Today we’d like to introduce you to Jake Albrecht.
Thanks for sharing your story with us Jake. So, let’s start at the beginning and we can move on from there.
Born in California, I spent the majority of my life growing up in a trailer park in Flint, Michigan. I grew up with two older brothers Joh and Josh and a younger sister Rachel. We didn’t have much and we were a bit of a handful to my single mother so my Mom and Aunt would always encourage us to keep ourselves busy through being creative like drawing, building things like bikes, skateboarding, etc. My brother got heavy into building Lowrider bikes and I got heavy into skateboarding and graffiti.
This turned into me loving skate videos like “Yeah Right” and “CKY” and I did everything I could to mimic these videos and found a crappy little JVC camcorder in a box and I filmed everything from skateboarding, tagging trains, making skits to mimic the TV show “Jackass”. In high school, I was fortunate enough to get into the only class that made me care to show up to school called “Video Production” at the GASC (Genessee Area Skill Center).
As I got older, my brothers and I graduated from 2 wheels on a bike to 4 flats on a hoopty and turned any crappy car we could into something that resembled a lowrider. I then traded a car for a better camera (which was still crappy in retrospect). We started a car club called “Lethal Lowz” and this gave me an even bigger outlet to be creative with a camera. I filmed everything surrounding car clubs in mid-Michigan. We would spend our days winning trophies and having fun at local car shows and nights in the streets cruising the Flint Cruise and Gratiot Ave. in Detroit until we were forced to go home by the police. Often peacefully, occasionally by force.
I would bring all of my videotapes to class and load them into my computer and edit videos into 45 minutes of cool footage and early 2000’s rap songs, burn it onto copies DVDs and sell them out of my backpack at car shows for $15-$20 each. This leads me to buying my first Mac laptop with Final Cut Pro and I didn’t have to show up to class anymore to edit my videos. I could do it from home. My Mother loved every video I ever made and the feeling I would get from making people happy by watching my videos was unlike any other feeling.
The more I would edit the more I loved it. I dreamt of doing it on a larger scale. At the time, the Detroit Pistons were in the NBA Playoffs and my favorite player was Chauncey Billups. He would later lead the team to an NBA Championship. Meanwhile, I was recording his highlights on my VCR during the games and turning them into mixtapes. This turned into pipe dreams of one day working in the NBA but where I am from, no one gets out and does that. If you’re lucky, you have a family member who works on an assembly line at a GM plant or a rich distant relative in another state. I had neither.
Then Mom had a stroke. With my brother Josh joining the military after 9/11 and Joh having two young daughters and now taking the responsibility of taking care of my younger sister, I was the only one in place to take care of her. I dropped out of school and spent my time making sure that she was okay and worked evenings to help pay the bills.
Worked my way up from cashier at McDonald’s to a dishwasher at a mom and pop diner to a delivery driver at a sandwich joint.
Then one day Mom passed away.
To keep my mind straight, I learned to keep my focus in my work and channel it into that. I then moved my way up to assistant manager all the way up to General Manager.
Having a restaurant in Flint wasn’t easy. We got robbed pretty frequently and the customers were in general, pretty depressing. The reality of knowing that I would be risking my life to sell sandwiches for the rest of my life started to get to me and I couldn’t hide it.
As I was cleaning up the lobby a group of people walked in. I make their sandwiches and the last guy asked for something irregular. He asked for just a piece of bread. Any normal day I would just give it to him no problem. But this day, I wasn’t in a good mood. I explained to him that I couldn’t give it to him unless he paid full price for a sandwich. He was kind enough to do so but not before asking me if I was okay. I told him no. I hated my job and I didn’t have much of an outlet to do anything else. He told me that he grew up in the area and he is in a band. He encouraged me to take my poor ass out of a trailer park and into college. It’s possible.
That was enough for me. I went home and started to look colleges. Next day I get a call from the Art Institute of California – Los Angeles. I saved up my money and moved to LA. That was August 2009.
I gave it my all. Since I already had five years of amateur film making under my belt, I felt like I had an advantage. Started to work in the school’s camera equipment for minimum wage but more importantly to learn more about tech. I got all A’s but the amount of focus I put into school and the minimum wage I was making wasn’t enough for college, rent and cost of living in LA. So I dropped out and crashed on the couches of those who could benefit from my film making abilities.
With internships and just general Midwest hustle, I continued to do as much as I could to network and learn. I got a part-time job at a small surf company creating content. It didn’t pay much and I still was couch surfing so I did what I said I would never do, Go back into the food industry.
I worked as a server and bartender at a Dine in movie theater in Marina Del Rey. A nice upgrade from a sandwich shop in Flint. I actually enjoyed it very much. I met a lot of great people. I would serve a lot of directors, movie stars and athletes. One of them being 2004 NBA Champion Chauncey Billups. Out of respect, I never would speak too much to the “high profile” people so my earlier story of creating mixtapes of his plays would remain in my back pocket.
Aside from all of the people of Hollywood that I would see day in and day out, another person who would come in frequently was a cat from Clevland named Chris Parker. Chris Parker was someone that I would prep gear for in college when he would be on shoots for people like Justin Beiber and Kevin Hart. He then moved onto working as a producer for the LA Dodgers and later the LA Clippers. It was always a pleasure to see him and I would always remind him that if he ever needed an extra hand, I was more than available for that.
In 2016 the Clevland Cavaliers won an NBA Championship. To me, this meant nothing. To Chris Parker, it meant everything for the city that he is from. He headed back to “The Land” and once he realized that he needed someone to cover a shoot that he was planning on doing with the LA Clippers, he remembered a certain bartender he knew from college that was a really good camera operator.
After knocking the project out of the park, I was offered a full-time job. I was now in the NBA. This was exactly where I wanted to be.
The next year after being a bit more established, I was sent to the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York to get coverage of the NBA Draft. Before all of the cameras and the lights were cut on, I was prepping my gear and getting a lay of the land. Doing the same thing right next to me was one of the ESPN hosts of the NBA draft, Chauncey Billups. At this point. I am not a fan, he is not an athlete. I am not a bartender, he is not a guest. I am media and so is he. So I felt at that point, we can see eye to eye and I can approach him.
I told him my name. Where I was from. I told him how much it meant to me that he was such a great leader to a team that won a championship for our city. I told him how inspired I was by his work ethic that it gave me what I needed to create a path to do more and do it for the greater good. The look in his eye while I was talking said it all but he only said two words. “Keep going.” And I did.
I currently work at the number 2 sports agency in the world and recently won a “Webby Award” for cinematography in a piece I did with NFL Films. I am learning more about one day becoming a video editing teacher.
I am a true believer that everything happens for a reason and that every lesson is a good lesson as long as you learn from it. Pay attention to signs because they are a path to a greater purpose for you and everyone around you. Work hard, be passionate and keep the ones who inspire you to close by but most importantly have love in your heart.
Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
The hardest part is being taken advantage of and not knowing when it is happening. Any creative will tell you that at some point in their journey, they were taken advantage of.
People are smart and they know when they have something good in a young filmmaker. Some will make you feel like you are less than in order to keep you from leaving for a better opportunity. Some will make promises for a better future and never deliver and rob you from your time, sometimes years wasted that you could have been using to advance in what you want.
Unfortunately, there is no way of recognizing this if you are young, especially if you don’t have anyone who can give you the warning beforehand. The only way to see it is to go through it but once you go through it, you will never need to go through it again because you will know how to move different.
We’d love to hear more about your work and what you are currently focused on. What else should we know?
I am a video producer/ photographer that specializing in camera operating, storytelling and editing but I also take pride in knowing a little bit about just about everything in this business. Everything from writing, ideation, sales, marketing, social media, public relations and so much more.
I am just proud in the fact that I didn’t quit and I look at every opportunity as an opportunity to grow.
In the physical sense, I was very proud to have won a Webby Award for Cinematography. Proud to be living in the best city in the world and I can pay my rent and car payment on time and I did it all by myself.
I believe what sets me apart is my passion as an artist and my heart as a human. I care a lot about the things that I do and the people around me. I also have a great sense of urgency and everything I do gets 100% of my effort.
If you had to go back in time and start over, would you have done anything differently?
If I started over and didn’t know what I know now, I wouldn’t do anything different. Every action gets a reaction and everything always comes around full circle. If it wasn’t for the things that I encountered, I wouldn’t know how to move when the opportunity presents itself again.
If I started over knowing what I know now, I would use my knowledge to stay away from people who take advantage of you. Having that time back is very valuable which in turn creates fuller amounts of growth.
Contact Info:
- Website: twitch.tv/trustdashoota
- Email: j.a.streetphotos@gmail.com
- Instagram: trustdashoota
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