My introduction into creating film came during my senior year of high school when some of my friends and I started a band. We shot a couple of cringey music videos for our cover songs and posted them YouTube hoping to gain a bit exposure. That project died the summer we all went away for college. Before high school ended, however, a smaller group of friends and I shot a short film for a school project. It lacked a formal script, the shots were over-exposed, and the acting was unintentionally comedic. But it was a story that someone could follow and understand without a lot of mental strain. We were proud of it.
It was not until last year that I started making films of my own. So far, I have only ventured into making documentaries. I’ve made films about interracial relationships and Greek culture at Lehigh University. I have also helped another student make a film about major choices. These projects all started off as questions that I needed to know the answers too. I was extremely passionate about getting to discuss a topic and using those discussions to inspire other people to think a little bit more about issues that aren’t always obvious.
I mention my previous film making experience in this post primarily because of how much those experiences differ from the one I had in class last Monday. Up until that lecture, all the projects I made were ignited by some self-initiated aspiration to learn and have fun. Every time I shot, I felt like I was journeying into a new adventure. In class, all I could focus on was getting the project done. Me nor my fellow group members seemed to really care much about the movie was about. We had a limited amount of time and just wanted something presentable.
I found this project to be mechanical. There was no love or passion in what I was doing. I had fun overall, but did not care about the work I was creating. I realized going forward that I only want to work on film projects that I really care about. The more positive side of what I gained from this experience was a sort of deconstruction of film as this a grandeur thing. I am beginning to see it more as tool to convey my thoughts and ideas to an audience.