“An Artist's World”
Storytelling and art are a core part of my life and how I view the world. My passions (art, dance, architecture, theater, and film) all coincide with or affect my current career path.
My mother instilled in me a passion for reading and writing at a very young age. We took frequent library trips, and I read all the classics. I learned to love writing and storytelling that prompted twists, abrupt endings, and characters that leave the reader needing more. All essential pieces of making an intriguing film.
As a little kid, over the holidays I would be taken on trips to the ballet for a Christmas gift, and from Middle school to high school I was involved in every dance and theater production I could. As I got even older, ballets, turned to Broadway shows. Years of Ballet, Tap, and Jazz have taught me the importance and strength of movement, blocking, and synchronization. Time management, both staying in time and staying on time, became essential. Stage management became second nature, and I pull on those skills today as I organize a studio or a set.
My mother filled our house with fabric, sequins, and pins. While other kids left it behind at the end of the day, theater followed me home. Trashbags full of tulle and felt, bins of blouses and flowing skirts made their way into our car trunk as my mom, made her way into the role of the theater's “Costume Lady”. This term did little to capture the hours she spent labouring over every mermaid tail, Oompa Loompa hat, and fold of Jafar’s cloak. Seeing the effort of each stitch, sequin, and ruffle, the integrity for bodices, and structuring shaped my understanding of the work it takes to create each garment. Details I appreciate and I hope to recreate in future films.
Both my parents went to school for architecture, so I grew up having the different types of columns pointed out to me and sidings sighed over. I was taught about famous architects, their different approaches to building, and the emotions they hoped to prompt through their architecture. Staying late at the theater let me get involved in other behind-the-scenes aspects. I got to paint sets and spray foam, gather props and arrange them to mimic real rooms and convey characters’ emotional states.. Going to the ballet and Broadway shows was a masterclass in the appreciation for sets and their construction, for how pieces of wood, fabric, and foam can create or imply a different world. How light runs through a window, how it can change a room, a scene. Understanding the work it took to create them added to the awe of sets, theaters and films alike.
Over the summers, my friends and I wrote skits and created short films. We never knew where the plots were coming from; lines always spun together on the spot, but we always had fun setting up the shots. Further into high school, I started to watch behind the scenes of films, and wonder about the equipment and skill that it took to create what I was seeing. From there, my goal has been clear: to be able to work on sets, to see a film come together and to say I was a part of it. While I love producing and the stage managing of film, I love film more and would happily do any job on set if it meant I got to be there. Whether it would be Art Director, pulling together props and scenic pieces, or Gaffer, fiddling with burning hot lights to carefully capture a haze of smoke, or anything else, the passions I’ve pursued over the years have prepared me well to venture into this Artist’s World.
