Week 1 - Filmmaker's Statement

Film Experience

When I was getting into movies, I started to use my grandfather’s tape video camera whenever we would visit them at their lake house. I at first recorded my siblings on the raft from the back of the boat pulling it, and eventually started piecing these clips together with Movie Maker, then Roxio, and other horrible editing software slightly better than before. I started to also film our daily activities in the house, and I burned these half-hour documentary-style movies onto DVDs and showed them to the family at the end of the visit. I began to use cinematography and editing styles I had seen in recent favorite films of mine as I went on.

I was also in the class that did the morning announcements in my senior year of high school. Our school allowed for short comedic sketches to go along with the show each morning, and in this class I became very experienced in Final Cut Pro 7 and Adobe Premiere Pro later. I became very familiar with deadline pressures, fixing tech-errors, writing shorts with other people, and some acting as well. We aired (usually) funny news shows to 2,400 people every morning, and it was an amazing time.

What I Want to Learn

The most important thing I’ll learn more of in this course is how to work in a creative team. In my filming experiences with others, I’ve found that it may sometimes feel as though the rest of the group is heading in a direction that you entirely dislike, especially if most of your input isn’t used. But after letting go of your particular desires, you may find that the direction the group is going in is still filled with potential, some of which you can realize. I want to get used to working with other filmmakers in this course.

10 Years Down the Road

I want to write and direct my own films in this world. I would also love to be an editor and perhaps a visual effects designer or animator, and I would also love to become a director of photography once I learn much more about that trade, but these paths would only be for a time. At the core of my future, I intend to be writing and developing my own pieces of cinematic storytelling for the world to experience.

Something About Me

I have a very artistic and philosophical nature, and I’ve been keeping a journal in which I record each day’s main events in my life for a few years now. I started in January of 2011 with a few bullet points about the literal events of each day, and over time my journal grew to entrees of at least a page in length in which I thoroughly write about and contemplate important events that occur in my life. Looking back on what I was doing and my thoughts about things months or years ago is an amazing experience, and it prevents beloved and important moments from slipping out of memory as time moves ever forward.