I definitely feel that coming from Egypt gave
me a huge advantage because I'm Egyptian so
when I upload your work to my channel, you
have a new audience on a totally different
continent.
I've worked with a lot of hip-hop artists.
There's a very big community in Harrisonburg
that actually need music videos or videos
in general to promote their artwork.
For SMAD (School of Media Arts & Design),
we have a lot of classes that are divided
by whether you're a graphic designer, a videographer,
journalist, but since I'm a digital video
and cinema concentration, I'm basically only
doing short movies, documentaries. At the
same time, the school provides us with all
the equipment that we need. They encourage
us to develop our own style. I feel like this
is a great way to know what you want to do
in the future. How you want to do it, how
it would look like. Fortunately, people like
my work, for almost all of the artists that
I've worked with, they keep coming back, they
want more videos.
When I tell someone that I'm studying at JMU
for video they're like “this guy knows what
he's doing. He's studying for it, he has the
equipment”, JMU definitely gives me the
reputation.
I shot about two commercials for restaurants
in Harrisonburg. I was like, “here's my
work, let me know if you need anything”.
A couple days later, they hit me up and we
shot a video. I feel proud when I go in there
and my video is playing.
If you're trying to come study here, have
some knowledge before you come here. Getting
into SMAD is hard, if you know what you're
doing it will up your chances a lot. You'll
have a huge advantage over everybody, it will
make your life easier. I love my life right
now, going to SMAD, doing all this work. I
enjoy it.
