FARMINGTON – The latest episode of Mt. Blue TV’s Adroit Artist features photographer and videographer Matt Billian.
Four years ago, Billian left his fifteen-year career in public safety and turned his passion into a business. He is now known locally for his aerial photography.
“It all started with an interest in aviation,” he said. “And seeing things from up high.”
As a teenager, he paid for flight lessons by cleaning hangars at the Twitchell Airport in Turner. He could fly planes before he learned to drive a car. When drones began to be released, he was immediately hooked.
Billian Moments Productions has a memorandum of understanding with Franklin County’s emergency management services. Billian provides aerial visuals of emergency events as a community service. His background in public safety gives him an understanding of how emergency management operations work and how to operate safely in a crisis.
“To see something in its entirety and to utilize that for disaster relief,” he said, is immensely valuable to the county. During the December 18 flood, Billian took drone footage that was published by the Daily Bulldog and widely shared in the community, helping the public to understand the gravity of the event.
Billian recently changed his company name from Billian Moments Photography to Billian Moments Productions to reflect his wide range of offerings. The list is long: aerial cinematography, cinematic interviews, aerial construction footage, long term construction time lapse, commercial advertising, aerial live broadcasting, contract videography, event videography, real estate videography, directing commercials, and full production from planning to producing.
“Now it’s what you need me to be,” he said, instead of simply photography.
Despite his multi-faceted skillset, Billian’s roots are in photography. He has been playing around with cameras since he was young, owing his skills to never letting himself use an automatic camera setting. “I made myself go to manual right away,” he said. “It was very frustrating but it’s definitely paid off.”
Adroit Artist is a showcase for artists and their process. On each episode, host Andre Cormier, also the Executive Director of MBTV, interviews a featured artist who shares their work, be it visual art, music, film or otherwise, and discusses how it was made. Cormier described the show as a “show-and-tell for grown-ups.”
On this episode, Cormier and Billian discussed the practicality of turning a passion into a full time job.
Billian said that he has found that splitting the business roles with his wife, to make sure “it doesn’t ever become stagnant,” has kept his excitement for visual art alive.
The episode will premiere on Saturday night at 7 p.m. and will re-run Sunday at noon and 6 p.m. It will be available on demand at mtbluetv.org.
Learn more about Billian Moments Productions at www.billianmoments.com.
