Tell us a bit about your organization and what your specialty is in the film and video space.

I run a small creative agency called Hustle Media and I like to joke that we specialize in “watchables and wearables” – but really we do video & animation and dabble in merch and web design.

What is your organization’s ethos and how does it set you apart from industry competitors?

We are not afraid of hard things. I apply this to complicated nuance stories we tell for our clients, in how we co-share in interviews to keep our subject feeling comfortable and safe, in how we have traveled the globe for projects, and in how we keep our hands in the dirt on a project until it’s ready to meet the world.

How can people join or learn more about what you do?

I am pretty active on instagram at @michaelishustle and my website is hustlemedia.co

Tell us about your Telly Award winning piece. What’s the story behind it?

This past year I submitted a series of 2D Animations that were created for a large Art Festival in Orlando, Florida called “Immerse Fest.” It’s a two night festival that takes over downtown and has everything from performance art (like the blue man group), to a self driving piano, skunk cars, and video installations.

I wanted to create a piece that dealt with grief and loss, and to find a way to bring that conversation into this festival that helped people be present and appreciative of the time they were spending with their friends and family at the event.

So I animated some typography with quotes from Ram Dass and Rumi and built three mailboxes to house iPads that played the animations on loop.

What are you most proud of about this piece? What was your biggest challenge during production and how did you solve it?

From a big picture perspective I am proud of the honesty within the pieces, sitting with some of the feelings they bring up for me can be painful – but healing all at once.

From a technical perspective I am proud of building out these pieces for the resolution of an old iPad and figuring out how to make them look seamless inside of the wooden mailboxes I built.

They looked and felt seamless and I loved that. I also was just accepted for a second year at the festival so hopefully I will have round 2 to submit in 2026.

Do you have any advice to other filmmakers based on your career or your team’s approach to work?

Keep showing up. Keep making things. Work long nights when it’s worth it to you. Make things that are worth it to you.

Can you share a behind the scenes story or fun fact about the making of your piece?

At point during the event I happened to see the Blue Man Group walk through the crowd and stop in front of my installation to watch for a few seconds.

It was such a surreal experience seeing those characters stop to interact with my piece, and I fumbled my camera trying to capture it hahah – totally missed it. Just a moment for me I guess.

Tell us about the most memorable response you got from this work.

One of the pieces was a quote from Rumi that said, “We are all just walking each other home,” and someone came up to me as the festival and said something along the lines of, “These folks here, they can’t fully understand this unless they’ve lost someone – unless they have walked someone home.”

Complete this sentence: ‘Great video storytelling is…’

… bringing a viewer along for a ride that is honest and leaves them feeling like they are more connected than they previously thought.