May 20, 2021

Alumni Spotlight: Dom Fera

Our Interview with Dom:

You’ve produced a variety of content over the years, from sketch comedy to animated shorts to music videos. Which of these mediums is most challenging for you? Which is the most fun?

Ya know, the short answer is that animation is very hard, and music comes out of me a lot easier than anything I make! Honestly, I think if you looked at the ratio of how easy it is for me to make something and how frequently I make it, it’s hilariously proportionate. That said, I’d say the most fun I have across the board is when the pieces come together with other people, whether that’s co-writing, collaborating on music, or just being on set and everyone getting amped on each other’s energy. Messing around in my bedroom with a song or rushing to write some brain blast idea down is great, but the collaborating part is the best.

You’ve been running a successful YouTube channel for over a decade -- when and how did you decide that YouTube was the best platform to share your content? What has the process been like to build up and maintain that kind of following, especially as the platform has evolved over the years?

I started a YouTube channel because it was the only place in 2006 where I could just upload something and it would stay there, and I was very lucky to breach when all the metrics mattered a lot less to everyone. And to be fair, I have not maintained it at all! If my YouTube channel was a business I’d be boarded up a long time ago. But I was never really pulled toward evolving with YouTube, and certainly not in some pure artistic way, like I wish I had more of the digital grind in me still! It’s huge to make things for an audience that cares even a little bit, but I think I like to hide away and make things quietly too much now. The people who can maintain an online audience’s attention have big time respect from me too, it’s very hard to keep the crank turning once a month, and some people can do it while making really great stuff.

When do you know you’re ready to take a project from pre-production to production, and how do you like to collaborate with other artists in the creative process?

It definitely takes some inorganic, arbitrary decision making to make anything move sometimes, but usually there’s some element of natural motion that pushes it along. You just realize you’re talking about one more than another, or a friend is more interested in one over another. I think my generation of filmmakers came up with a lot of solo energy by nature, but I’ve found that I seek out collaboration earlier and earlier in the process the older I’m getting. We all grew up with a lot of very cool, free (or “borrowed”) tools that could really let you be the whole production. And I think that’s given this generation a huge amount of appreciation and respect for every little facet of making something, it’s made the collaboration process feel like you’re getting away with something.

As a prolific creator from childhood to adulthood, how do you feel that your writing and/or your style of comedy have transformed over the years?

I think it’s as simple as like… there are core things I was always interested in expressing, story wise or emotionally or whatever, and plenty of that has stuck around. But all of the dressing stuff changes at the same pace you change as a person. Jokes, dialogue, the finesse stuff… if you’re learning and listening and looking at yourself (maybe most importantly!), that stuff changes in step. It’s an input thing, if you’re open to new input, you’re gonna process that and reflect and eventually see it reflected in what you make.

In addition to filmmaking, you also write and perform original music. Where do you draw inspiration for your music?

It’s not super dissimilar to the movie approach! A lot of it stems from something almost surface-level that I find interesting, a melody or a beat or anything that’s lighting up the music part of my brain, and then I use it as like, a vessel for something on my mind. Usually something that I’m hoping people also feel, it’s a lot of like “hey you feel this way too right, you get this feeling?”

Over the years, you’ve uploaded several videos full of personal thoughts and advice to young creatives. If you were to make one of these videos now, what would you say to young filmmakers just starting out?

I don’t think I would’ve listened if I got this advice, but I’d say above literally everything else, you need to focus on what part of making movies makes you happy, and put literally all your emotional eggs in that basket. I’m not the first person to say this by a long shot, but the process needs to be what you’re chasing. And like, your finished product will always matter the most to everyone who isn’t you, the whole point is creating an experience to move people in some way… but finished products are also just little firework pops in the air. They pop and people go oh wow, and then effectively that’s it. Maybe they come back to see it pop a few times, maybe it leaves an impression, but the finished thing is still just a blip in their lives, and yours. Do everything you can to make the pop matter because it’s the entire point of filmmaking — but place your self worth somewhere else in the process, because that will always be the part you experience for much, much longer.

You were a filmmaker at NFFTY back in the early days, and for many consecutive years. How has NFFTY impacted your life or career?

NFFTY was instrumental in making me feel like I wasn’t wrong about what I wanted to do with my life. I was treated like a filmmaker, not some kid! You can’t underestimate the roots that plants in a creative person’s head!

What have you been up to lately, especially over the past year of quarantine, to keep yourself creatively inspired?

Writing and making music! And watching a lot of random stuff... not homework movies where it’s important to have seen them, but just anything that catches my eye. It was sort of a return to how I used to seek out movies, when it wasn’t about building some mental encyclopedia for my career. You always stumble upon legitimately great stuff that way too. I’m also now working as the head of video for a band called Pomplamoose, and they’re the kindest, most talented group I’ve ever been around, and they’re wildly inspiring. I love getting to mix my film and music love together for my actual job, it’s crazy.

What’s next for you?

Always writing, always making new music, but mainly I want to be shooting stuff again!