I used to work for a pretty small production company right in the heart of Hollywood. It wasn’t anything huge; there were 3 of us. My boss was the Directior, I was the Designer and our third partner was the Producer. We all had to wear multiple hats constantly to keep the ship sailing.

My boss always seemed to me like a great a guy. He helped shape me into who I am today, but he had a very intense temper and had a very “Steve Jobs” personality. During filming he would throw big tantrums that would bring the entire cast down and occasionally have a few people walking off set. He would always get very personal during arguments and confrontations. He was...kind of a dick.

Through his connections we were able to get some pretty big named clients to work for, It was my first real professional job and I did just about everything I could to do my job as best as possible and to not disappoint my boss that I so badly admired.

I was filming video alongside him in the weekends, editing vigorously throughout the week while balancing school full time and designing graphical elements for brands that were VERY important. I’m talking about brand decks, packaging and even logos for brands that you may have heard of (missed a SHIT TON of classes due to all of this work) I was going to a reputable art school at the time, and was on my very last semester before my final year review, which is basically an art show where you get to display your best work in front of your peers and other professionals.

I was happy at first; I was going to school for design and I considered myself lucky to have scored a job so early before graduation. The thing was.. I wasn’t getting paid much. With all the unpaid overtime I was doing i was well below minimum wage for very high quality design work....gotta start somewhere though right?

Graduation was getting closer and closer at that time and I had to create a set of brand guidelines – website layout and social media assets for this company while trying to balance my graduation requirements and getting everything turned in on time.

I told my boss that I had some pretty important stuff to take care of and maybe needed some time off and was not able to meet the projects deadline. He knew I was in school and he knew my final review was coming up but he was furious and demanded that I finished what I had promised before any school stuff.

I spent the next 3 days awake. Working endlessly and not getting very far with his projects, I then made a decision that saved me from dropping out of school a week before graduation.

I stopped answering the phone.

I was being abused.

I was being overworked and underpaid.

I reached my breaking point and simply chose to ignore him., ignore his calls, burn the bridge and move on. I had to focus on myself now and get my shit together for my final year review.

I worked some more.

I worked harder than I had ever worked in my life. I made up entire semesters worth of work in under a week. Through out the entire week he kept calling, leaving long threatening messages about how he’s going to kick my ass and how I fucked everything up.

Those last few hours before my review were the most dramatic and overwhelming hours I’ve gone through. I remember sobbing on the floor and calling my mom.

You know it gets bad when you call your mom sobbing...

Friends and relatives that had come to see my review were there for me and helped me with printing, and mounting stuff on walls, they pretty much finished setting up all the work i had just finished while i napped under a desk for a few minutes before my presentation. It was heart warming and brings tears to my eyes remembering....

The presentation went amazing, and I got a TON of job offers from that. It made everything worthwhile and thought me a valuable lesson about my worth and what it takes to survive as an artist in the city of LA.

If you have ever watched the movie Whiplash, the entire movie speaks volume to me about the type of relationship I had with this crazy lunatic that turned me into a design machine.