October 18, 2021
K-State alumnus and filmmaker to host Q&A
You're invited to join alumnus and Kansas City filmmaker David Kaufman at 6 p.m. Monday, Oct. 18, for a virtual question-and-answer session presented by Wildcat Watch. Kaufman will speak about his current role at Liquid 9 in Kansas City and answer questions from students about his work and experiences.
Join the session via YouTube Live.
View Kaufman's documentary reel, cinematography reel and LinkedIn page.
David Kaufman | auto-bio
My filmmaking career started in high school, making skate videos with my younger brother and friends. When I transitioned to college, I had no idea that I could continue developing my skills at K-State until I discovered the then ECC, now the Division of Communications and Marketing. I spent my college years cutting my teeth learning live and studio production and gained even more experience being heavily involved with Wildcat Watch. The biggest turning point in my entire career was purchasing my own camera. I fell in love with cinematography and telling stories and that passion is probably as strong as it's ever been today.
Since college, I freelanced shooting and editing in Kansas City for a year and soon found myself shooting for Sporting Kansas City for the next three years as a videographer and editor. After that, I moved to Denver, Colorado, and worked with a small production company as a shooter and editor working in the corporate and documentary world, with clients like ESPN, The Four Seasons, and the Brewer's Association of America. This is where I really honed my skills on how to tell better stories.
My wife and I recently moved back to Kansas City and I was hired on by the production company Liquid 9 to edit and do some in-house production work. I'm now the director of photography, shooting national and local TV spots and short documentary pieces for the web. Through all of this, I've stayed in close contact with a good friend that I met at K-State, James Rico, whose work and motivation I find to be very inspiring and energizing. You might know some of his work with his company, the Reel Goats. We talk every few months and hope to work together again soon. To wrap things up, I'm very drawn to documentary work because I happen to find people incredibly interesting. It's very hard work, usually not for not a lot of money, and you're working with small crews or no crew at all, but it's extremely rewarding in life experiences. This kind of work is very invigorating and contagious. It took me a while to realize the value of this, but it's helped me understand why I love filmmaking — realizing the importance and duty to tell an impactful story with a real message in a world full of mindless content. Mindless content can be fun and is a great way to learn, but at the end of the day, have a voice with something to say.