this is ‘22

“If you live without passion, you can go through life without leaving any footprints.”

Betty White

And just like that, it’s another year over. The past few months have been a whirlwind— like accelerating down the first slope of a rollercoaster, screaming your lungs out as the only release while your body is beholden to the machine… and gravity.

Things have been so busy that I never got to write about my first days of grad school. AFI has been such a challenging, yet rewarding experience. I’ve sharpened my craft and developed new producing skills all while working alongside numerous talented collaborators. We shot our first short film exercise, and have two more scheduled for this upcoming semester. COVID is providing a new scope of difficulty, impacting productions and classes, and generally complicating the work of the producers.

Despite this all, I’m proud of what we made and of how far I’ve come creatively in just a few months. In my first semester at AFI, I produced one short film and two visual essays shot on 35mm. I also wrote a short (to more or less success) and started writing a feature script. One of the reasons I ultimately chose to attend this school is the amount of practical filmmaking that occurs, and it’s certainly meeting expectation in this regard.

Currently, I’m home with family on the east coast. In days, I fly back to LA, and I’ve told them I’m not sure I’ll be able to come back before next holiday season. I’ll miss home, but here’s to making the most of the next year, becoming a better filmmaker, and forging a path that will lead to more.

i made a website

“Start by starting.”

Meryl Streep

Welcome to today’s big accomplishment. This website has been sitting here unpublished since May because I couldn’t decide what my professional presence should be like. I still can’t decide, but at least this is a start. I know it’s not official like a dot com, but I ended up going with a dot media address so I could use my first name. I think it’s kind of neat. The process itself wasn’t too bad thanks to years of customizing my Tumblr (let’s not talk about it), but tedious all the same.

I’ve been holed up in my little studio apartment all day and this started as an afternoon mission. But at some point I looked up in a huff. I’d been sitting in the pitch dark for two hours before I realized I could no longer see anything around me. The hyperfocus is real.

This morning I bought business cards (which were also on standby in my Vistaprint cart for months). My previous cards, which I probably still have all ten of, were designed in Photoshop and printed on a sheet of Avery stock. It’s about time to promote myself from production assistant. But alas, I’ve now cancelled the Vistaprint order because I need to include my fancy website, right? When I finally get them I probably won’t use them either. Certainly not 100 which is the minimum order. But I suppose they’re nice to have, plus I got to add foil to make them shiny. It’s all very legit.

I will post an update about my journey to LA soon. I haven’t even told that many people yet, which is yet another task I’ve been putting off for months. Also, I may not be the most likely to update this regularly. Maybe that’s for the best.

Now if only I had a reel…