Written by Samantha Stemmer
Arts Freshest Faces latest feature is again, found in Wilmington, North Carolina, and the promising young man’s name is John Dougherty (IG: @johnnymcdougherty). John Dougherty is a 21-year-old film studies and accounting major at University of North Carolina Wilmington, pursuing a career in editing and production, but Dougherty is not just any student. As Dougherty said laughingly “I currently work two jobs right now, as busy as that sounds, dealing with mainly editing work.” Dougherty’s first job is with the company Foreword Films (IG: @forewordfilms) where he does a lot of client work including editing commercials and podcasts for nonprofits. John Dougherty’s second job is an internship for well-known director, producer, and writer of documentaries, David Garrigus.
Dougherty is originally from Frederick, Maryland and at the end of high school he moved about an hour outside of the Wilmington area of North Carolina. The young editor found his passion in middle school after watching heavily edited YouTube videos. However, there is no single inspiration that he necessarily aspires to, or someone who sparked his love for the craft. Dougherty explained “I don’t know where I get my inspiration from, I’ve just been [editing] for so long that it just kind of turned into what I do. I just kind of fell into it one day and stuck with it.”
While in middle school, the first program Dougherty played around with was Adobe After Effects, and then in high school he was fortunate enough to have access to Adobe Premiere where he found editing easier. Eventually, it became fun and he “looked forward to editing.” He continues to hustle being a full-time student with two jobs and recently filmed and edited a concert video of a band called Tweakk (IG:thebandtweakk). Dougherty also mentioned that he is a big music fan and his favorite bands are Green Day, The Used, and Mt. Eddy, and would love to host a music show one day.
Moving forward, John Dougherty’s dream job and biggest goal is to have his own production company. Dougherty said, “I would ideally be making big budget Hollywood movies and my end goal is to let the directors make their vision without pushing [my own or any other] agenda [on them].” As for now, Dougherty plans to take a semester off to work this fall and hopes to find his “golden ticket.” Dougherty jokingly remarked that he would love to find himself in a position this fall to be a successful college dropout.
If Dougherty does not find his “golden ticket” during his semester off he plans to finish his degrees and then continue to do sound, editing, and production work either in Wilmington, North Carolina or move to Atlanta, Georgia. For those looking for success behind the camera in editing and production, his best advice is “to always take pride in your work, and if you want to be an editor and you’re not constantly editing, you’re doing something wrong.” People generally do not always pay attention to the magic that takes place behind the camera, but you need to pay attention to the magic that is John Dougherty.