FILM & VIDEO: Background

Creativity is the food to my life; my family is my breath; entertaining and sharing are my heart. I cannot get enough of any of them.

Intro

Everyone has a story; some are exciting; some are sad; others are not as noteworthy, yet a story nonetheless — my story has a little of each.  Everyone is special and interesting — in their own right and to no one else but their mother — but some are more interesting than others — but just like poetry why am I more interesting than others?

I have entertained people with my creativity in both the people that help me and those that watch it.  I have won awards, had winning selections in film festivals, and have people that want to work with me again — if that doesn't count for anything than I do not know what does.

1977 - 1979

With music taking up every waking minute of my day — and some sleepless and dream filled nights — there wasn't much time for another hobby or interest to fit in, but when Star Wars came out my interest in movies woke up — one of many things that was waiting to surface.

Star Wars — the story, philosophy, and excitement — encompassed everything I felt as a boy, everything I wanted to say, everything I wanted to do — the imagery, the sound, and the story; I absorbed the whole thing into my soul — like all boys, I wished I wrote it, I wanted to be Luke Skywalker or Han Solo — I wanted to be in that world, but I knew it was not real;  I had written similar stories, I had far away worlds, I had fantastic adventures; and Star Wars reignited the fire, waking my past dreams that were started by the classic movies I saw as a child.

1980 - 1983

MTV began to get popular and I was intereged by the concept of marring music and moving pictures together — the ability to take the imagery in a song and actually view it was a concept that entranced me — but not having the resources available to produce high-end professional quality recordings and not having the marketing and sales outlets for my music — like with everything else I have tried up to that point in my life — I was at crossing with no bridge to get me over; but I kept on working at it in hopes that one day I would find that bridge.

This was also a time that home-video began to get popular with these over-sized video cameras that were quite expensive — not having the money to buy one myself I signed up for the TV Productions elective class at the high school which gave us access to the cameras and editing bays.  I used them anytime I could to learn and practice things that I envisioned; it was wonderful to see what I saw in my mind be seen on a tv screen.

I logged many hours on the camera, writing scripts, editing, and adding music to the video footage — this is where World Next Door came to life.  There was a video contest and the theme was World Next Door; the TV Production class wanted to enter.  The concept we came up with was a person inside a video game was trying to entice someone to play it and when the person played it and won.  They were sucked into the game and had to get freed by having someone else play and win.  This was a year before the original TRON came out in the theatres — whatever that may mean.

We never finished it, but I did write a song for it that still survives today, in fact it is not just a song but a Novel, Screen play, and a Music Publishing company.

1984 - 1994

I always carried my Canon A1 camera with me and took pictures of anything I could working on my skills as a photographer and pushing my imagination, I also borrowed video cameras to tape events and little stage bits; and eventually purchased a Canon Ultura MiniDV camera that I put thousands of hours on it — I have over 200 tapes in storage.

Editing the footage was quite difficult and not very inspiring at this time — I did not have the ability to take the footage and put it into the computer and tape to tape editing was quite arduous, so I kept video taping with the thought that one day I would be able to create a library of movies that would be easy to view.  I was thinking VHS but wanted DVD.

1995 - 2001

Editing footage began to get easier; the abilty to digitize footage into the computer was more accessible and video editing software was coming of age — I tried Adobe Premier, Final Cut Pro, iMovie, and other obscure software titles and found that Final Cut Pro was much easier and much more usable — but getting the fotage back to a format that was ready to view was still, for me, a bit troublesome; nonetheless, I still worked on my craft and learning the tool.  I also picked up my programming interest and attended WWDC.

2001 - 2003

As a WWDC student member I was offered the chance to get a one time hardware purchase through Apple at a 35% markdown.  I chose the 17" Powerbook which had a DVD burner; this was the cornerstone that occupied my time.  I purchased the full version of Final Cut Pro and DVD Studio Pro and began to edit the hours and hours of footage I took over the past 15 plus years and put into nice organized packages — the powerbook was the answer I needed to furthur my creativity.

After getting my two AA's from Sierra College I went to CSU Chico to finish up my Bachelors Degree in Computer Science, but realized that was not what I wanted to do — I mean I loved to program, but the school was not the right school to learn it; and I yearned for something more.

2004 - 2007

I finished a 14 monthy post-production program in 8 months at Video Symphony located in Burbank, California.  While attending I was lucky — I do have skills though — to get involved with Kevin Church to shoot and edited the BTS of Dave Markey's Lovedolls Superstar: Fully Realized, which is on DVD and for sell at Amazon.  I was also involved with Acid Headz car show production called Maximum Street which did not go anywhere.  And I also made friends with Dan Nelson, a very quick and energetic editor, Kristian Gabriel, and Jeanette Dubois.  The school and working on projects have enhanced and solidified his skills in the film and video world.

I then decided that after learning about what causes productions to be delayed and seeing several productions get shelved or various reasons, I came home and started Aria Pictures my own independent movie production company with the intent to move the cretive proceess to completion in more streamlined and personal way.  I lens Paint my first movie where I was in charge of everything and knew that it would get finished — I did not know how good or bad it might be since I never done everything by myself — and I was a mazed that it turned out really good; everyone involved was happy with it.  I have rewritten it and retooled it to be longer and more exciting for when I remake it.

I stay busy doing website work, writing screen plays, plays, novels, composing music, and editing other peoples home movies under the name of DVD Memories looking for that bridge.

2008 - 2010

Searching for the right place to work, the right kind of people, and the right kind of area that suits me and my way of life is quite difficult — more so now that the economy is in the dump — that I am willing to take on any project or position to make ends meet.  I dabbled in asphalt; yes, seal coating and paving — I was the estimator and actually began to enjoy it until the econmy took a dump.

So I took on a few more websites and odd jobs uncluding editing a 10 minute short called Detective A that was for Access Sacramento's "A place called Sacramento 2009" movie contest in which I won the "Best Technical Achievment" award for my editing and post-production work.

in May 2010, my screenplay, "THE GOLdEN TREE," was selected as one of the ten finalist — out of forty-five entered — to be made for Access Sacramento's "A place called Sacramento 2010" movie contest.  After nine months and 25 revisions I was pleased with what I wrote and was excited and content that they chose a well crafted entertaining story, but after the cast & crew call on May 19, 2010 — when I only needed five characters to be cast — we had the longest line all evening and I received more than 60 head shots and bio's from potential actors and crew seeking positions in addition to another 10 more from email requests.

We ended up with 28 actors and a total of 45 people working on this film.  I rewrote the script to include them, made it longer to incorporate the possibility of a 30+ minute version to send to film festivals, potential producers, and give the actors more screen time.  For more and COMPLETE information about THE GOLdEN TREE: its actors, crew, and production, you must visit The Official Web site of THE GOLdEN TREE.  I was also a co-Director and Co-Camera Operator with Brendan Brooks on Treasure Chest of South Sacramento, also a PCS 2010 film.

2011 - 2012

With my children off to college and doing really well — I miss them dearly but know they need to become themselves — I have been able to concentrate and fine tune my path to find that bridge, and in 2011 after writing three stories: the WATERING hole, THE GOLdEN TREEs (a continuation of THE GOLdEN TREE), and Petite Chardonnay (a shorter version of Chardonnay); I submitted them into the 2011 PCS contest only one of them the WATERING hole was the only one selected.

With my partner's Brendan Brooks, Jim Heck, and Scott Slotterbeck, as well as, a new member of my creative and entertaining team, Rob Tillitz who I made the executive producer, we completed the movie and at the premiere on October 2, 2011 at the Crest Theater we won the Producers' Choice Award.

Before the premiere at the Crest, I began to get a fire burning about doing Petite Chardonnay for marketing purposes like they did for Skingblade; but I kept wondering if I could get enough people on board to see the potential and possibilities it could bring us in our careers and financial gain as individuals and for the Sacramento Area Film Community.

The idea snowballed so fast after mentioning it to Ryan McKinney that a real budget, that would be deferred, was created and the process began with a long and painstaking audition and casting session — at one point in time it felt like things went in slow motion and I could see the whole thing taking place and reflected on my journey to reach such a place in my life; the joy, elation, and strangeness of it was surreal and I knew that this was a very small production but was thankful for being where I was.

The cast & crew has open their arms to me with giving hands and the story has come to life; to see the magic we are making you can go to the OFFICIAL Petite Chardonnay WEBSITE or the Petite Chardonnay Facebook page