skills and confidence in these areas. Of course, I could have always done MORE but you can always do more when you’re looking back on the past.
As you know, we’re big fans of you and your work. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about what you do?
As far as my work-life goes, as soon as I graduated college (and while we were shooting I Walk With Ghosts) I was hired as a videographer and content creator for SANDMARC, an iPhone lens/accessories brand (284,000 on insta) and hit my first 3million organic view Reel for them in my time working there. As well as a couple more 1-mil count videos shortly after, overall across their tiktok and instagram a culmination of over 15 million views. After a year and a half of doing that, I started work as (now present day) a creative strategist and content creator for a new quickly-growing electrolyte brand, Instant Hydration. Every day I’m strategizing ad hooks & angles, writing, shooting & acting in ads that are used across multiple platforms. What sets me apart is my filmmaking eye, both in a literary and visual sense. My strength is my combination of writing and visual pacing. As someone who’s been writing poetry and stories since I was 10, writing is second nature to me. What sets me apart more specifically is my ability to translate the pacing of the written word and its natural rhythms (for example, both the rubato free-verse, and the strictly metered formal verse poetry) into the rhythms of visual storytelling, in how I pace and edit my films and other videos. I understand that timing is extremely effective.
What do you like and dislike about the city?
I love the north county of San Diego a ton because it has the best of everything – moderate distance from the large downtown SD, while being nestled in the heart of the Carlsbad/La Costa/Vista arena, which is comprised of both upper-class resort areas with great shopping, as well as rolling green hills, being 15 minutes away from the beach, and only a two hour drive away from snow in the mountains. The thing I like the least is the cost of real estate.
Contact Info:
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/michaelmetzlerjr
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cmvHwdgLEwA
- Other: https://calbaptist.edu/about/news-events/news/alumnus_short_film_being_screened_around_the_world
