For many of us, our interests and passions run deep, don’t they? After all, we should know because GoSeeTalk is more than a hobby. Since 2009, it has become a way of life because it gets me closer to my first love which is film. Now from that standpoint, take a look at the landscape of web-based film fans and most anyone running a blog about cinema. From the biggest outlets to the smallest niche site, ham-and-eggers and pros stand on even ground to pursue/proclaim their love of movies in almost equal measure.
For the past 13 years, we’ve been giving you devoted readers “the highs and lows of the good and bad out there.” We’ve been making it up as we went and tried may things that worked and didn’t work for us. Yet we’ve always looked for advice and taken inspiration from those who have blazed the blogging trail before us. One important site that has always been our North Star is FirstShowing.net.
Alex Billington is the Founder / Owner / President of FS and we were happy to have him on the podcast to talk shop and mutual love of film. On the show, we ask fun getting to know you questions, and you can tell right away, Alex has cinema in his DNA (as if running a film site for almost two decades doesn’t earn his street cred as a hardcore film fan). And he’s kind of been living the dream staying at the forefront of each year’s release slate by frequenting the world’s biggest film festivals.
But it does take resolve to stay in the game for that long. So one bit of advice that Alex echoes is the passion to keep focus and stay true to who you are. That is the key to weather the ups and downs of this profession (those lucky enough to make a career doing this) no matter if you’re a news/trailer junkie, a prolific reviewer, or aspiring interviewer. I’ve written about this plenty, and over the years always point back to this bit of advice I took to heart when starting out. Yet it’s always great to hear others tout the same thing.
Alex has some truly great gets and exclusives (like Hayao Miyazaki, Mark Strong, and Zack Snyder) and he has some fantastic behind the scenes stories from press junkets, huge advertising campaigns, even set visits. Now aside from his site, Alex also gets to focus on his other passion which is photography. His Instagram profile is full of amazing shots…maybe living in Europe has something to do with that. But more on that later. For now, enjoy this episode of The GoSeeTalk Podcast Experience!
Check out FS here and Alex’s Instagram page when you get a moment. Good stuff all around!
