The Start of it All
Milk, water, and food coloring. That was one of my first memories of making movies. At the time I was around 6 and we were attempting to make a realistic on-camera vomit scene, mixing in colors in order to land on the perfect disgusting shade. I often think about that story when analyzing my motives in film. All we wanted to do was tell a story and enjoy the process of doing so.
Editing
Today, I find myself driven by the same goal. I want to share stories, whether they are mine or not with the people who view them. I have found a way that I am able to do this thanks to several creators and artists in the world. To begin, I look to a videographer and editor named Chris Rey Basalo as one of my main inspirations. He works alongside musician Aries in order to create beautiful audio and visual experiences. The use of distortion alongside rarely seen editing techniques lead to my fascination with editing in particular. I also look at a youtuber named Zay Solis and his early videos. In these videos he often included beautiful cinematic footage, edited together smoothly. The exposure to these editing techniques I had early life certainly inspired me to pursue editing as a career.
Animations in my Edits
Within my editing projects, I include what some may call doodles. They are often small animated line drawings. Things like faces, hands, and text in my own style has allowed me to form a recognizable style. Including these animations in the final edits provides the immediate knowledge that I was the editor. I have drawn a number of title card animations for other students in the film school. Recently, I have drawn title cards for student films such as, Atomic Love, The Hamburglar, and The Death Of The 90s. While this style has become my own, I have been compared to artists of the past. Prior to being told by Professor Max Bernstein that I reminded them of a filmmaker named Len Lye. Lye had created a very short film in 1958 titled, “Free Radicals” in which he scratched out frames of a celluloid film reel to create a visual effect of animated writing. Both of our textual styles are quite similar, especially when viewing the text animated. Lye has recently acted as an inspiration in my animations. The comparison of my animations on procreate to the respected art of a professional filmmaker provided an immense amount of inspiration. “Free Radicals” to this day holds up as an interesting and immersive film.
Cinematography
When it comes to my passion for cinematography, I can probably blame the Sony DV camera my parents had. Through the later years leading up to college, I carried that camera everywhere, going far and wide to find tapes to record with. This was my introduction to cameras. Both of the editors and videographers above acted as a step into the world of cameras. Once I had gathered a few pieces of information on the subject, I realized that a major reason for innovation in the world of cinematography was innovation in the world of technology. This piqued my interest as I have always had an interest in technology and electronics. If I had not decided to pursue filmmaking, I would be working in the field of technology and electronics as I had been accepted into the honors program in Oklahoma State Universities Fire Science and Engineering. I discovered that the world of cameras, specifically video camera technology, is rapidly changing and advancing. I then dove even further into the craft, buying my first “professional camera.” It was a major upgrade from the DV tapes and transfer machines. From there, I have found myself loving the space behind the camera and wish to further pursue it.
In The End
My family as well as my close friends have acted as my biggest inspiration throughout. Funding my work, school, acting in films, helping find opportunities, they have done it all. Throughout the process I have struggled but the people around me have helped to keep me doing what I love to do. The moment I knew I wanted to be an editor may have come as a result of my close friends. After editing a short “music video” consisting of footage I filmed on that DV camera. I posted it on instagram, they all immediately contacted me explaining how much they loved it. The reaction of their parents told me that they wished they had a video like that of their teen years. It told me that what I’m doing is the right move.
This is an edit I made for my Mom and her birthday. It was composed of footage from DV tapes filmed when I was just a kid.
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