Through OSU’s Austin Entrepreneurship Program, Dylan Boye and Blake Heiss are making their business dream come true.
Dylan Boye and Blake Heiss want to be filmmakers, and they’re finding OSU an ideal place to develop that dream. The juniors from Brookings, Oregon, both photography majors, have been friends since 5th grade and, because of their similar goals, went into business together in the 7th grade.
At first, most of the business was transferring old movies to DVDs. “It originally was an excuse to make money and get camera equipment to work with,” Blake says.
Both came to OSU, but during their first year they lived in separate residence halls, and the business languished. This past year, however, the Austin Entrepreneurship Program residential program in Weatherford Hall was opened, and they moved in together.
“At Weatherford, with faculty living in and checking on how things are going, that keeps the idea going, and it really helps,” Dylan says. “Looking at how we did compared to the previous year shows how much it helped. The faculty and students in Weatherford were really helpful in getting the business back off the ground.” Now the two are doing what they want to do.
“We’ve pretty much abandoned transferring movies,” Dylan says. “Now we’re more into shooting and production. We made a presentation video for alumni awards night, and we have a fair amount of other business.”
How do they work together? “It would be easy if we always thought the same, but we don’t,” Blake says. “That causes ‘creative abrasion.’ It comes out in our work and improves it, I think.”
And their friendship? “Having a business makes a friendship different, but we’re still good friends,” says Dylan.
