Picturing A Career in Music

Josh Nesmith, a ’15 graduate of BU’s music and audio engineering program, has made a scene in Central Pennsylvania as a music videographer (nesmithfilms.com). This winter, Nesmith was the inaugural videography award winner from the Central Pennsylvania Music Hall of Fame, being selected ahead of several larger firms.

A Camp Hill native, Nesmith chose BU because the university offered his specific major, music (percussion) with a focus on audio engineering. “I’ve been a drummer since I was 16,” says Nesmith. “I knew it was the instrument I wanted to play right away, plus all my friends played guitar.”

At BU, Nesmith found a mentor in percussion professor Gifford Howarth and discovered the world of mallet percussion. Howarth, recognized in the world of mallet percussion as a Yamaha artist, encouraged Nesmith’s sense of hustle. “I remember him talking about was the idea of getting the big picture challenges from a piece,” says Nesmith, “and moving on to cover more material rather than spending forever on one piece.”

Video was not initially a focus of Nesmith’s plans. “When I graduated from BU, I happened to start making promotional and live videos for musicians to get a foothold into recording. But the video aspect seemed to be more popular.”

“My business evolved organically. Starting in 2016, I had a full-time job as a media specialist at Big Spring School District, so I could invest in some gear, then just kept doing video projects,” says Nesmith. “The growth of the business has mostly been word-of-mouth. I’m active on social media and my work is online, and I met more and more people that liked what I did. When my schedule was steadily like that for a few years, I thought … maybe I’m getting to a point where I can do this. After a while I had a sustainable number of projects and quit my job. One week I got two phone calls to film back to back tours. I’ve been operating as a fully freelance director and cinematographer since November of 2018.”

The Central PA Music Hall of Fame nomination in December 2019 took Nesmith by surprise. “I don’t know how they found out about me because I’m just a solo run business and some of the other business nominees were larger companies, but I ended up taking the award which was a cool honor. Winning the award felt like a bit of validation for what I’m trying to do.”

“I do take on other types of projects like corporate and wedding work,” says Nesmith. “But most of what I do is music related, which is not typical for a lot of filmmakers so I feel that aspect sets me slightly apart, there are a few music centric film companies based in Nashville, NY, and Philly that I follow closely and try to model my business after.”

Since graduation, Nesmith has kept in touch and collaborated with his fellow BU musicians. “BU allowed me to use Mitrani as a location for a music video last year, so a few alumni and interested students were able to observe and help out with that project. Other friends in my major have referred me to other various clients over the years.”

A frequent collaborator is fellow BU grad Brandon Shoop a producer and audio engineer in metropolitan New York City, where four years ago he interned at the famed Quad Recording Studios. Even as New York and Pennsylvania were locked down in April due to the Coronavirus, the two recorded together, sending the digital audio session back and forth, and filming their parts separately. The resulting project was shared on social media.

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Brandon actually happened to live very close to me back home, which we discovered when we first met at BU. When we both graduated, we continued to hangout and create frequently back home, and we both rented studio space at Rock Mill Studios in Mechanicsburg.”

“I think there were a few of those moments when I had such a busy and overwhelming schedule between freelance film and my full-time job. I never expected film to become my primary source of income, I just chased it because it was creative and challenging.”