Short Films

After careful review of the footage filmed from my masterpiece, Silence of the Owls, which I made back in 1993, I’m having second thoughts on taking directing credits. Sorry Grant, this really was your project so I’m giving them back to you.

Okay, so the main reason that I’m going to go back on my word is that after watching the movie I remembered my friend Grant actually doing the directorial portions. Sure, there was the one scene I filmed alone so I’ll take assistant directing credits, but as a whole he really helmed the project and should be given credit for doing so. That and the movie is so scattered and scenes are so incoherent and nothing lines up, so I’d rather he take the critical condemnation than I. Of course, we realized that while making the picture that it wasn’t going to be great, but c’mon, we could’ve at least filmed an ending to it. Oh well, I suppose as assistant director and the editor of the original, I can come up with a way to finish the project once and for all.

I’m not exactly sure when my fascination with video cameras began, but I do remember being in front of and (mostly) behind one a lot as a kid, whether it was filming my cousins dancing and making music videos or actually doing short movies. Funnily, I am probably the shyest member of my family, but put me in front of a camera or on the stage and I become a performer. I remember one time in the 6th grade when I was asked to be a mad scientist for a fundraising skit in front of my entire elementary school by my teacher, and being a kid who could never say no to a teacher I agreed to do it. I was nervous until the second I stepped foot on stage, and I went back to being incredibly anxious right afterwards. I don’t know why, but I’m still like this. I’ll never forget the words I got from a director once for a Reader’s Theater performance I was in where he told me, “Don’t look at the people in the audience but over them. I want you to look at that EXIT sign, that EXIT sign and that EXIT sign,” pointing to the left, center and right exits. This was by far the best advice to give someone who is shy by nature, but loves being in front of an audience.

But back to short films, I know my family can’t have been the only one into making these in the 80s and 90s. I couldn’t tell you how many video tapes we had used growing up, but probably more than we should have. I don’t even know if any of them still exist, but I know we had fun making them. Of course, back then there was no YouTube or even much in the way of the internet so sharing them meant physically having people at your house watching the movies. Today there seems to be no shortage of amateur talent, and while part of me wishes we had some of this technology when I was growing up, the other part of me is thankful it didn’t exist because I’m much more prepared now for any reaction my then 16 year old self did in front of a video camera. That is, I can watch the movie with other people and not feel the self-conscious embarrassment I had while showing it to my A/V class.