When I was five years old I watched Jaws for the first time. Because of this movie, I'm fascinated by the ocean, I'm fascinated by small beach towns, and more than anything in the entire world I'm fascinated by film-making. It would be true to say that Steven Spielberg was my first idol, maybe besides Walt Disney. Since then it's been my life goal to be a film-maker, to write, to direct, and to make things that I want to see. That's really what I've wanted.
December 6th 2012 was the opening night of my one act play called Gateway. It was such an amazing experience to watch the actors and stage crew live out my daydream, a somewhat...no...a VERY complex daydream that took a hell of a lot of work from myself and everyone on my team.
Gateway was a comedy about a group of workers in a command center. When the "office asshole" unexpectedly dies during a power outage, everyone begins to blame one another. More die and soon the remaining workers realize this is no accident...HAZMAT gets involved and by the end everyone is dead. It's revealed that the office workers were in reality a group of brain cells who were dying because their master was smoking weed for the first time. Ha ha ha. Got ya.
Super complex set changes and an intricate light/sound/video design led this multimedia piece to be one of the best one acts of the year. It took a lot of work, a lot of stress, a little bit of aggravation, and a little tiny teeny couple of itty bitty tears. All the work, in my opinion, paid off with the first laugh. The first laugh at the first line. Got em.
By the end I had the audience trying to figure out what they just watched, they were roaring and clapping and cheering...I don't think I've ever had anyone ever cheer that way even when I'd hit a home run! It was great! I even got half of the audience standing up in one of the shows, and the best part was that my parents were there to watch it.
Big thanks to my film class of 2014, and my professors, and my parents, and my friends, and Winnie.
Pretty good way to start living out my dream as a creative thinker. I like this a lot.
ACCOMPLISHED: December, 2012
Photo credit to Andrew Preston, Photographed is Todd Ruhnau
