Film School Inspiration

As someone who was an actor and performer for years, I wondered how I would fare in film school. I have so many great ideas floating around in my head. I am great at organization and bossing people around. These are all excellent traits to have if you want to be a director, but I wondered if I’d ever truly find that mad-crazy uniqueness that makes a director spectacular. I realize now why people are in film school. I had an epiphany recently about my career path and that has continued to expand into where I feel I am finally starting to develop that vision I admire in so many of the best directors.

Anyone can direct. That does not mean they can do it well. Part of why I am in film school is to study other directors. I want to learn from their mistakes and adapt and expand in the areas that work for them. My epiphany began last quarter during my MP 131, Film Appreciation class. I was studying Hitchcock and we had to write an authorship paper on this ultimate auteur. I began to really look at every frame and moment in a film, as opposed to simply examining the whole of the film. With that, it has spurned so many ideas for my own film-making.

As I was sitting in my MP 231, Film History I, class recently and our teacher was discussing philosophical ideas on history and the past, it hit me that my style and my ideas for film are dependent upon the ideas of those filmmakers who came before me. My vision for film, for every slide having a purpose is beginning to form. I have realized the importance of every second of a film, and am starting to break down my own ideas, so that I can insert them into the broader scripting of these films. I have realized…there is a process directors go through to de-construct and then reconstruct their films into the masterpieces they are. That is what I want to do, and that is why I am in film school at Wright State.

As such, I am in the process of developing a short film. I am calling it The Untitled Dominick Evans project. I plan to start filming in the next month or so (hopefully before my MP 180 class begins at the end of March). I plan to keep you all up to date, as this project moves forward.