Daragh Murphy is the founder of November Seven films and participated in our Momentum “Don’t get a Job – Build a Business” programme. Daragh is an award winning Irish filmmaker and has been telling stories visually his whole life.
He began making movies at a very young age and finally realised his dream when he moved to New York to attend The New York Film Academy in 2005.
I’m Daragh Murphy. I’m the owner of November Seven Films, which is a film production and animation studio based in Dublin. We produce commercials, music videos, corporate videos, animations, and motion graphics. I myself, I’m a director, cinematographer, editor, writer, colour grader, animator and motion graphics artist. I also do my own accounts and admin and…
I started the business in 2012 – 2013. I was working abroad in New York. I studied over there and studied film and was getting some work over there and then I ended up coming home, straight into a recession, which wasn’t great. So I started working freelance, doing some motion graphics and animation work and that was decent enough where I decided to get an office and, you know, just move out of the bedroom and start trying to log my hours and trying to get a more professional feel and look to just what I was doing and for myself personally.
So I was getting some freelance work but also kind of on the dole at the same time. It was quite a depressing period for a while until that actually, until you moved into that office, it was strange. It was tricky. It was just, I was frustrated because I wanted to be there and I was there, you know, when someone recommended the momentum course to me, I was like, okay, I’ll give this thing a go.
From what I read of the of the course, it seemed like they knew what they were doing. It seemed it was going to be demanding and challenging. So the first day was pretty daunting. I walked into the hotel room in the city center and the 30 people in the class, cause we didn’t, we didn’t have the Entrepreneurs Academy and all the other amenities. We were the first, you know, we were the inaugural bunch.
It was terrifying, but in the right way, you know, we were getting asked the hard questions. You know, the easy question is, what are you good at? And it’s the easiest thing in the world. What I’m good at, I’m a filmmaker. I’m a good editor. If someone’s a good salesperson or musician or you know, gardener, whatever, a painter, whatever people skills are. I remember Steve, who I had actually known for about 10 years beforehand, Steve Thompson when he walked in, I thought he was part of the class when I saw him, so I just said, Hey, what are you doing here? And he said, I’m teaching you today. I was just like, Oh Christ, you know? And so that was terrifying. But he didn’t hold back. He was amazing. And he just kept asking the hard questions, like, look, I know what you do, but how are you going to make money from it? I’m going to make movies for people and I’m going to make, you know, corporate films and music videos or you know, Steve’s like, okay, well but how are you going to, how are you going to get to these people? If you target a company and they already have Joe blogs making videos for them, why are they going to choose you? And that really made me think, was like, well, how do I communicate to people? My worth to them? That was the start of a very long journey.
What the momentum course gave me personally was renewed confidence. Like I’ve always been a positive person, but around that time it was just like, I’m faltering here. I’m just, yeah, I’m kind of fading away. But it gets structured to the kind of chaotic nature of trying to start a business and trying to build a business. All the trainers just seemed really invested in us as a group. And in me, you believed that they, like I believed that they wanted me to succeed and they would get, a sense of pride and achievement to see me succeed. And at the end of every day you’re walking out of the class 10 feet tall, just like you’re Bulletproof, just like bring it on, bring it on. Why can’t I do it? The course not only gave me the skills necessary to become an entrepreneur and to start your own business, but the kind of camaraderie in the group and that kind of support structure within the group was amazing. Because we were all going through the same journey, all on the same path. We all shared the same trepidation and we all shared the same fears and joys. We all championed each other’s achievements. And, and we’re there when people needed assistance or help or support in any way. And the same thing applies when you just go up to the trainers. They were all just fantastic. What they did because they were entrepreneurs themselves and you, you believed them, you trusted them that not only that they have the knowledge that they could impart on you, but they had gone through the journey that we were going through the highs and lows. And so they were there to really lend a helping hand. That kind of sense of camaraderie and support and friendship and kind of family that was present in our class was the same with classmates, with the trainers and with Joanne herself, who is one of the most inspiring people I’ve ever met.
We became very good friends. She’s a fellow tennis player and we’ve worked together numerous times over the past couple of years and I’m working with her again next month on her incredibly ambitious and inspiring new project. The course has really instilled in me a sense of pride, confidence that I could go out and not only start a business but maintain a business and not be a flash in the pan. That I’m constantly growing and growing and becoming better and faster and stronger. And it’s not a word of a lie that I would just not be here without them. They gave me a structure to my business and more so a structure and clarity to my ideas of business.
The biggest piece of advice is just to be dedicated and to be prepared to, to be in it for the long haul, to realize that it’s gonna take hard work and long hours. My first year or two, it was like 60 hours a week, 70 hours a week. In year two, I topped a hundred hours one week. Cause I just couldn’t say no to projects because it was terrified about turning stuff down. And It’s just, it was hard. And maintaining that work life balance was really, really difficult. But because I love what I do and I still love what I do, I just threw myself into it, threw myself into it. Knowing that like after you get past the first year or two, of just hard work, you know, it does balance out and you get your awards for that hard work.
For more information: https://www.novembersevenfilms.ie/