“The world’s gotta go ‘round somehow, right?” Davis Smith, digital media communications major said with a slightly woeful smile.
This is not just about celestial mechanics, though — it is also a perspective on what we do, and when we do it.
I do not imagine Davis thought he was making that profound of a statement, but I would beg to differ. As a fellow student, I know all too well how great it feels to procrastinate on class work. That is usually when I find myself also saying, “this can wait until tomorrow, though. I’ll have plenty of time to finish it.”
This sort of mindset is exactly the sort of thing that a student-creator, such as Smith, needs to battle daily. On top of his various busy classes, on the last weekend of August, Smith had the chance to head out to Normal, Illinois, as the concert videographer for Leah Marlene. Leah Marlene placed third in the most recent season of American Idol (its twentieth). With a show like American Idol that has turned out some major music stars, this is no mean feat, so when I heard that Davis knew someone like this personally, I had one of those ‘six-degrees-of-separation’ moments. To understand how this came about, we need to rewind a couple of years.
“When I was a freshman at Belmont University, in Nashville, there was another freshman who lived in the building next door to me. And the whole time we were at that university, we never met once,” Smith said. “During lockdown, we ended up meeting over the internet. We shared some songs, because we’re both songwriters, and we just kept chugging along through life.”
Smith proceeded to relay to me a tale of an almost ill-fated artist collaboration.
“I had never actually met her in person, but I knew her, so I just kept watching her,” Smith said. “We ended up writing a song together when I first came to Union, and we were kind of kicking the can down the road on this song. I finally wanted to buckle down and release the song, so I reached out to her, asking her what it would take to release this song. She told me about another year.”
From there, the story of Leah’s electrifying performance unfolded, with Davis just watching along with the rest of the nation. At this point in the story, I had become so invested in what Davis was saying that I had almost forgotten all about what the central point was.
“When I was at Belmont, I was originally going for film, and I wanted to find a way to merge film with music,” Smith continued. “I was on a flight to Nashville I think, when I was thinking about how filming artists behind the scenes really scratched that creative itch. So, I bought airplane wifi, and I texted her saying ‘let me be your tour videographer’.”
It would be over a month before Davis heard back.
“Then, out of the blue, she says, ‘I’m doing a big hometown return concert, in August, and I want you to film it.’ And I said, ‘Let’s go,’” Smith said.
Without adequate equipment, Davis planned out how he would go about filming the biggest project of his videography efforts to-date. This work depended on the storytelling, as would any other project. He approached that night for Leah as a story of her and her hometown, capturing those around Leah, and their thoughts and feelings, as well as the concert itself.
“Dave is just a live wire,” journalism professor Ted Kluck said. “He’s a catalyst. Every band, every team, every friend-group needs somebody like that. He’s one of those rare people who throws himself into the deep end and then finds a way to swim out.”
Davis is still combing through footage to fully assemble a complete film, but a shorter format video has been posted to both Leah Marlene’s Instagram account as well as Davis’ own. As I consider a task of that significance, whose success or failure mean vastly more than a good or bad grade, I am reminded of the daily, weekly and monthly projects that are very common to Davis’ own major, digital media communications.
I share the same major, and I wanted another DMC student’s opinion on creativity, classwork and personal endeavors.
“If you want to do this kind of work, the two pieces of advice I would give you are, one: find your voice, and two: prove that you’re trustworthy,” said Smith when I asked him how a prospective creator can get their first foothold in actual work.
Accordingly, I am brought back to celestial mechanics. Davis told me in many ways, and then outright, bluntly told me: if you want to work, you have to make work. That can mean making bad work, but if you never make work at all, outside of class assignments, your creative progress could be significantly slowed.
“The world’s gotta go ‘round somehow, right?”
This is a statement not only indicative of the world, but of ourselves. The world is going to rotate, and it is up to the creator with the drive and ambition to chase his dreams to rotate right along with it. Davis Smith is one of those creators.
