Flash-Forward Creativity: An Interview with Jesse Freeman

Sometimes creative people can be all over the map when it comes to what they’re good at. Writers can also be great at painting… designers can also be adept at sculpting. And these basics can evolve into new realms of creativity—and creative careers. Such is the case for Jesse Freeman, a freelancer living in Brooklyn. At just 28, this creative used his background in fine arts to launch a career in Flash development.

Jesse studied Studio Art at Florida State University. It was there that his mentor Ed Love guided him to excel in the fine arts. But after Ed had a fatal heart attack, Jesse realized that he didn’t want to go into the fine arts, even though he was good at it. “I started taking computer art classes. In one of my classes they were teaching Flash 4 and basic Web design. I started building games for fun and posting them on Flash Kit and New Grounds when both of these sites were still in their infancy,” says Jesse.

Since then he has been learning as much as he can about using Flash and currently works as a Senior Engineer at Heavy.com. “I was never really a programmer, I use to play around with Hyper Card (an old Apple slideshow application) when I was younger. I never imagined making a living as a programmer, but now I specialize in large scale Flash Applications and Interactive promotional websites.”

Even though the technical application may not have been what Jesse started out wanting to do, he’s now a whiz at it, and says that he enjoys the creativity it brings. “I realized that creativity doesn’t always have to be visual but it can manifest itself in the code,” he adds. “I love to write code and solve programming problems. It wasn’t easy but over time, with lots and lots of practice, writing ActionScript became almost second nature to me.”

In addition to his work at Heavy.com, Jesse continues to freelance. We caught up with him to learn how he manages it all, and how he believes his creativity has evolved. Continue Reading