| Jonathan Sims |
 From high school, with little technical experience, but with interest piqued by a journalism teacher, Jonathan entered New Mexico State University’s journalism program. He also took a job as production assistant with the university’s agricultural communications studio. “Their whole thing was promoting agriculture. And, along with promoting it, doing lots of educational videos about how people learn [agriculture] processes.” The studio also held outside contracts with the state government, the EPA, and other entities. Initially, the job was “basically plugging things in, picking up boxes, and watching tons of videos” in the duplication department, but, eventually, Jonathan was producing his own videos. By the time Jonathan got to the production classes for his major, “my contemporaries were way behind me in terms of production skills. So, I flew through the journalism program.” After college, Jonathan was recruited to produce promotional materials for KFOX-TV in El Paso, Texas. He held the job for one year before deciding to come home to attempt entry into New Mexico’s growing film industry. After cold-calling many Albuquerque production companies, Jonathan was hired to do back-up sound on both major and local productions. Jonathan also began helping his mother, a language preservation specialist and professor at the University of New Mexico, find ways of using video as a tool for educating language teachers, and for use by teachers in the classroom. Through this work, he formulated an idea for a documentary film about language preservation in indigenous communities in New Mexico, the idea for which he would win the governor’s film award. The film is scheduled to be finished summer of this year, 2009. The grant afforded Jonathan the opportunity to begin production on his own film and has led to many further productions for multiple clients.  With his own equipment, Jonathan began getting his own gigs. “I sort of stepped off of working on the big-time productions, and really got into doing contracts with local places... I picked up a contract from Zuni Pueblo Housing to do videos for them”; and he got a contract to do fire safety videos for an insurance company, the Amerind Risk Management Corporation, in five indigenous languages. “But, along the way, I had no idea what I was doing business-wise.” Jonathan ran his business without much thought about a business plan or strategy. “I ran my business for two years without any advertising at all; just word of mouth. No website; just handing out my business card.” Not having anyone to guide him through the early stages of developing a business left Jonathan figuring each step out on his own. Then he met a mentor, a boxing promoter, real estate investor, and Fed Ex franchise owner, who asked him to shoot a boxing match at the casino in Acoma. Over time, the two developed a relationship. After two large contracts fell through last fall due to the economic downturn, and an attempt to combine his business with a that of a friend in Las Cruces didn’t pan out, Jonathan’s mentor began to become more involved with his business. “He started asking, ‘Who have you approached? How are you approaching these people?’” He began to take Jonathan around to make introductions. In November, he offered Jonathan a month-long apprenticeship - Jonathan’s labor as a personal assistant in exchange for a month of learning about business. “He was like, I’m gonna show you how I do business. And so, for the next month and a half, I went to every single meeting that he was in on.” Jonathan had felt the need for a business mentor since returning to Albuquerque. “Because, all through college, I had all these other producers and people that mentored me in my craft - gave me constructive criticism, and stuff like that - that have gotten me to where I am in terms of my art and my craft. But, in terms of business, I didn’t have that same sort of thing, and so it was a whole different animal.”  For Jonathan, a substantial piece of his learning has been about how video methods and technology can support a community. “There’s the whole art world, and there’s the whole Hollywood world, and then there’s the world I’m coming out of, which is really grassroots. There’s part of me that would really like to be a player on these big film sets, but the more and more that I was on them, I was just kind of like, you know what? If I never saw another major film set, and just concentrated on what I’m doing now, I would be totally fine with that. Because, there’s so much potential in media now for little communities.” Jonathan has clear goals for his career future. His overarching plan is to create “a company that can produce media and help start to build media facilities.. in rural communities.” Jonathan’s vision is that each of these communities will have a centralized media center that people can go to when they have the idea that this technology could help them to further whatever it is they are doing. Jonathan could teach community members to use the video technology, and then those people could train others. “The be all end all would be that if it inspires some kid like me that was in high school and has no access to this at all, and that kid wants to go into film, wants to go be the Hollywood director, they have a starting point. In their community, and taught by their people.” When Jonathan talks to people now about his business, he tells them that “it’s all about creating media for local clients. And creating quality media for low cost. That’s my business side.. this is what I’m selling. And to the educational sector, to people like that, I tell them, you know, you could use media as a tool as an educator, and this is how we go about teaching this tool.” Jonathan says that in the world of videography, people talk about three genres, promotional video, educational video, and corporate video. “So now, I think you’ve got to add another one onto that, and that’s cultural video, you know? And documentation of everything around us. Because everything is changing so fast. So, you know, if I can be.. not necessarily in the forefront, but if I can just keep that going, that’s going to be fine with me. And, if I can make a dollar along the way and pay my rent? That’s even better!” For more information visit NO RESERVATIONS PRODUCTION web site.
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