What it means to be “Imperfect”: How one videographer is helping ISU students find the beauty in themselves

Kaitlyn Hart

Life Editor

It’s 3 weeks before finals, and Gage Horne gets the job offer of a lifetime.

The original videographer, who had already filmed the entirety of his project to premiere at the Red Cross Heroes event, an annual event in which the American Red Cross of Greater Idaho honors everyday people who have risked their lives to help others, had dropped out just five days before. With not a single edit made to the film, Horne was left to pick up the pieces of raw footage and create a masterpiece with it.

“The Red Cross called me and I knew it was going to be big,” says Horne, owner of Gage Horne Studios, and an ISU student majoring in Mass Communications with an emphasis in Visual Communication and a minor in Public Relations.

“When I did it, I worked day and night for those five days, which was three weeks before finals, which was crazy.”

After countless hours of editing clip after clip, Horne finally finished the project. Ten separate videos honoring ten heroes who had risked their lives to help others in the local Idaho community.

“She [The contact at Red Cross] calls me after the event, and she’s like, ‘The event went phenomenal and everyone loved your work, we have it up on our YouTube, I cannot tell you how thankful we are, and we want you to shoot and edit next year’s”, says Horne.

“It’s like, that moment when you send a video to a client and they’re like, ‘It’s perfect, Oh my God, I love it, leave it as it is’, you know, it- it just hits different.”

A former dance major, Horne is well versed in the world of Fine Arts.

In 2014, when Horne was shooting professional dance videos and posting them to his YouTube channel, even going so far as to rent out the Stephens Performing Arts Center, he was met with praise for his dance and videography skills from none other than rapper, G-Eazy.

Horne ended up being G-Eazy’s videographer for a concert he did when he was much lesser-known, at a venue of about 2,000 people in Boise, Idaho.

Horne has also gotten the opportunity to work with dance experts like the dance crew, the Jabbawockeez and rapper NF.

This past year, Horne decided that he wanted to further his creative endeavors and make something for himself to enjoy, that would also entertain viewers audible as well as visually.

“I started a podcast because there was a piece of me when I was dancing and being on stage, that although I love creating things for other people, I started to miss creating things for me,” says Horne, who runs the podcast, Imperfect.

“And because of the Red Cross, I liked helping people and doing something a little bit bigger and a little bit more professional. I wanted to help people but entertain them at the same time. Educational Entertainment.”

About six months ago, Horne started talking to his peers about doing a podcast that would cover, “anything and everything,” from darker topics like anxiety and depression to lighter topics like recent news about famous rappers, and people trying to make it in professional sports.

Unintentionally, Imperfect has almost become a student podcast. Out of thirteen guests, twelve of them either currently attend or have graduated from ISU.

Though the podcast is for mature audiences, Imperfect highlights some of college students’ biggest struggles, including relationship strife, like how to deal with being cheated on.

“I think Garrett Johnson’s [episode] was [my favorite]. He’s one of my best friends, but I love his episode because we talk about relationships and the information that I think was in there, was really, really good,” says Horne.

“That was the episode I got the most in-person like, ‘Dude, I saw Garrett’s episode, like that was really real.’”

Even more in-depth about his journey to success, Horne posted a short film titled, Journey to Imperfect, which is his most viewed video to date. The video details all of the trials, tribulations and failures that he went through to get to where he is today.

You can watch Horne’s podcast, Imperfect, on the Youtube Channel, Imperfect.

Make sure to take a look at his videography work on his personal Youtube channels, Gage Horne, and Gage Horne Studios.

“There were a lot of failures in my film, Journey to Imperfect,” says Horne.

“But besides all of the failures, all of the things that I learned are more.”