How the filmmaker and painter Dan Covert built his creative career

"Nothing's going to come up by itself by itself," says Dan. "The most efficient way to grow your reputation is to keep producing things. If it's just doing a bunch of favors for friends to make stuff and keep you engaged as a filmmaker."

It's an ethos that has taken Dan through a career dotted with accolades from AFI, SXSW, and the obvious Staff Picks. " has shaped our careers,"" Dan tells Dan. "That sounds absurd, but it's the truth. We never would've had an crowd for these things. We bought cameras and learned how to create things."

Just a few days after the publication of his first feature documentary " Geoff McFetridge: Drawing a Life," which won the Audience Award at this year's SXSW and we got a chance to chat to Dan about his process as well as his most creative north star work. Take a look at highlights from the discussion above and also read the full conversation below.

 You started out as an artist. How did you get from there to feature-filmmaker?

Dan Dan: We founded a company 16 years ago that was originally a graphic design company that then became a motion graphics company and then an production company. So it's this long evolution. And all along the way we designed shorts, as well as a few of the shorts were made by staff. Picked to be worn .

We were just experimenting and trying to figure out what our sound in the company as well as directors. I turned 40 and I was thinking, "I'm going to make films someday." And I was like, "Maybe I'm not going to start making movies until I get started." Then I was looking for stories and this movie kind of was born.

 16 years is an incredibly long time to be making stuff in this industry. What keeps you going?

Dan: It's just genuinely fun to do this work. Up until recently, I wasn't like, "Oh, there's going to be a big blow-up event where my career is changing and I'm attending the Oscars." I don't think about that stuff. I'm just thinking, "Am I having fun in the moment? Are I having fun on the road?"

Since once you've created a product, it goes out in the world You can't predict how people respond to it. It's just like "Did I do the most effective product I could? Do I spend time with working alongside people I love and respect? Do we try to be real and honest?" I'm always the many irons in the flame kind of guy. I have a business. I am a commercial director. I've been producing this feature film. I have a pretty successful artistic practice. However, it's really about slowly just doing these things that I enjoy and then like, "We'll see where they take us."

But I'm not as concerned about the ' where they travel to' aspect because it could be a complete nightmare. Since, in the end, who cares whether you're famous or successful? It's like that's not something you'll remember when you're 80.

 Which is your unique north star?

Dan The team is constantly refining this, but it's really storytelling acumen. It's craft and visual artistry. These are obscure terms but it does have a lot of significance. This is like asking, "Can you tell a story?" A lot of occasions, people are presented with an unfinished idea and as storytellers are in the process of squeezing the story.

Commercials and art is that they're opposing forces but not at the highest degree. It's more about emotion and how you do that with beautiful cinematography. But we each kind of have our own voices. The thing that truly excites me is story telling and character.

 How can you collaborate with a brand without compromising your vision?

Dan: When I first started, I always thought it was as if "Oh it's because they're hiring me to help them with their needs." But as time went on, I realized "No I'm being hired because they need some help and I know that I'm capable of doing." So it was an enormous shift looking into what their needs were as well as what their vision was. This is still a crucial aspect but the more and more I've climbed as an executive, I've realized they're looking to you for your personal voice to really sort out all the issues and to say, "What you guys need to accomplish will be this."

 Do you have any brands you're still hoping to partner with?

Dan The reason I say that is tricky because I don't really pay attention to that sort of thing. It's like, "Is it a fun, interesting project?" Some of the tasks that have been the most boring I've had to complete have transformed into some of the most enjoyable pieces. I did a film centered around a type historian at Syracuse, it's the type historian's Staff Pick video we did. It was like this dude who was in a basement who found this font and then Pentagram redesigned it to become the official logo of Syracuse University. This guy is amazing. I would love to meet individuals like him.

Everyone would like to work in Nike as well as all the fantastic companies. It's a lot of fun but I also like finding the unique stories, and also of presenting them on a stage.

I've never had the opportunity to direct. This was such a great validation as a creator that 300,000 people in a few days see this film that we produced. It's like, "Oh, my God." You know what I mean? The film was never made as a film. The film was created to be a part of a client's project. We only slightly edited it and then I noticed this crowd.

 Dress Code has been on for a very long time. Why are you still from leaving the platform?

Dan The HTML0 platform is to be the place where everyone's creators are able to see what we've done. A lot of this stuff on the short film side We're self-funding in the sense of throwing out little test balloons and other creatives see these. It's always shocking. Somebody from an ad agency may call and say saying, "Hey, we saw this thing. Could you create the commercial campaign to us?" It's like a one-to-one. If we're putting work out in this manner, it's likely that the right individuals are noticing it, and they're elevating it by giving us a platform.

 Where do you find ideas?

Dan Dan: I find the most motivation for my work via artwork. In reality, I don't view a ton of videos anymore. It's sort difficult and then I'm tempted to copy certain things. I look for items that fall outside of what we do or even look at commercial feature documents or look at the fine arts for framing or visual techniques.

 What's your favorite advice that you've ever gotten?

Dan Dan by Steve Martin where he says, "Be so good that people can't even ignore your." It's always been awed by that. The same is true for a lot of people want to be able creating something the next thing they know it's completed. For me, it's more about slowly investing the time and effort into building up a body of work. Then, you'll be so great that people will come across the work.