Through the Lens of JOSH HAYWARD
13 of 19 Reasons Why You Shouldn’t Drop Out of Design School
One of �he bes� par�s of filmmaking is being brough� in�o communi�ies you’d never o�herwise experience “
The Best Thing About Filming
One of the best things about documentary filmmaking is the opportunity to be brought into communities you’d never otherwise get to experience. There would be no reason for me to be there if I wasn’t making a film. The fact that it’s such a different place from my own experience is part of what makes it compelling to both me and audiences with different backgrounds
That Kenya trip was life-changing. It was the first time I’d spent significant time in a place with that much poverty, where the world was so different from my own. I had traveled a fair amount before, but this was on another level.
I got connected with the organization through a friend who was working there, at Shining Hope. That’s how the opportunity came up. I did a lot of prep work—researching online, watching any films I could find that had been shot in the area, reading articles, and talking to my friend who lived there. I did all that before I even arrived.
Once I got there, we had a rough plan of what we’d shoot, but there was about a week on the ground before filming where we were just meeting people, shooting some B-roll, and capturing the scenery. Then we did interviews with each of the subjects, which helped fill in the details and guide us on what visuals and shots we needed to tell the story.
We had a plan before the interviews, but things like little anecdotes helped shape it. In the Kibera film, one girl talks about wanting to go to New York and imagining what the houses are like there. That inspired us to get a high-angle shot that contrasted her words with the reality of the local scenery.
Both of those projects were personal to me. I wasn’t hired to make them. It wasn’t like when I work on ads where I’m staying in a hotel and there’s more structure, with a producer handling everything. On those projects, it was just me. I had a local guy helping me from the organization, but I was staying in a hostel— the cheapest, safest place I could find. I was taking buses, eating local food, and really embedded in the community, which is what made it so special.
With the Muay Thai project, that came from filming and meeting the boxer about a year and a half before I made the film. I had done a shoot for LAX, the airport, where they wanted to make films about some of the destinations they fly to. That was a quick job, running around Bangkok for three days, and I spent maybe three hours filming in that gym. But it stuck with me.
How I Began Filming
It really came out of an internship at a company called Digital Kitchen. The way I ended up in film was by gradually building on the skills I learned in the design program and applying them to new mediums. During the summer between my junior and senior years, I had an internship at Digital Kitchen, which focused on motion graphics and title sequences.
There’s a lot of design involved in that—things like typography on screen, especially in the concept phase, where you’re coming up with ideas, visually communicating them, and then planning what will be in motion. At the time, this was done in still frames, so I was using a lot of the visual design skills I had learned in the design program to create style frames that conveyed emotion through type and image. I really loved that process.
In film, you’re dealing with music and storytelling over time. As Stefan Sagmeister said, “even the best poster in the world won’t evoke the same emotional response as your favorite film,” because with film, you have more tools to create an impact. I loved that aspect. I was expanding my skill set, which, to this day, is still the foundation of how I approach all of my work.
It still comes down to composition, unity, and variety—how everything fits together. The difference is that now it’s not just one image but 24 frames per second, over 60 seconds or five minutes. It’s the same way of thinking about visual communication but applied to a more expansive medium
And to finish that out, at Digital Kitchen, I started by doing style frames. While I was there, I learned After Effects and began getting into animation. Eventually, they hired me, and I worked there for five years. It was a very hands-on, collaborative environment. We had a little photo studio in the basement where we would shoot stop-motion, and other animators and designers would share their After Effects projects with me so I could open them up and see how they did things.
Around that time, DSLR cameras like the Canon 5D were becoming more accessible, so I got a camera and started experimenting, shooting my own projects. That eventually led to me working on a small documentary series for a nonprofit, which convinced my bosses that I could do similar work for clients. I started getting client jobs as a second unit director on small commercials or shooting B-camera footage.
My Favorite Projects
Among my filmmaking work, In Kibera and Muay Thai definitely stand out. From a craft perspective, the Hummer EV and Still Life films are ones I’m proud of—just in terms of the scale, the complexity of the shots, and how they came together. But there’s so much more emotion wrapped up in creating In Kibera and Muay Thai
For example, I still keep in touch with people from Kenya. I’ve watched kids who were really young when I filmed there grow up and go to college. It’s wild. They’re not a huge part of my life, but it’s a real part of my life— unlike some of the ads I’ve worked on. I’m proud of the craft behind those, but they don’t have the same emotional resonance.
With the Muay Thai project, that came from filming and meeting the boxer about a year and a half before I made the film. I had done a shoot for LAX, the airport, where they wanted to make films about some of the destinations they fly to. That was a quick job, running around Bangkok for three days, and I spent maybe three hours filming in that gym. But it stuck with me. It felt like such a special place.
The boxer was so interesting and looked great on camera. He was a very successful Muay Thai boxer in Bangkok, and the story had so much depth. Muay Thai is a old tradition deeply rooted in Thai culture, with a ton of pride around it. But it’s also intertwined with poverty and urbanization. Many poor kids from the countryside get sent to Bangkok by their parents because they can’t afford to feed them, and Muay Thai becomes a way for them to earn money.
If they’re successful, they can support their families, who are often very poor. There’s a lot of gambling around it too, and there’s even a Buddhist monastery on the same grounds as the gym. That gym is gone now, and part of what made it special was that it captured a moment in the Thai community that has since changed. I feel lucky to have experienced it before it disappeared.
The Most Valuable Lesson I Gained in College
I think there’s nothing like the critique process in the design program—it’s just incredibly valuable. So many people I’ve worked with don’t have the ability to take criticism well, give feedback constructively, or articulate what they’re trying to communicate. And I feel like that’s something UW’s program really instills, especially through the critique process.
In critiques, you have to get up, explain your work, and take criticism for as long as people are willing to give it. For me, that was invaluable. I’m not sure how I came to understand this, whether someone told me directly or it just became obvious, but if people are spending time really looking at your work, thinking about it, and pointing out what’s wrong to help you make it better—that’s incredibly valuable.
I would get frustrated in critiques when people would only tell me what they liked about my work. I mean, I appreciate positive feedback, but when you’re trying to make something better, “good job” doesn’t help much. What’s more useful is seeking out advice and criticism from people who are highly skilled, who can help push your work from good to great. And being able to really listen to that critique, without getting defensive, is crucial. It’s about understanding what could be better instead of being oblivious to the ways it could improve.
This applies to every aspect of life, but especially in creative and visual pursuits, it’s so valuable. I’ve seen the difference between people who have that mindset and those who don’t. The ability to separate your ego from your work and be open to finding out what isn’t working is a tough process. I remember my first critique—it was brutal. I thought I’d made a masterpiece, but it got torn apart. It was hard, but also incredibly valuable.
The key is just making things. Don’t get stuck on one thing— move on to the next or try a different version “ ”
My Advice to Design Students
I’ve found, over and over again, that the key is just making things. It’s like what I was saying about the book cover project: don’t get stuck on one thing— move on to the next or try a different version. In some ways, it’s a numbers game. There are all these studies that show if one class is told to make 100 versions of something and another class is told to just make one perfect version, the class making 100 versions not only produces more but also ends up with better work.
In creative pursuits, it’s always hard to know when to move on or when something is as good as it’s going to be. I don’t think there’s ever a definitive answer to that, but I do think this is advice I’ve been given in different ways over the years, and it keeps being proven right. Even recently, I did a project where, looking back, I overworked it. I spent too much time on it and realized I should have just kept things moving.
I think the struggle is that you never really know when to stop. It goes both ways: when do you stop working on one version, and when do you stop making more versions? Both are challenging in different ways.
For me, the core of it is that I learn through experimentation and making, rather than overly planning before diving in. Even with directing, which involves a lot of planning, I find that I learn more when I just start sketching things out—like editing different shots and seeing how they come together. I’ll combine things and get new ideas, and that helps me figure out what works. Then, when I go out to shoot, I can be much more intentional than if I just sat there trying to picture it all in my head.
So, for me, exploring through making has been crucial. That’s something my bosses at Digital Kitchen talked to me about a lot, and I think some of my professors expressed it too.
