Community Highlights: Meet Nickolas Duarte of Crown Chimp

Today we’d like to introduce you to Nickolas Duarte.

Alright, so thank you so much for sharing your story and insight with our readers. To kick things off, can you tell us a bit about how you got started?
I started my career off with a bartending job, a cheap camera, and a desire to make films. I used the bartending money to 1) survive as a human being in a world that requires money and 2) to finance little short films and sketches and music videos. Over time, I was able to use that cheap camera to do videography gigs around town- weddings, school sporting events, local commercials, etc. Thus my company, Crown Chimp, was born.

Eventually, a spec commercial I did broke through and got national attention and national awards. I was able to leverage the success of that project into directing commercials and content for brands like Adidas, BMW, and Charles Schwab. In turn, those blue chip brands allowed me to travel the country and the world doing projects in the Middle East, Africa, Asia and throughout North America. This success translated into Crown Chimp becoming the most awarded production company in the state.

Where I once used bartending money to finance narrative projects, I now was using commercial profits/resources to finance my short films, writing, and documentary projects. Those projects, as time went on, found success through the support of organizations, studios, and platforms like Short of the Week, the Webby awards, Sony Pictures Television, Ryan Murphy TV, Vimeo Staff Picks, and Warner Bros.

Now, I split my time between developing narrative projects, directing commercial projects, and supporting the other artists on my team with their goals.

Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
The road has been anything but smooth. I wouldn’t even call it a road. It’s more like an overgrown marsh and you’re just hacking and slashing your way to make some sort of path before the swamp panthers get to you.

All struggles feel incredibly personal. Yet most are pretty universal. Starting off, money was the biggest concern. I didn’t have any, I needed it, and I didn’t know how to get it. My socioeconomic background was absolutely NOT the background of most would-be filmmakers. It’s a very difficult world to navigate and find success in without any connections or financial support to get you going.

Like other artists, I also craved external validation early on. Any sign post that would let me know “Hey, you’re not continuously making a giant f***ing mistake with your life.” Every profession, vocation, has its own little quirks and traps and eccentricities. Believing that the work you’re doing has any real value seems to be a pretty common one for those of us working in creative fields. This manifests itself most obviously in a steady stream of rejection letters. Starting off, every single professional artist will tell you that rejections are a part of the job. It’s one thing to hear it but it’s a very different thing to experience it as actual truth. It can become demoralizing at times and impact your ability to make objective decisions about your business and work.

Decision fatigue is also a major challenge. Many professions offer a sort of “plug and play” map for you to follow to some degree to get to where you’re trying to go. Not so much this one. There are SO MANY paths that I can’t even say there’s a particular tried and true road to being a filmmaker. Hence the marsh metaphor at the top of this answer.

All of that said, I’m a filmmaker. I have an inherent desire to make moving images with sound. I don’t know why. As difficult as my struggles and obstacles have been, they haven’t outweighed my need to make films. It’s become easier to accept the obstacles as a part of the process.

Honestly, I still feel like I’m in that marsh. I’ve just gotten a little more comfortable having the panthers around.

Appreciate you sharing that. What should we know about Crown Chimp?
My work as a filmmaker ultimately is realized through my company, Crown Chimp. We’ve been around for a while now but still have the energy of a brand new company. That energy translates to us putting more of the client’s budget into the actual production and into going the extra distance to try something new creatively or tonally. Since we are established though, and have worked all over the world with major brands, we also have the experience and knowledge that a veteran company typically does.

As filmmakers, there are a few commercial categories that we’ve come to specialize in: Sports, Lifestyle, Slice of Life, Story, Tabletop, Food & Beverage, Documentary (corporate, profile, and experimental.) It’s been very exciting to watch the people on our team grow. As I’m doing this interview, one of our directors, Zaskia Villa, is shooting an experimental documentary to support the mission of a refugee services organization. Our other director, Frank Armendarez, just finished building a portfolio of extremely polished cinebot work. One of our producers, Sonia Campbell, recently was a semi-finalist in the Page Screenwriting Awards. It’s inspiring being around these creative people doing this type of work.

We are an artist-driven company. We don’t spend a great deal of time nitpicking budgets or talking tech specs. Instead, we engage with our client partners by discussing elements like aesthetics and tone and structure. These are the things that drive viewers to really care about visual storytelling.

And believe it or not, this type of focus DOES in fact convert into real-world results. A recent campaign we produced and directed for a long time agency client earned two top tier national awards and achieved 133% to 285.5% of the campaign goals across the 5 key performance indicators.

What matters most to you?
Doing good work, doing it right, and doing it with good people.

Contact Info:

• Email: nduarte@crownchimp.com
• Website: https://www.crownchimp.com
• Instagram: @mrnickduarte
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/crownchimpfilms
• Twitter: @mrnickduarte

Image Credits
James Patrick