Meet Kevin Stevenson of Goreella Media
As an award-winning cinematographer and filmmaker, there have been very few things that have inspired me the way cinema does. Hi, my name is Kevin Stevenson, born and raised in Pasadena, California, and this is my story.
Growing up in Los Angeles, I constantly heard about the glamorous stories of Hollywood, just minutes from my childhood home. Those stories seemed like an untouchable dream, until one day I found myself working the red carpet at the Oscars. After graduating from film school, that one job gave me the big dream to make feature films. My journey started a little later than most. It wasn’t until my early 20’s when I first picked up a camera that I discovered the love and passion I felt from pushing the record button.
In high school I was an athlete and an aspiring baseball player, playing four different sports at one point. After a couple of failed seasons of baseball in college, I eagerly searched for my next passion. While studying calculus, photography, geology, painting, and sculpting, I found a talent and love for them all. But it wasn’t until I studied my first filmmaking course, that I found my true calling as a filmmaker.
I knew this is what I was born to do, and so I focused all of my efforts to gain as much experience, on and off set, as possible to help develop myself into a filmmaker. I graduated film school with a BA. I then purchased the newest cameras to give myself an edge over other cinematographers and I applied for any internship that I thought I could benefit from. At that point I quickly grew my network of professional camera people, producers, editors, crew, and directors. With any career pursuit, there are always a couple of setbacks, including having my gear stolen; however I was able to push through it all with the support of my peers and family. Everyone needs a safety net in order to take chances. However, I’m a firm believer that failure and taking risks promote growth, so failing big and failing often is a means to grow!
With this mentality, I built a production company called Goreella Media which has gained a reputation of gorilla filmmaking at its finest. My company strives to create gritty, documentary style cinema with a social and political message.
Looking back, I’ve been blessed to have family and friends who have supported me through this journey as a freelance camera operator and filmmaker. There was a time when I found myself at the crossroads. My camera equipment was stolen and everything I worked for came to an abrupt halt. But, that was a pivotal moment for me, because I made a conscious decision to myself to start over and re-commit myself to building a new, stronger brand. I wanted something that would represent me as the person I’ve become, and to essentially kill off the “old me”. This was the spark that started Goreella Media.
In my production company business, we specialize in high-end cinematography with a documentary style aesthetic. Using the latest in technology we aspire to pull the humanity out of each project, aiming to capture the unique feel and soul of each person or project we film. We pride ourselves on delivering professional results regardless of any budget. What sets us apart from other filmmakers is our commitment to each and every project we sign on for. We dive deep into pre-production (Storyboards, shotlisting, location scouting, camera testing, lookbooks) and this allows the entire team to be on the same page. Our preparedness, and our equipment, definitely set us apart from the competition.
Success is a subjective term. From my perspective, success is a personal goal that changes over time and is temporary. Personally, I see success as a goal line that I constantly push further and further back. I’m always to striving to make bigger and better content. While a project may be satisfying upon completion, that feeling drives me to immediately start the search for the next script to shoot.
In my opinion, success comes when all of my hard work pays off and allows me to finance my projects without the help of financiers.
