In my childhood, I played a lot of soccer starting from the recreational level and worked myself up to join the top club team in my town. I usually played left wing even though I'm right-footed.
In middle school I picked up my first camcorder: a digital JVC with standard definition. I made embarrassing shorts with my friends (looking back at it now) and called the YouTube channel "Top Hat Productions". When I entered high school, I deactivated my account and created a new one: "DanG Films". Recording ping pong trick shot videos, air soft games and more narrative shorts, I gained up to 450 subscribers locally. I even worked with the school to make some videos to broadcast for HSPA testing and the annual "Spirit Week".
In my junior year, I directed a short film called "Ghost" about an unstable young man who blames himself for the death of his brother, and because he's prescribed too much medication, he sees glimpses of his brother throughout the film. I was awarded a scholarship from JK Design.
When I began furthering my education at Ringling, I decided to drop my YouTube channel so I could focus on classes. As the years went on, I found myself more and more fascinated with developing something out of nothing: story. How life influences could effect ones writing, how much one word could describe a thousand through subtext, and how much emotion an audience member or reader receives from viewing it. I want to make my audience feel pain, nastolgia, despair, happiness, and most importantly learn from the mistakes I've made, which will most undoubtingly be lined underneath everything I write.
As an audience member, I enjoy all types of film, from thirty-minute sitcoms to forty-five minute dramas to feature-length psychological thrillers. As a screenwriter, I wish to wet my feet in every genre to see what I'm best at and what's the most enjoyable. My middle goal is to become a staff writer for television like "Rick and Morty" and / or video games like "Game of Thrones: A Telltale Games Series" and my end goal is to become a screenwriting professor at the undergraduate level.
I've wanted to be a teacher since I graduated high school. I was never the best student. I had a short attention span and I could never really wrap my head around problems that were too big. To add, I have a large amount of anxiety. In short, I was limiting myself. Now as a senior, I've worked passed what I thought was the impossible and want to assist students that have the same difficulties as me. Seeing the next generation prosper and make even stronger content then us and our elders would be such a beautiful sight. I want to be apart of that push.
I think it's incredibly inspiring that you want to become a teacher. We need more people who want to be teachers and pass on their knowledge to the next generation. I think since you worked hard to get to where you are now, you'll be able to understand your future students' struggles.
ReplyDeleteScreenwriting sounds like a fun job. Any job where you can create stories is fantastic. Whatever you make will stick with some audience member. You put a part of yourself out into the world and it lives on after you do.
I also grew up in central Jersey. I live ten minutes from Princeton.