Kyle Osburn
"Some of my friends that are also in the industry now put down 'Jurassic Park' as a huge factor to get into the industry. Seeing that for the first time kinda planted the seed for me in the same way 'Star Wars' planted that seed for the older generation."
"My Mom did a lot of water color painting when she was younger, so I think that if I got any sort of creative gene it would have been from her. She actually passed away about 5 years ago from breast cancer. I still have three of her paintings framed in my house, because even if my Mom had not have painted them, I would still think they looked really great."
"I have 2 older sisters, my middle sister works in an administration role and my oldest sister works in the oil industry, I am the only one who works in a creative role."
"I went to school at Baylor University in Waco, Texas. I went to the preview at Baylor because I was not really sure what University I actaully wanted to go to. I knew that the University of Texas has a great RTF program but my grades were not quite good enough to get in so I looked into Baylor and it seemed like a good option. The film program was smaller but much more personal."
"Back then I felt like I wanted to get more into editing so once I got into the Baylor program I focused on editing. The cool thing about Baylor is that one of the film professors there is a filmmaker and he would always shoot a movie about every other summer and use the students as crew members. Usually for most students it was the first time on set and allowed them to learn the protocols. After being on this movie and being onset I soon realized that this was where the action is and it appealed to me."
"The final semester of my senior year I collaborated with 2 other students and did a short film. It was more of a visual short film, not so much of a narrative piece."
"Kyle Lake, who was the pastor at our church University Baptist Church in Waco, used to allow us to do a lot of creative videos for the church. He passed away suddenly in a freak accident at the church after getting electrocuted doing a baptism. He had written this sermon that he was going to give that day about living life to the fullest. After reading that sermon we thought the wording he used was very cinematic and needed to be filmed."
When we finished we just thought it would be shown at the church but it actually went viral online. It became this viral video within the christian community. Seeing the power of that and making something that you really don't have any expectation of where its going to end up and seeing how it impacted people that I had never even met just made me see the power of filmmaking. Working on that short film was my first time getting my feet week in cinematography. That is really want made me want to pursue cinematography as a career."
"In the fall of my senior year our University had a program called Baylor in New York. They would send 20 students to New York city for the semester and you would intern at any company you wanted and then take night classes."
"I interned at Dream Works in their marketing department. That was another thing that made me realize that I wanted to be on set and not work within that part of the industry."
"Right around that time is when Terrence Malick’s 'The New World' came out, so I saw that in the theater. I was kind of familiar with his work but seeing that really planted the seed that this kind of style of work is what I wanted to do. He is probably the biggest influence in my work."
"Right after I graduated in 2006 I moved to Austin. I had a friend that had moved to Austin and he had got in the industry by meeting some local camera assistants and started working as a camera assistant on movies that were being shot there. So he told me to move to Austin because he could get me on set. So I figured it would be a good place to go instead of LA."
"When I got to Austin I interned for a commercial production company for a couple days a week for about a year. I would be their camera PA on set whenever they had a commercial shoot."
"Through that and my friend I met a lot of the local camera assistants. I just kept in touch with them and whenever they needed a camera PA they would bring me on, and eventually after about a year and a half I got on ‘Friday Night Lights’ for a season as a camera PA. That kind of got me started working as a camera assistant."
"It was a cool show to work on, it was 3 cameras everyday and whenever they shot the football scenes they would bring in 3 other cameras and would let me work as a second AC with the second unit. I worked as a PA for the 3rd season and on the 4th & 5th season I worked on the second unit for all the football stuff."
"After that it kinda just snowballed. I would day play on movies and then AC on commercials. I didn't really start shooting until 2010, I decided to buy a 7D because people kept asking for me to film stuff but I didn't have a camera! So I figured I would just buy one!"
"I think when people first started to complement me on my work is when I first realized that I am kind of good at this, it made me realize I should take it more seriously. Since the Jack Daniels piece, that is when I really started to take it all seriously, before that it was just kind of side jobs that I was working on as an assistant."
"I feel like I am at a stage where I am making a living from shooting and less assisting. I have assisted occasionally this year, like I assisted on the Richard Linklater Boyhood film for a couple of days last week. Right now I am kind of trying to make a living just shooting, although obviously if someone like Richard Linklater calls for an assistant I will do it! But I can afford now to turn down work that I don't really need to do."
"I have a lot of friends across the world that do a lot of non-profit work. Eventually I would like to get more involved doing some of that work and actually using my talents for a better cause."