Hi! I’m a bit excited typing this because it’s the first real newsletter I send you, and first one I write in general! I did write a silly welcome email that I hope you got - I was still figuring out the settings, lol! - and an about page in which I explained why I decided to start a newsletter, but, yeah, this is the official one: April 2023!
You might have noticed that I changed the name of my newsletter from “My Monthly Newsletter” to “What’s New” and the reason is that it took me 3 months to find the time to write and email this first newsletter, so, yeah, I can already tell you that it’s not going to be a monthly appointment!!
I’m typing this from my home office in Milano, Italy, the city where I was born and raised. After 12 amazing years spent in the US between San Francisco and Los Angeles, four years ago I got an interesting job offer from an Italian Creative Agency and decided to take this opportunity to leave California and relocate to my hometown to be closer to my family. I closed Spaghetto Productions, my own production company based in LA, and joined this Italian company full-time, leaving everything behind.
Well, to be completely honest this big change was traumatic!! I won’t share the whole story here because it would take too long - maybe I’ll do a little podcast episode about the experience of moving back to my home town after building a successful career and a whole life abroad, if anyone is interested about this topic - let’s just say that Milano and LA are two different worlds and adjusting to my new life and working environment was super hard.
It took me one and a half year to finally feel at home again, in my home town. I went back to freelancing, directed a couple of TV commercials and worked as a creative director. I also directed a series of videos and a short documentary for La Triennale, a prestigious museum, and took part in an exhibition there that was well received. A few days after the closing party of the exhibition, Covid arrived to Italy and hit the country very hard. Our lock-down lasted a whole year pretty much and all the projects I had lined up got cancelled, including the Italian theatrical release of my movie Twerkumentary.
Despite that, the lock-down was a very productive time for me because I had to re-think and re-build my career all over again for the second time in two years! I created a 10 episode podcast series (in Italian), worked as an illustrator and gif artist, taught myself Adobe After Effect and worked on International animation projects and Augmented Reality projects that made me really happy and were successful. My AR filters were reaching millions of people (currently over 200M), I won a grant, an international AR competition, and the United Nations used me as a case study for Italy as a successful International Digital Entrepreneur. I also cut my bangs way too short and looked like a gabber.
We were still in lock-down when I got offered a Head of Production role by an International video production company that was starting their Italian chapter. I accepted and liked my super full-time job, even though it didn’t leave me any free time to pursue my personal projects. It lasted almost two years, until the company abruptly closed all their studios around the world and laid everyone off. Au revoir!
And here we are: 2023! Long story short, I haven’t decided yet what I want to do next career wise and, after changing path 3 times in 4 years, I’m honestly not putting any stress on myself about it. Maybe I’ll start my own company here in Italy, maybe I’ll find a new company to join that I will love, maybe I’ll go back to LA, maybe I’ll just freelance remotely with the whole world or produce another movie! The next newsletters will tell!
What I do know is that this weekend I’m part of this awesome art show that celebrates the life and work of recently passed amazing illustrator Elena Xausa. Please check her website if you are not familiar with her stellar work.
If you are in Vicenza, or able to travel there, don’t miss it!
The opening is this Saturday April 15th and the exhibition will run till September 10th. At the end, the artwork of the artists involved will be sold to raise money for The Italian Cancer Research Association (AIRC). I’ll share my artwork and pictures from the opening in my next newsletter!
I will also tell you about my soap opera with Amazon Video and, hopefully, I will be able to finally announce the distribution of Twerkumentary!
Thank you for reading till here ❤️
Love,
Spaghetto
ciao Spaghetto... maybe one day.. one day....
I think of coming home too
Can’t wait to see the show!