⁄Tactics⁄ You quit your corporate job in 2009. It seems like that was not a time to be doing that; not a lot of businesses were being launched at that time. We were young, and I don’t know if I would do it the same way now, but I don’t regret how we did it. I mean, 2008 was a bad year for the economy as a whole. To leave my very stable job that had a 401(k) and health insurance and a pension — you know, that word doesn’t even exist anymore, but it existed back then — to go quote-unquote be an artist was scary. It was scary and risky. But I think the way that I looked at it was, “You know what? What is riskier: staying in something that doesn’t make my soul feel alive, or trying something and seeing where that goes?” I felt like I would regret not trying. I would kick myself if, 30 years later, I was doing this thing, and I was like, “I wonder what would have happened if I just tried my hand at telling stories versus designing braces.” I decided to take a risk; invest in myself, in what I thought was possible; and I’m very thankful, very grateful that things worked out for us. I would have really, really regretted if I didn’t try. Joyce Tsang Zooms In In the thick of the Great Recession, Tsang left her job as an engineer to take wedding videos, beginning a journey that took her to the Super Bowl preshow and beyond. INTERVIEW BY CHRISTEN McCURDY In 2009 Joyce Tsang was working as an engineer at 3M, designing orthodontic products. It was the work she trained to do in college, and she was successful— she holds a couple of patents from that period. “The science part of it was great,” she says, but she never felt comfortable in the corporate work environment. She’d also always had a creative side, and working as an engineer wasn’t feeding it. So she pivoted to video, founding a production company, Only Today, with her husband, Ray. At first they shot on tape, but in the late 2000s, digital single-lens reflex cameras became able to shoot video, greatly improving the quality of digital video — and the cost and speed of producing it. Joyce says Ray, who worked in finance at the time, “kind of dared me” to quit her job to pursue a creative career. He followed suit, reasoning that if the company failed, they could go back to their old careers. The Tsangs started out shooting wedding videos for friends, then expanded to sports work, commercials and branded content, as well as some documentary work — including a short film that showed during the 2024 Super Bowl, and one of the pre-game teasers. Though it’s been more than 10 years since the Tsangs were asking friends if they could shoot their weddings for free, Joyce says they still get most of their work through word of mouth. Commercial work isn’t off the table, but “it’s the human stories that really excite us,” she says. In January Oregon Business spoke with Joyce about her start in the business and how video production has evolved in recent years, as well as what’s next for the company. This interview has been edited for length and clarity. 10
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