Hello There
My name is Fares Muthana. I love sharing people's stories as well as telling a few of my own. To connect with people is to tell stories.
My Story
I was born in the Middle East in a country called Yemen. It sits next to the Red Sea, and it neighbors Saudi Arabia and Oman. I still remember the time I spend in Yemen. My great-uncle and I would walk through the forest to a watermelon patch and pick the best for dinner. The village kids would run local soccer matches with makeshift goalposts made from possibly sugar cane, I do not exactly remember. I was on the young side so I only could watch. I came to the United States when I was six years old, and I have not left since. My family and I settled in the central part of California, more specifically Traver, due to having an abundance of family in neighboring Fresno. I was a fish out of water. I did not know the language, and I did not know the customs. The town was tiny as it has barely 700 people. I loved it though, there was a serenity to it. I ended up moving to the Bay Area in the fifth grade. My serenity was gone very quickly.
It was a new environment to learn. I sat back and watched because when I moved to Berkeley, a part of me started to activate itself. The creative side started to show, and it could have been the environment that fostered it. When I was in high school, I took a production class, and it was my first time editing and shooting video which was completely new for me. I grew up just taking pictures, some well, so not so well. That class did spark something in me. I was applying to colleges when I found the Broadcast and Electronic Communication Arts (BECA) department at San Francisco State University (SFSU) and it felt right.
At SFSU, the BECA department has allowed me to combine my first love, journalism with the tools to tell stories in multiple mediums. I was a part of the radio station KSFS; I use that medium to give my opinion on pop culture and news, using what journalism has taught me, which is to over-research the topic you are speaking of. I have also done some news writing for certain classes, as well as going into the field to do interviews and shoot profiles. Everything and everyone has a story, and my job is to respectfully tell it. I can say that I was good enough at telling those stories as I got my Bachelor's Degree from SFSU.