Social entrepreneur,
Sebastian Thiel aims to inspire people through his entertainment company
Upshot.
Sebastian Thiel is an award- winning social entrepreneur and
film director, who has a wealth of knowledge and experience in
production,editing,writing and camera operation.The Evening Standard listed
Thiel as one of the 1000 most influential people, under 25.
In his late teens, he
created an entertainment production and online broadcasting company, named
‘Upshot’. ‘Upshot’ contains a variety of
content, from short films, music videos, documentaries and promotional videos. The
YouTube channel currently has 5.8 million views.
Thiel claims that he has had a wide range of influences
growing up, who have ultimately shaped the person he is today. “I have lots of
different people that inspire me for different reasons, for example, I am
inspired by Tupac, in how outspoken and real he was as a person."
Growing up, Thiel always dreamt of becoming a basketball
player, which is one of the reasons behind why he had created entertainment
company, Upshot, in August 2007.
Speaking about his love of basketball, “I was heavily inspired by
Michael Jordan,” he insists. The fall of
the dream of being basketball player, Thiel created ‘Upshot’ to raise money.
Initially, ‘Upshot’ was a clothing line, which soon became an online TV
channel.
One of his other key inspirations is the likes of J.Cole,
American rapper and producer. “Right now, J.Cole is my inspiration, that’s
mainly from the stories he has through music about basketball and so on” says
Thiel enthusiastically. He has actually filmed and directed an interview led by
Radio 1 DJ, Charlie Sloth with J.Cole. And Sebastian has not stopped there, he
has worked with the likes of the self-proclaimed magician and sensation,
Dynamo, backstage, in the production, ‘Impossible 2’.
Thiel has created a wide range of short films, including: UK
Friday, Fill Me In and many more. Illegal activity is a film of his which,
about street culture and stereotypes, and was screened at the BAFTA.
Although most of his works surround highlighting inner-city
struggles, Thiel is adamant that he will not limit his creativity to this. “I work on comedy as well,” he tells me, in
relation to his recently produced web-series ‘A Dot’s Apprentice’. This web-series is primarily a spoof of ‘The Apprentice’ hosted by Lord Sugar.
Both humorous and engaging, the series highlights young people’s ambitions in a
positive and light-hearted way.
Funding is often an obstacle that many young creative face,
but Thiel has released a video online, about two years ago, listing various
companies young people in need of funding can contact. Discussing his own
venture in the business, Thiel claims, “With A Dot’s Apprentice, elevation
networks paid us to film it. But with the rest of the upshot material, I funded
it myself.”
He recently released his documentary ‘Trap Town’ on
television channel, LondonLive, sister channel to The Evening Standard. This
was Thiel’s first time in securing a commission on a television channel, and deservedly so. The documentary was directed by Thiel
himself, and presented by comedian, Babatunde Aleshe, hailing from North London,
Tottenham. ‘Trap Town’ tells a story about the issues faced by young people
living in deprived areas, especially black males.
“Initially, I was contacted by Latimer films, and Latimer
films wanted me to do a documentary surrounding the riots. I was really
interested in the subject and I was also very interested in the issues the
riots raised. So I took on the documentary and I brang a different spin,
different side, different story to it, which was shown in ‘Trap Town,” says
Thiel.
The documentary was a mixture of a voice over by Thiel,
presenting by Aleshe and informal discussion of the contributors involved.
Based on his personal evaluation of the topics emerging from the documentary,
Thiel announces, “ I think some of the barriers that were shown in the
documentary were based on lack of opportunities. A lot of them feel like there
are a lack of opportunities in the area. A lack of positive role models. That’s
the theme that was raised with the boys. I don’t know if it was the same for
everyone, but that’s one thing we noticed in the documentary.”
For a while now, drugs and violence has been a profound
factor of youth culture and not enough is being done to reduce the impact of
this. “ I don’t have any solutions to combat these issues fully. I just play my
role, I try to play my part, by contributing how I feel I can, which is through
entertainment and through being a role model to young people I come across,
such as family members and so on. I think it starts quite close. In the bigger
scheme of things, there are lots of things that need to change. I’m trying to
do it the way I’m confident,” reinforces Thiel.
The list is often endless for what factors result in youth
crime, but some reasons are heavily emphasised in the media. One of them, is
the glamourized gang culture/life spoken about in UK and US rap music. Thiel
agrees that is so with music but “through entertainment, to some extent,” he
says.
Another important factor which is responsible for the
increasing crime rates, is the mistrust of police for young people. “On both
sides, they just need to .. they both have the same stereotypes of each other
and they both see each other in a negative way. At the end of the day, were
just people. There’s good people and bad people. I guess, as an organization,
such as the Met, there need to be more good people in general”, claims Thiel.
It is clear that Thiel is a hard-worker and a game changer,
through the diversity of his filming stories, in addition to the topics he
covers. Speaking on his choice of the exploration of issues raised in ‘Trap
Town’, he says, “I feel strongly about it, I have strong opinions on it. I want
to try and change things through the content that I make. I haven’t had any
direct experience, but I have a lot of friends who have. Some people have gone
to jail and so on.”
Quite apparent that Thiel is an inspiration to his family,
friends and young creative, he still remains modest. Although he knew people
that had gone off the rails, Thiel was headstrong and had a clear path as to
where he wanted to go into life. “It’s hard giving advice, when you haven’t
lived that life. The thing is .. you can’t just say things and they’ll change.
It’s difficult. A few words can’t help. And most of them know that what they
are doing is wrong. If you decide you want to change, you can change. A lot of
these guys do not make a firm decision to change. So its about deciding and
sticking to that,” he affirms.
“My big aim is to do feature films. All my work is focused
on towards getting to that goal. In the meantime, I will continue to put
content online, so short films, web series and so on,” says Thiel, discussing
what we can look forward to in the future.
Thiel is currently in the process of filming for his new
comedy feature film, Everybody In The House.”We’ve got a comedy feature film in
development called ‘Everybody In The
House’, were going to film a taster tape for funding” says Thiel.
Some may assume that Thiel has got it easy, but more fool
you, as his schedule is busy practically all the time. Describing his job, he
remarks, “ The perks of my job are being able to control what you do and being
able to do what you want to do and love.” Taking the flipside into
consideration, he says, “ At the same time, not having a guaranteed job or
income. You’re not contracted.”