I am on a mission.

I have always enjoyed pursuing a number of different artistic endeavours, from graphic design and filmmaking to penning a few words or strumming a few chords. The film world especially almost mandates that those who intend to experience some form of success in the act of creation must follow suit of those before them, falling in line with the sensibilities of the postmodern period we are in, as well as employing the narrative and formal conventions the last century has made into hard-fast rules. Alas, the time has come for me to respectfully disagree. I find myself moving closer toward the fringes of what my classmates and colleagues consider the right direction, yet I am also unwilling to operate outside the mainstream film world (i.e., I am not interested in adopting the avant garde). Uncomfortable though it is to lie between the two philosophies, as it were, if I am to stand here long enough I might as well take my shoes off and make myself at home.

The time has come for me to respectfully disagree.

As you might imagine, I have some very strong opinions especially regarding filmmaking, though I will admit to enjoying a variety of genre attempts alongside a great many guilty indulgences. But my eclectic palate does not necessarily dictate my interests. I enjoy heist films without a consideration of making them. As a result, you could say my influences are many, their impact, shallow. For the moment. In a sense, I am in a Freudian formative state of non-identity, willing to explore, but afraid that, in doing so, I will foreclose the elastic ability to be molded into a thing of great difference. My reaction is to simply consume everything, to learn and remember all I can, to reinvent myself on an almost daily basis. It is exhausting, though now I have been remodeled so many times I can begin to see which influences have stuck, and thus where the latest mark is headed. So what sort of art do I want to make? What have I been making?

In a sense I am in a Freudian formative state of non-identity, willing to explore but afraid that, in doing so, I will foreclose the elastic ability to molded into a thing of great difference.

Four years ago I was constantly pumping out low-tech, occasionally half-baked, wildly experimental films mostly of the comedy variety, in what unquestionably has been the most prolific period of my life. The culmination of this very first “learning how to crawl” era was a near feature-length documentary I was passionate enough about to sacrifice the majority of my life toward. From this ultimate achievement I gained an understanding of filmmaking on both a logistical and intuitive level, the solidification of my desire to pursue film professionally, and an acceptance letter to one of the most prestigious film schools in the world. And then, the engine blew out. I have made little since.

Throughout my film school experience, the work I have crated has always been criticised as formless, unfocused, and nostalgic. While I am aware that more often than not I become trapped by the inability to table my own footage, I am also aware that my films do not attempt to force the traditional literary arc. I’m exploring something different. My point: so many people are so cynical about the world we live in today — our morals are corrupt, our priorities are mismatched, our intentions are off-course — but the pockets in the world that fly in the face of everything we think we are lie quietly waiting to be found. What I’m trying to say is that I don’t believe my films are nostalgic. I believe people do not see the parts of the world that don’t fit in for what they truly are: beautiful, peaceful, sensible, and so honestly human. I believe that in film at least, we need to slow down, reconsider, and let the stories tell themselves. We need to give the subjects of a film time and enough distance to get the message across at its own pace. Movies should be able to evoke your emotions without the overuse of music. A film shouldn’t tell you everything it’s trying to say, as an audience it is our job and our great skill to read between the lines, just as existentially it is our job as humans to figure it all out as we encounter the day-to-day.

As an audience, it is our job and our great skill to read between the lines.

There is no answer. I am simply on the verge of changing eras once again, in a transitional period that is, not surprisingly, fit to match the rest of my life. There are several roads before me and the map can’t tell me everything, but I believe that in my experimental dustings, I have uncovered something that lies much deeper. The film industry’s need to change methodology is indicative of the change our society is poised upon without even knowing it. I am okay with being criticised for the films I don’t make, I just wish they could be assessed for what they are: exercises. Exercises in mood, profile snippets, snapshots of someone else’s life put on film so that one day I might better understand how to listen to what I am trying to make a film about instead of applying the same, unyielding method to a new topic.