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Addy Rock

Senior Oren Hamilton fell in love, maybe not in the most regular way. He found his love in videos. Hamilton is a well-distinguished videographer within the community who loves what he does and “loves to chase the highlights.” Throughout his career, he has begun to record for professional summer leagues, professional matches and sports teams within the school. Hamilton has found appreciation from his classmates and teachers for his talent in creating videos.

“I just love to make these videos. It was for fun at first, but it’s become more and more serious,” Hamilton said.

For the last year, he has worked on his craft and has managed to create content that everyone can enjoy. He has grown himself a large following on multiple platforms such as Instagram, YouTube and Twitter. Between all of these platforms, he has collected about 3,846 followers. Between all of his pages, he has used his exposure to reach over 300,000 views and only pulls more fans of his work with every video.

Some people think they can just be good at anything from the jump, just hop right in and be the best there ever was. Yet, that’s just not correct, for Hamilton this journey has taken around a year to get to where he is, and every flopping video, every long night editing, every cent spent on equipment and tickets, every message left on seen, every game with no highlights to inspire—all built up to the videos he makes now and the recognition he has collected along the way.

“Sometimes I can end up spending hours on videos they can take long to make, but as they progress I like to look at how the videos come along and it helps to motivate me to finish them,” Hamilton said.

He is one of the few high schoolers who can now claim to be someone who knows what it really means to work and reach his goals.

This summer, Hamilton had the opportunity to film for the Da Beauty League, a league composed of NHL players and players with talent from other leagues. With the gift of this opportunity that resulted from his hard work of that year, he recorded and made videos for their entire summer season.

“I’m just grateful for the opportunity and am glad I had fun,” Hamilton said.

Hamilton also likes to makes videos for the hockey team, but also is not limited to the football or baseball teams or any other individuals who hire him. This work might seem long, tiring, or boring, but for Hamilton? Never. He loves to “watch it all come together.” The progress is what motivates him to do better, and this mindset has worked very well for him.

Most importantly, Hamilton is his own person outside of just recording. According to senior AJ Stratmann, “Oren is actually a really nice person,” and “more humble than his status might make him look.” Just with one scan from the outside, anyone can tell Hamilton is actually just a very talented and kind kid who loves hockey. Your perception of him could only get better when physically meeting him, though someday Hamilton may win awards for his video editing. Within this school, he has already won many people’s alliance with his attitude and smile.

Hamilton has been looking into colleges such as the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities to continue pursuing a career in videography. He has plans to take cinematography classes in an effort to continue working on his recording skills and has high hopes for his own future. With luck, Hamilton hopes he will find what he is looking for in whatever school he chooses to attend.