Today we’d like to introduce you to David Grabias.
Thanks for sharing your story with us David. So, let’s start at the beginning and we can move on from there.
I’ve always been a writer and photographer, and in college I made some artsy black-and-white Super 8mm short films. I was exposed to documentary filmmaking in my early 20’s when my roommate at the time took a class in the subject. Watching her work on her school film productions, I immediately fell in love with the observational nature of the documentary process; the medium felt completely natural and comfortable. While juggling a series of random day jobs, I taught myself about cameras and editing, tried to help friends out on their projects, and made short doc films on the weekends. Eventually, I received a small grant to make a film in Turkey about folk music.
When I returned to the U.S., I moved to Los Angeles and spent the first couple of years continuing to make independent documentaries but struggling to make ends meet. I ended up paying the bills mostly by working as an electrician on film sets. I took whatever gigs I could get, everything from super-low-budget movies to music videos. Often, I worked nights. One time I got lost downtown near the river around midnight and saw a motorcycle cop walking down the street. I pulled over to ask him directions; it turned out he was one of the actors on the shoot.
It’s during this period that I fell in love with Los Angeles. On the way to the job or headed back home in the middle of the night, I’d find myself driving all over, often to neighborhoods I’d never otherwise have a reason to visit. It was an incredible way to explore and discover the city. The streets were empty for the most part, except for the odd construction project, taco truck with bright flashing sign, or coyote running across the street. I loved the other-worldly orange color of the old sodium streetlights, the scent of night-blooming jasmine, the eerie buzz of the city slumbering, the supernatural speed at which you could travel around town without any traffic. I still find sublime moments of joy while driving carefree across town on a warm summer night with the windows down.
My career prospects changed when I got a call one day from a friend who worked in PR and Marketing at Sony Pictures. “Do you think you could make a documentary about the true story one of our movies is based upon?” she asked. “Of course!” I said. “What if our movie is about people who believe they are werewolves and vampires?” she asked. I didn’t blink. The resulting documentary special was broadcast on FX and helped launch my company, Artifact Studios. Together with my partner Anne Edgar, we started making “branded content” before it had a name. We did a series of docs for Sony and other movie studios and then grew to work over the last decade with dozens of companies across industries, creating documentaries and non-fiction content that entertained and informed while raising brand awareness.
Has it been a smooth road?
It is rarely a smooth road. I think on the artistic side there is the universal struggle to get around the dreaded “Imposter Syndrome”, the idea that you are not worthy to be called an artist or a filmmaker. It took me years to feel comfortable in my skin, confident in my abilities and my vision. Of course you want to feel a little nervous and uncertain when you’re starting a new project or working with a new client, but you shouldn’t be doubting yourself or selling yourself short. Until you can honestly and proudly proclaim “I am an artist” without fear or doubt, you will struggle to both get great work and make great work.
And then there’s the struggle to learn how to run a business. As an artist first, you never think that you’ll have to master the intricacies of HR, accounting, and management. But that knowledge base is core to the enterprise of running a company. If you spend the time to learn it and do it well, you provide yourself with more bandwidth to focus on the art that inspired it all in the first place.
We’d love to hear more about your business.
I’m incredibly proud of the fact that we have stayed true to our roots: Artifact Studios makes creative work that celebrates the diversity of the human spirit. It’s that simple. Since our humble beginnings with that documentary about real-life vampires and werewolves, Artifact has grown from a boutique production company into a full-service content agency and studio, bringing together talented minds who hail from digital, design, film, and live-event backgrounds. Today we might be making anything from 15-second social media videos about Kenya’s only ice hockey team to a live videogame event during E3 here in Los Angeles that is streamed for millions of fans around the world.
Recently we produced a pilot for a new series called NIGHTSHIFT with the local PBS station, KCET. NIGHTSHIFT is that ode to Los Angeles that I’ve been wanting to make for years, inspired by my early experiences in the city working nights as an electrician. Channeling the mood and aesthetics of Los Angeles after dark, the pilot episode follows five people who work the graveyard shift, from a UPS manager to a construction worker to an office building janitor, celebrating their contributions to our city and using their stories to explore issues that impact all of us, from gentrification to sexual harassment in the workplace.
Artifact has grown into a 6,000-square-foot facility that houses production offices, edit bays, motion graphics and animation suites, and audio/video finishing rooms. But at the end of the day, we still rely on our social-issue roots, our empathy, and our well-honed documentary research and production strategies to create content and experiences that are deeply personal and authentic. And while we are proud to serve a diverse slate of clients, ranging from Harley Davidson to Ubisoft, we continue to make award-winning indie documentary films and video art installations with support from PBS, HBO, Sundance and the like. We learn from our experiences in the commercial world and apply it to our personal projects, and vice versa. It’s a formula that’s sustained us creatively and as a business, enabling us to flourish over the last 15 years.
Is our city a good place to do what you do?
I am continually struck by how Los Angeles embodies diversity in so many different forms. Artifact employs people from all over the city, who bring their neighborhoods, cultures, cuisines, and perspectives to the studio, from the Glendale Armenian to the South L.A. Mexican to the Hollywood vegan. One of our producers even runs a non-profit called Farm LA that creates urban gardens out of empty lots, which is super cool. It’s a mix unique to this city that inspires me every day. I can’t imagine moving our business elsewhere.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.artifactnonfiction.com
- Phone: 3234688080
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/artifactstudios/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ArtifactNonfiction/
- Twitter: @artifactstudios
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