I have worked in the advertising industry for over 20 years, spanning agencies, post-production, and industrial advertising, where visual ads are brought to life in real-world settings.

For the past 2 years, my wife and I have decided to embrace a new adventure and move to the rural mountains of Tennessee, build our own house, develop a homestead without any previous experience, to live closer to nature, and establish our YouTube channel to document the journey and share it with the world.

How many years have you been a judge?

This is my first year!

What excited you about judging for the Telly Awards?

The experience of being part of other talents’ success

What was your first job in the industry? What did it teach you?

Customer service: I learned to be more flexible, understand that there is always another perspective.

What project are you most proud to have worked on?

Building a unique house without any previous experience.

What’s the most challenging part about your job and/or the industry?

Having to learn every step and figure out a way to make it correctly.

What do you look for to determine excellence in video?

Emotional impact, Sounds and sound design, compositions, story flow, and the message.

What are your current roles and responsibilities and what do you love most about your job?

Responsibilities: learning to build a house, editing our weekly vlogs.

What I love most: the challenges I face while building without experience and finding solutions. Turning the weekly footage into an enjoyable story/film for each chapter.

Do you have any specific practices you lean on to spark creativity?

Spending time outdoors, blending in nature, closely observing living creatures and plants changing with every season

What inspired you to pursue your career path?

An adventure that flourishes the soul and brings me closer to my family.

In your experience, what is a significant change you are seeing happen in the video, television, and/or film industry, and what insight can you share about how to navigate it?

AI generative tools are changing the flow of video and visual production, which affects the industry in all terms, from new formats to loss of copyright and lack of authenticity. The only way to navigate it is to adapt while keeping the authentic work and brand as a priority, and investing in learning to keep up with the new generation of the industry.