A creative director who can actually make things.
I am David Martin, a creative director in North Vancouver, BC. 15+ years across video, content, brand, technology and business. I build ideas, direct creative systems, and use emerging technology to make ambitious work possible.
- Based
- North Vancouver, BC
- Education
- BSc and Diploma in Engineering, Mount Allison University
- Languages
- English, business Japanese (JLPT Level 2)
Where the time went.
- 2008 – nowFounder and Creative Director, DJC Media.
Independent production studio. Every discipline directed in-house: story, design, animation, edit, publishing. 261M+ views directed.
- 11 yearsContent, brand and proposals, technology sector.
Owned content, brand and proposals inside an established technology solutions and managed services provider: brand refresh, website rebuild, campaigns, events, sales enablement, proposal systems.
- 8 yearsMaker Studios (Disney).
Creator network operations at YouTube scale.
- 8 yearsBroadbandTV.
Multi-channel network: content systems and creator partnerships.
- 2000 – 2010Kansai, Japan.
Early childhood education director, curriculum designer, Japanese-English corporate translator.
Video is where ideas become tangible.
Video combines story, image, motion, sound, pacing, emotion, technology and judgment.
It is where my creative interests converge. I can write the idea. Develop the treatment. Build the visual language. Experiment with the technology. Create the footage. Edit the story. And make the final call.
Video gives me a canvas large enough to bring all of those skills together.
From idea to finished work.
Simple enough to fit on one page. Rigorous enough to run a production.
- 01Discover.
Understand the audience, objective and problem.
- 02Concept.
Find the idea.
- 03Direct.
Establish the visual language and creative approach.
- 04Produce.
Make it.
- 05Iterate.
Explore, test and refine.
- 06Finish.
Edit, polish and deliver.
- 07Learn.
Capture what worked and improve the next production.
Creative that has a job to do.
I have spent years working where creative meets business. A campaign needs an objective. A video needs an audience. A website needs a purpose. A brand needs consistency. Creative work has to connect to something beyond itself.
- Executives
- Marketing teams
- Sales teams
- Technical teams
- Subject matter experts
- Creative teams
I translate between creative, technical and business environments. Good creative gets attention. Great creative knows what to do with it.
Creative leadership.
Creative leadership is not about having the loudest idea in the room. It is about creating the conditions for good ideas to survive.
- 01Give people a clear brief.
- 02Create room for experimentation.
- 03Know when to challenge the work.
- 04Know when to get out of the way.
- 05Protect the quality bar.
- 06Connect creative decisions to business objectives.
- 07Translate between creative, technical and business teams.
- 08Make the decision when the room cannot agree.
The best creative teams do not need someone telling them what to do every minute. They need someone who can give them direction worth following.
Direction vs. execution.
I am comfortable getting hands-on. I write. I storyboard. I generate. I edit. I build. I experiment. I learn new tools. But hands-on production is not the same thing as production for its own sake. The reason I stay close to the work is so I understand what is actually possible. That lets me direct with more specificity.
From “we should make something cinematic” to “let’s separate the character identity pass from the camera motion, build the environment independently, and assemble the final sequence in post.”
The closer I get to the technology, the better I can direct the creative. I don’t need to do everything myself. I need to understand enough to know what is possible.
Let’s make something.
For creative direction, video, campaigns, brand and AI-native production.