Filmmaker

pas·sion

ˈpaSHən/

noun

1.

strong and barely controllable emotion.

My passion is filmmaking. I love-love it. I haven't made a film since the 48 Hour Film Fest last June. I am itching to make something. My passions are for directing and editing. 

I used to like to act, and I feel I'd hold my own if needed, but the directing bug was planted in me when I made my first screenplay I wrote called Make A Wish. The screenplay won a best student screenplay award. I gathered all of the actors, locations and props and made it one weekend. 

My friend Jimmy and I had edited before, but I was in a class to learn Final Cut at the time we edited Make A Wish, and that was what I used to cut my teeth on Final Cut. 

Directing is like balancing on one rollerblade while juggling a chainsaw, a fine China plate and a feather with your eyes closed.  There is a lot to keep track of, a crew of people to manage, and actors to keep focused. It's stressful, but the good kind of stress that makes you sleep soundly when it's all over. 

Big time Hollywood directors have assistants, and people to do all of the stuff that a small time director of my caliber  must keep track of. 


So I learned what it meant to "direct" making Make A Wish. Then my buddy Adam asked me if I'd direct our 48 Hour Film we made in 2011, Instructor For Life. I learn something new every time I direct a film, and I learned a ton more making it. We won an audience favorite for it as well. It's a decent comedy. 


Then I took a class where the objective was to make a short film. I wrote, directed, edited and produced the film I'm most proud of to this day, the mockumentary 'T (Apostrophe T). 

I can say after that experience that I'm not really into producing. I like to have the locations, props, cast, etc taken care of so I can focus on the other million things directing demands. But I had two SAG union actors in 'T, and I learned how to legally use them in my film. I know the board of directors at HUGE Theater, and they were nice enough to let me film part of it there. I pulled it all together. 


I wrote the screenplay with a lot of room for the actors to improvise. I got a dream cast for it, and everyone is remarkable in the film. I wrote the lead, 'T, for my friend Jimmy, and no one could play it like him. The only thing I wish is that it could be longer. The film for class was supposed to be 8-10 minutes. I went about a minute over, but that's with credits, so it was okay. Plus there are bloopers in the credits. 


It spurned the spin off film Sam I Am, which I made for my college final project. Sam I Am helped me graduate. We made the dark comedy Tuna Lamp  for the 2013 48 Hour Film Fest, for which we were runner up audience favorite. 


The 48 Hour Film Fest is one of my favorite weekends of the year. I'm sure I'll have a blog about this year's, but the jist of it is: we draw a film genre out of a hat on Friday night, and must write, cast, film, and edit a short movie and turn it in on Sunday night. I usually don't sleep Saturday night into Sunday. I stay up all night and edit the film we just shot. 


It might sound like torture to you, but I really love the time I spend with my bestest friends making a movie in 48 hours. I have met some great people along the way doing it, but I always work the the same 4-5 guys, and I love our group.  We get better every film we make. I wish we could do it more often, because I can't even imagine where we'd be, and how good our films would be.