Today we’d like to introduce you to Davis Dewitt
Hi Davis, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstory.
Like everyone else in Los Angeles, I wasn’t born or raised in this city. Instead, I made the pilgrimage from my home in Colorado to the city of angels in 2018, about halfway through my college degree. By that time I had changed my major once already, but the prospects of finding work in my newly chosen journalism degree were looking slim.
I had nothing to lose, which is why I jumped at the opportunity to come join a film that was to begin shooting in Los Angeles during what would have been the spring semester. My idea at the time was simple; take the semester off, and trade in my press badge and school work for the chance to work on my first real movie. So I packed the car, sublet my Fort Collins apartment, and followed the sunset west until I reached my new home in Hollywood.
Shortly after moving in with some old high school friends and getting settled, my luck ran out. The film I had moved out to work on was being postponed indefinitely. My hopes of launching a successful career in film evaporated overnight, and with it, any chances I had of spending that spring gainfully employed.
So I did the next best thing, I replied to every Craigslist ad and Facebook post looking for crew, regardless of position or pay. It was a slog, slowly cutting my teeth in the industry that I had risked it all for. But bit by bit, gig by gig, I slowly worked my way up to being financially independent in the freelance world. I worked hard to carve out a place for myself in this city, which is why I’m proud to call it my home.
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Even after moving all the way to Los Angeles for a movie that never got made, my string of bad luck still had yet to run its course. The first truly massive hit I took was the pandemic, which was particularly painful given I had only just started to get consistent film work. After 4 months of lockdown, it began to become clear that work wasn’t going to be returning anytime soon, and that I needed to find a new way to support myself and keep a roof over my head.
It was that desperation that pushed me back into an aspect of my life I thought I had left behind; engineering. Despite being the focus of my initial major in college and one of my first passions in life, the profession had left a bad taste in my mouth. Years of struggling through math classes and failing programming exams had led me to believe I wasn’t cut out for the job, but with few options left, I decided to dive back in and re-learn the concepts on my own terms.
This proved to be the key ingredient that would allow me to survive not only the pandemic but the ensuing writer’s strike as well. By learning to fall back in love with CAD, computer programming, and electrical engineering, I was able to start my own business and remove my dependency on just one industry to support myself. It’s hardly been a smooth ride, but I love what I do now, and had it not been for the roadblocks along the way, I might have never pushed myself to grow.
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
I always joke that my title has become “Mad Scientist” when asked about what I do for a living. But as the years go by and the projects I build become more ridiculous, I think that term has become a pretty apt descriptor of my work.
For years, my bread and butter was working in the film industry as a member of the camera department. It was the perfect way to combine my love of the mechanical world with that of art and storytelling. But everything changed when I got the call I got to come work on the Mythbusters reboot “Motor Mythbusters” back in 2021. It was a dream come true, I got to learn how to blow up cars, build robots, and talk about the whole process on camera. It was from that show that I was able to launch my own career in the world of special/practical effect building and prototype engineering.
Since then, I’ve taken on a wide range of projects, from building on-screen props and robots to creating prototypes for companies and developing my own line of custom camera parts. I love nothing more than bringing something new into existence, and the world of film and TV has given me a platform to do just that.
But my biggest source of pride will always be the builds I get to make for myself. It’s there that I truly get to let my imagination run wild and revel in the challenge of building something that’s never existed before. From condiment-firing cannons to massive murals made out of receipts, I never tire of bringing the whimsical and absurd to life.
Can you talk to us a bit about the role of luck?
Something that completely reframed how I see the world was the idea that “nobody plans on luck.” For years I operated under the same preconceptions as everyone else; that the only way to ensure success was to plan out each step of your career so you could steer it in the direction you wanted to go. Of course, what they don’t tell you, is that so much of life is lived in what we think are the detours.
When I trace back my career through all the major moments that brought me to where I am now, the overwhelming majority of which were the result of sheer luck. The people I met when I moved to Los Angeles and the opportunities they gave me were all the result of simply being in the right place at the right time. Had I ignored those opportunities that fell into my lap in favor of blindly following a predetermined career path, I would still just be chipping away at the career I want.
It feels like the opposite of good advice, but planning on luck really just comes down to the value of trusting your skills and seizing the opportunities that come your way.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.backhaul.us/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/itsdavisdewitt/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@backhaul-studios
