Listen my friend…
I gotta story that’ll blow your socks off
Kurt Collins hails from Kentucky, land of bluegrass, bourbon, and dashed tennis dreams. He was good at tennis—scholarship good—until SNAP! His shoulder detonated like an Alka-Seltzer inside of a seagull. Goodbye, pro tennis. Hello, existential crisis.
Post-rehab, he tried to claw his way back, but the mojo was gone. Then, in classic dumb-luck fashion, fate intervened via a talent manager in Cincinnati. A few handshakes later, signing on the dotted line, Kurt was L.A.-bound. Stuffing his POS 1989 Camry with a guitar, some clothes, and a box labeled "uncertainty".
Kurt was barely 20 when he took off into the great unknown with no golden parachute. Some say Kurt knew what he was doing— some say he didn't.
It was the latter of the two. Hell back then, Kurt thought it was "the ladder of the two."
BUT he had no idea what he wasn't doing either. That’s a magical place to live… inside the Dunning-Kruger effect.
After spending a week in Los Angeles, making the rounds, an agency said they would represent him if he moved to LA. So he dropped out of school, his scholarship, and decided to go through this newly opened door alone.
Cut to 18 years later, and he's still going strong. Kurt worked in the entertainment and fashion industry for over a decade as an "actor-slash-model and not the other way around" (points if you know the movie). He worked with some of the world's best directors, DP's, and photographers. When reflecting on some of the jobs he’s worked in his nearly 20 years in LA, he still has to pinch himself.
But here's the thing. Being in front of the camera was never the goal. That was the flint for the fire to get him somewhere other than lost.
What he has gained by giving up his youth to Los Angeles is taste. He spent over a decade with some of the world's greatest tastemakers and watched them operate. They weren't hired because they knew how to fly through the menu screen of a camera. They were hired because of their taste.
Bland is bland. Taste is taste. No matter if it's served on a Dixie paper plate or Hermes Passifolia dinnerware. In the end Kurt serves up taste.
In jeopardy you answer in the form of a question. So if ever you find yourself needing a DP, remember… What is Kurt.