Considering the fact that I've started this blog to provide those of you interested in what was going on behind that 'iDesignatUA' YouTube title, I think it's the best place to share my story and hopefully inspire some of you guys.
Anyway, it all started for me back in 1994 or 1995. I mean, it's been almost 20 years since and no wonder I'm not sure about the exact year.
So back then I started taking basketball very serious and started playing some organized ball. Nevertheless I was a huge fan a Michael Jordan, I also considered myself an overall basketball fan so no wonder that my favorite TV show of the time was NBA Action, that featured all those game reviews, highlight reels, on and off the court pieces on players, coaches and teams, and ofc, NBA's famous music videos.
People of my age and those older fans know exactly what I'm talking about, those videos were plain and simple amazing. I remember myself recording those NBA Action episodes on VHS tapes (most of you, young bloodz prolly don't even know what that means, and I assure you that you don't even want to know, just enjoy this wonderful digital age of today) and watched those music videos over and over again and again. Back then I thought that these were the best things ever created by men.
Back in those days we didn't even have any tools to even try editing clips of our own, even though we've tried to perform some amature editing connecting couple of VHS players together and with a bit of trial and error we compiled some primitive videos of our own, but compared to NBA's videos our clips sucked big time and there was pretty much nothing we could do about it.
It was 2002 I guess when I for the first time came accross those TV tunner cards that were designed to be plugged in the PC which allowed to dispay television signal on your computer when connected to the TV cable. Furthermore, one could connect his VHS player/recorder to that card and digitize some of the clips recorded on the VHS tapes. That was a start of something new, because one could record some TV shows and all that VHS stuff, digitize it and later on edit it on his computer. I'm not saying that 2002 was a beginning of that new age for everyone, I'm pretty much sure some people have been doing something like that long before, but for me it was the year. I can clearly remember that like if it was yesterday even though it's been 11 long years since.
At first I've used Windows Movie Maker to edit my clips. It was a shitty program with extremely poor toolset and an idiotic interface. But it's me now. Then I thought that it was the best thing Microsoft corp has ever invented. So I've edited couple of my videos and showed them to some friends of mine. At first they couldn't believe that it was me who edited these, because they thought that only TV and Movie companies could do that. After I've explained how I've achieved that result, they said that I should keep on doing that because they thought I was good.
It was a really inspiring start, but back then I never really wanted to develop those skills. I had my Hoop Dreams aspirations and wanted to play pro ball and I wasn't really interested in anything else. Nevertheless, in 2003 I've started a website where I displayed my videos along with some basketball pictures, news, articles, training programs, etc. all free of charge and ads free. I always thought that sharing was the most wonderful thing about the Internet and if someone would've liked to encourage your work he would've just donated you some money to keep you afloat.
Anyway by the end of 2003 Adobe released the Premiere Pro program which I have chosen to study and master along with another NLE (non-linear editing) program called Sony Vegas (it was v.2 or v.3). But as I've mentioned, I never wanted to become pro at editing those videos, I just enjoyed it like a hobby of mine. People encouraged me to keep on doing it and made bold predictions that I probably could've had a future in this field. While I thought that the only future I wanted was a professional basketball career, so I payed no attention to those talks at all.
In the spring of 2004 something happened that actually changed my attitude towards it completely. I've blown my left knee. I mean like most of the athletes I wasn't new to injuries. I had my right ankle sprained couple of times and had my wrist broken before that knee injury happened. Since those injuries were never a threat to my career before I wasn't really worried at first. But it turned out that the situation with my knee was different this time and it eventually turned out to be more serious that I could've imagined. A career-ending one, that was what doctors told me. To this day I consider what has happened then the toughest pill I had to swollow in my entire life.
I had to sit at home with my left leg stretched for four weeks. I had to do something to get my mind off it so I dedicated my free time to editing basketball videos and mastering NLE programs so I could just focus on something. That summer when I recovered from the knee injury I had a tryout with a local basketball pro team, and even though I performed great, my knee still bothered me and they dicided to not take a risk. Can't blame them for that, but for me the game was over.
I've transfered to a different University, because I was no longer interested in a strong basketball program of my prior educational institution, but instead I was looking for a strong educational program that will later on help me to get a nice... job. That's right, a freaking job instead of a contract with a pro basketball team. But I couldn't go back in time and prevent that injury from happening, so I just had to move on. That part of my life was over.
And so I've focused on my education and with tons of free time I decided to get better at video editing. If you take away those 4 to 6 hours of training a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year, you'll probably have tons of free time to do so just like I didn. I've studied hard to get better in working with my NLE progs just on my own and I've never recieved any specialized education. Fact of the matter is, I believe that you simply can not teach one arts, it's something that one either has or hasn't inside of him. Period. And since making videos is yet another form of art... All you need to edit videos is to know how to work with those NLE programs, but you can easily get self-educated on this particular matter, that's for sure. So I've done just that.
My videos became popular by that time and more than 1,500 people from 30+ different countries around the World visited my website daily, so obviously my work caught some attention. To cut a long story short, it resulted in 20-years-old myself being invited to work for the Ukrainian national sports TV channel. I have decided to accept that invitation and in fall of 2005 my pro career in the industry began. During my time in TV business I've written, directed, edited and produced four basketball documentaries, number of music videos, clips, ads and have been directing a weekly basketball TV show for two seasons. I'm a freelancer since 2009.
So if you want to make those videos (like myself and tons of other people on YouTube do) and probably work in the TV industry, know that it's possible. If someone tells you that you can't do it, that you need to have an education to do that, that you need to have connections in this business to get in, that you can't do it because of your age, that it's impossible for you because you lack the experience in the industry and so on and so forth, be sure to say back to them: 'Fuck you, because you don't even know what you're talking about. As the matter of fact, you don't know shit. iDesignatUA did it, and so can I. That's a fact. Period.'
I told you this story to inspire you and to show you that the only impediment to do something in your life is actually your mindset. Once you want something badly and tell yourself 'I can do it', you'll somehow someway find how to get to a point where you want to be, regardless of what others may say. It's their problem, not yours. It's them who can't do it (it must be impossible for them since they say so) but not you. You can if you just will. Just do it (Nike probably should send me a big check for that, haha) :)
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