I've spent my whole life loving stories. I'd lock myself in my room and read any book or comic I could get my hands on. It's not for any dramatic reason, or like I was trying to hide from some kind of unfortunate existence. I simply found the worlds of words easier to understand than the one right in front of me.

That makes sense to you all, right?

Well, even if not, that's fine. Maybe that means I can keep you entertained anyways.

So, where do I begin?

Well, because of my feelings and draw to literature, It meant I never really gave filmmaking a chance. I never went so far as to try and insinuate it was a valueless medium, but I was pretty dismissive of it. I really just wanted nothing to do with what I saw as an engine for poorly made superhero movies when the comics were so much better. 

I really never got challenged on my opinions for a couple reasons; I didn't talk about my interests often, and I'm serial liar.

Oh, you like Marvel movies? Me too.

What's that? You hate pretentious novels like The Giver? I'm so with you.

When you are one of the most boring looking people in the world, you gotta assure your place in people's consciousness somehow. I simply chose the path of least resistance. Maybe that just makes me boring...not that I care. It worked, and I spent most of my school years with friends who could never guess how much of a faker I was.

I'd say if life could stay that way, I'd have been truly content.

But, you know, when you build yourself up on mountains of differing lies, it all becomes hard to keep track of. Someone's gonna find out you're being inconsistent.

And, well, when that happened, I had nothing to fall back on. All my peaceful days ended with broken hearts and my place as the villain of not just the school, but every place within earshot of the place.

My world of comfort, of words, became the only place I could turn to after that. The desire for anything more was truly gone. 

Well, that was until my english teacher gave my class an assignment. Make a short film.

There was no prompt to follow. She said it could be about anything. It felt like Pandora's box had been opened for the most ambitious students among us. Of course, no one wanted to try and partner with me, so that left me trying to consider possible single person plots. With the freedom to write about anything, it felt like a waste not to make something I'd never get the chance to make again.

So, I made a short film about a brother in love with his dead sister.

I spent a single night, suffering from no sleep for over 24 hours, writing the most insane collection of words I could come up with. Don't even bother asking how someone could possibly think an idea as deranged as mine could be a good fit for the classroom. I was lost in an entirely different world of thoughts. 

Unfortunately, being my first film, and being far from understanding what makes films so special compared to books or the such, my first script read much closer to a short story with awkward formatting that something that could be of use to actors. Lucky me, again, that I was the only one who had to decipher my scribbles.

The story of a grieving brother writing a novel about the life he wished he lived with his twin sister. It felt like the mere idea exuded endless emotion.

I was unworried about the camerawork. The camera was merely a tool to capture the story I allowed it to peak into. The camera existed only as my slave, not as a friend or something romantic. 

By the time I had finished the script, it was 3 AM.

I decided to shoot the film between then and when I had to go to school.

How many times did I repeat that same story? Till my mind lost coherence? Till my camera almost died?

I don't remember. I only remember the satisfaction of nailing it.

I'd made it a pretty simple script despite the concept. Seeing a photo of his dead sister, a brother decides to write a journal full of diary entries about the life he wished he got to life with her. Some of the snippets were read to overlap with the scene. By the end of it, he's holding a notebook full of days he wish he could live, before returning to bed and holding it tight.

Once again, very simple. Even then, though, it still hits for me in a way I can't exactly explain. Maybe it's that whole difference of having a sister vs not having one, but the overflowing feelings of lost, impossible love seemed to permeate in my dulling senses.

I spent very little time editing it. Placing some edited royalty free background tracks in, throwing some voiced excerpts of the journal over the writing scene, and I called it done.

I played the thing the very next day. Some part of me was expecting to fail.

I got a 72.

The class was confused.

The teacher was stunned into silence.

I...I got into deep deep trouble. It was recommended my parents seek out therapy for me because I was clearly not of sound mind to produce something of such nature as what I had.

For me though, none of this was a true bother. I could take the therapy sessions and weird looks from my classmates because I had finally found something that spoke to me more than just consuming art.

Making it.

I spent every moment from there on out not being used on school sleep or homework just watching movies. Good ones, bad ones, weird ones, I consumed as many as I could for the sake of learning how to make them.

My attention was never on the camera work though. Yeah some shots I could recognize as impressive or maybe even worth replicating, but what most interested me was the stories, and the way the actors told them. Seeing a man cry while being forced to choose between love and duty, while overplayed and often filled with problematic elements, always hit me the hardest. When an actor's eyes can be enough to show the emotion and direction of a story, I know it's an incredible film.

Sometimes I wonder what it would be like to have more actors than myself, but my reputation extends too far throughout for me to be able to truly convince anyone to give me a chance.

As such, my only actor was myself.

So my only option was to get DAMN good at it.

I watched tutorials, took notes on my favorite people's performances, and, most importantly, I made a lot of movies.

The mere act of creation became more important than air to me. I had to feel my fingers against the keyboard or wrapped around my digital camera or life felt wrong. The obsession dug so deep I felt like my brain was being corrupted.

My next movie was the first one I uploaded to YouTube.

It was about a stalker meeting god through an email chain.

It was the first time I experimented with my facial expressions. Even if it looked awkward at first, I had to do more than just look miserable or neutral. 

I grit my teeth. I bit my tongue till it bled. The blood collided with my fingers and made a beautiful shot of anger. I made a smile more akin to a demon than a human. I loved every second of my faces twisted expressions as I laid into "god" with the ferocity of a psychotic nobody.

Stalker Meets God received little attention, and that it did was mostly laughing at the ridiculous facial expressions.

Some people, however...some people seemed affected. They said they felt like they could feel their hearts being shattered as they watched my stalker's whole world crumble around him from gods indifference. I knew then that I had something.

I could make people feel things.

For those people, and for myself, I kept going.

I made a movie about a man addicted to liminal space photography.

The feelings of emptiness that ricochet through my brain as I stare at an empty hallway or home, how could I purely put that into words. I couldn't.

And so I pulled out my camera and got to work.

I don't know about how intellectual it is to admit that I got most of my filming done from breaking into an abandoned mall, but it was too perfect. Besides, nobody was using the place anyways. Plus, getting chased out by a security guard acted as the perfect climax to the film. The breaking of the mc's comfortable mindset colliding with the potential end to his freedom. His escape meaning a chance to become someone better.

Liminal Hell earned me a little more attention. People seem to be pretty entranced by the idea of liminality so it was a bit guaranteed that it would turn out this way. Regardless, there was generally more positive things said about this one. People either enjoyed the walk through the mall, the characters self destructive arc, or seeing me get chased by a guy getting paid minimum wage to watch an abandoned building.

Regardless, I loved the movie too. I suppose that's supposed to be what matters most, but what do I know?

My final movie, after all, was about myself not knowing anything.

I saw a short film contest being held my Rams Samson. Three winners would get to see the newest movie of his and a cash prize. I'm not a big fan of stuff like Requiem of the Blue Men, but I was low on cash, so I figured I'd do something super out there.

The script for that one was the funnest to write out of all of them. Watching an author get chewed out by his own movies characters for his cowardice and lack of intellect is probably one of my better ideas overall. Of course, I don't have the money to shell out on editing software to make a convincing copy of myself, so a lot of shot reverse shot had to be done. But the close ups on the spittle and mouth felt just right to me.

Watching it over and over again, I felt a sense like I had made something I could genuinely be proud of. It still had a lot of issues. Some expressions looked too out there, some of the dialogue felt unnatural, but I still felt confident that I had done my best. It was proof that I had the capability to go further.

I submitted the film for the contest. It won.

And now, as I sit in my seat on a low cost flight to Hollywood, I feel a sense of...wrongness.

No matter how proud of myself I am, I can't help but feel that this wasn't earned.

The stress of my own worries kept me awake as the hours of the trip pass by.

Something...something isn't right here.