Today we’d like to introduce you to Dov Gurewicz.
Hi Dov , please kick things off for us with an introduction to yourself and your story.
I’ve been a creative person my whole life. Music came first. I spent years writing and recording under the artist name Kavana, the Hebrew word for intention. But the camera found me a little later, and it found me the way the best things usually do. Organically.
It started in 2016. I was traveling regularly between Chicago and Miami to date a girl named Rayna, now my wife. We’d wander around together, and somewhere along the way I started noticing things. The Miami sunset reflecting off the hotels. The way the light moved across the water. The golden hour laying itself over the skyline. Without realizing it, I was already framing scenes in my head before I even owned a camera.
Some time after getting married, we took a trip to San Francisco to visit her sister. That city hit me hard. The colors, the fog, the sheer visual intensity of everything around me. I turned to Rayna and told her I needed a camera. She suggested something cheap to test the waters first. I told her no. I knew in my bones this was going to be my thing. So I tracked down a Canon Rebel T6i on Craigslist and came home completely obsessed.
My first real paid gig was a hundred dollars to shoot an event in Chicago. I shot it the way I saw it, with an artistic eye, mood and atmosphere. The client hated every single photo. They wanted faces, energy, decor, the feeling of the room, not mood pieces. That feedback stung more than I expected. But instead of walking away I leaned into it. Next event I kept their words in my head the entire time I was shooting. And then the next one. Slowly I started understanding the difference between what I find interesting and what actually serves the person who hired me. That lesson shaped everything.
For a while I just shot everything. Construction workers, birds, buildings, nature, strangers on the street, anything that caught my eye. The obsession was real and it was growing. Then on a trip to Miami I wandered into the Apple Store on Lincoln Road and stumbled onto a drone demo. The guy took me outside, sent it up into the air, and the thing just hovered there completely still, even with the wind blowing. I was absolutely floored. Within weeks I had the Mavic Pro in my hands.
Flying it around downtown Chicago, over the Hancock Building, above the skyline was pure magic. The city I’d grown up around looked completely different from the air. Roads became ribbons, buildings became geometry, and the lake stretched out like something infinite. Aerial photography felt like discovering a secret language I didn’t know existed.
Then came Greece. We went on our babymoon when Rayna was pregnant with our first daughter Rosie. I flew the drone everywhere. Athens, the coast, Oia in Santorini which was just mind bending, and then Meteora. I still don’t have adequate words for Meteora. There was also something deeply personal about flying over the Acropolis. I had watched Yanni perform Live at the Acropolis as a small kid, this iconic concert that left an impression on me, and now here I was hovering a camera above it. That trip cracked something open. Seeing the world from the sky changes how you see the world from the ground.
I grew up in a family steeped in psychology. My father was a mediator, my mother a life coach, my grandmother a psychotherapist. I’ve always been drawn to how perspective shapes the way people see things, and the camera deepened that instinct in ways I didn’t expect. There are places that don’t just exist on a map, they live in your bones long after you’ve left. The Pacific Northwest. Big Sur. I’ve driven Highway 1 and pulled over so many times it stopped being surprising, because the landscape just kept demanding it. Waterfalls have been an obsession since I was a kid staring at photographs of them on the wall of my synagogue in Chicago, wondering how something so simple could look so otherworldly. I’ve been chasing that feeling ever since, in every place I’ve pointed a lens.
Today I run Dov Gurewicz Productions out of Hollywood, Florida. Brand films, elopements, legacy films, photography, and content creation, with a full studio, drone operation, and over 150 five-star reviews on Google and Thumbtack. A decade in and the obsession is exactly where it was on day one. I still take the camera everywhere I go. I still pull over when the light looks right.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
Absolutely not. Like most creative entrepreneurs, the road has been filled with lessons disguised as problems.
Early in my career I made one of the mistakes every wedding filmmaker fears. Through a combination of corrupted media and duplicate client names, I lost a wedding. I was devastated. I refunded the client in full and spent months rebuilding my workflow, backup systems, and file management processes so it could never happen again. It was a painful experience, but it made me a far better professional.
Beyond that, the challenges have been the same ones many business owners face: learning how to wear every hat at once. Sales, marketing, client management, production, editing, accounting, hiring, creative direction, and problem solving all while trying to continually improve your craft.
There have been projects with impossible timelines, shoots affected by weather, technical failures, difficult logistics, and moments where I questioned whether I was building a sustainable business at all. There were years where I worked incredibly hard and still wasn’t earning what I felt the effort deserved.
What kept me going was a genuine love for storytelling and a belief that every challenge was teaching me something valuable. Looking back, many of the obstacles that felt overwhelming at the time became the experiences that shaped how I operate today.
Nearly a decade later, I’m grateful for all of it. The mistakes taught me humility. The difficult projects taught me resilience. And the wins taught me that persistence compounds over time. Building a creative business has never been easy, but it has been one of the most rewarding journeys of my life.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
I am a filmmaker, photographer, musician, and storyteller. For nearly a decade I’ve built a creative business focused on helping people, organizations, schools, nonprofits, and businesses tell their stories in a way that feels authentic and emotionally resonant.
Most people know me for my video production work. I’ve had the privilege of creating everything from commercials and fundraising films to documentaries, music videos, gala campaigns, educational content, and personal legacy projects. What excites me most isn’t the camera itself—it’s uncovering the human story beneath the surface and presenting it in a way that makes people feel something.
Alongside filmmaking, music has been a lifelong passion. I’ve written and released original songs, performed under the artist name Kavana, and used songwriting as another way to explore meaning, faith, struggle, and personal growth.
What I’m most proud of isn’t a particular film or project. It’s the fact that I built a creative career from scratch while raising a family and continuing to evolve as both an artist and a person. There were many moments when the easier path would have been to quit, take a different job, or play it safe. Instead, I kept creating.
I think what sets me apart is that I genuinely care about people. Whether I’m filming a CEO, a musician, a school, a nonprofit, or a grandparent sharing their life story, I’m trying to understand who they really are. The technical side of filmmaking can be learned. Curiosity, empathy, and the ability to make people feel seen are harder to teach.
As I’ve gotten older, my definition of success has changed. Early on I was focused on creating beautiful work and building a business. Today I’m equally interested in creating meaningful work—projects that preserve memories, strengthen families, inspire communities, and leave something worthwhile behind.
At the end of the day, I don’t want to be remembered for cameras, awards, or business accomplishments. I hope people remember that I helped tell stories that mattered and encouraged others to see the beauty, dignity, and humanity in themselves and those around them.
What makes you happy?
For a long time, I thought happiness lived somewhere in the future.
It was in the next achievement, the next paycheck, the next trip, the next creative project, the next piece of gear, the next milestone. I spent many years searching for happiness as if it were something I could eventually arrive at.
As I’ve gotten older, I’ve come to believe that happiness isn’t really a destination. It’s something much quieter.
Today, happiness looks like sitting around the dinner table with my wife and children. It looks like hearing my daughters laugh from another room. It looks like a meaningful conversation with a friend, creating something I’m proud of, watching a beautiful sunrise, traveling somewhere new, playing music, or feeling connected to God during prayer.
Some of my happiest moments have happened while standing on a mountain, walking through a foreign city, or experiencing a breathtaking landscape. But just as many have happened at home on an ordinary evening with the people I love.
If there’s one thing life has taught me, it’s that happiness isn’t found in possessions, status, or accomplishments alone. Those things can be enjoyable, but they don’t last. The deeper happiness comes from connection: connection to family, to purpose, to community, to faith, and to something greater than yourself.
In Jewish tradition there is a beautiful concept called shalom. Most people translate it as peace, but it means much more than that. It means wholeness. Completeness. Things being in their proper place.
More and more, I find that happiness isn’t the feeling of getting everything I want. It’s the feeling that, even with life’s imperfections, I am exactly where I need to be.
That feeling of wholeness, of gratitude, of presence, is what I now believe happiness truly is.
Pricing:
- Custom Productions & Campaigns — $2,500–$25,000+
- Commercial Films — Starting at $5,000
- Photography Sessions — Starting at $500
- Music Videos — Starting at $5,000
- Travel & Destination Projects — Custom Quote
Contact Info:
- Website: https://dovgurewicz.com
- Instagram: https://instagram.com/dovgurewicz
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/dovgurewiczproductions/
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dov-gurewicz/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@dovgurewicz
- Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/dov-gurewicz-productions-llc-hollywood-fl
- Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/dov-gurewicz
- Other: https://vimeo.com/dovgurewicz
