Why I want to be a Filmmaker

Just a little something I wrote recently...check it out:

By Steven Ormsbee

6/6/07

This question hit me while I was watching FOX’s “On the Lot” reality show where prospective amateur filmmaker’s are competing for a one million dollar movie deal with DreamWorks and to work for Steven Spielberg. I realized I needed to write down why I wanted do make motion-pictures so bad, and why I was so envious of the “final fifteen” and the chance they were getting on this silly reality show.

I realized my dream to become a filmmaker spring of my freshman year (which was only a little over a year ago) but I had never really thought about why I really wanted to do this with my life. How do I know that this isn’t just some phase or fad that I’m going through? How can one really be so sure that they know what they want to do with the rest of their life? I think one of the reasons that I wanted to go into film was because nothing else appealed to me. There weren’t any subjects in school that really drove me while I was in high school. I didn’t want to do anything with science or math, or English or history, so I just decided that I would wait until I was in college to find what I was interested in. Last spring, I asked myself the hypothetical question, “If I had the means to do anything, what would it be”? I decided that I would rather be a filmmaker than anything else. I then thought: “Wait why can’t I be a filmmaker?” No one was stopping me, but myself. My entire life I’ve taken the “easy” way out of things, and I didn’t want to do that with my career. I didn’t have to settle for something less than what I was absolutely passionate for. Believe me, I know how stacked and competitive and hard-to-break-into the film industry is, but that wasn’t going to stop me from pursuing my passion. I never thought I would try to work and compete in one of the most competitive industries on the planet, yet here I am.

Now there is more to me wanting to make films than simply because I just wasn’t interested in anything else. That would be pathetic, and I would question someone if that was the only motivation they had to make films. This was one of those things that had been in me a long time, I just didn’t realize it. Throughout high school I always wanted to mess around with a camera and shoot my friends playing basketball, or just being stupid doing whatever. I was never really able to put any of my ideas into action because I didn’t know how to edit. I didn’t have any programs to do any editing, and I hardly knew anything about shooting either. All I knew was that I wanted to film cool things and put music on top of them. When I went off to college, I knew that I wanted to do something either with journalism, music or film. Journalism went out the window quick because I didn’t want to write for a living, and I realized music was just my hobby, and I didn’t know enough to pursue this as a career. Film was something I viewed much more seriously.

I want to make films because films are our society’s “stories around the campfire.” We don’t sit around fires and tell stories like our ancestors did long ago, now we all gather before the silver screen to have stories told to us. Films tell the stories of life. They tell stories of hope, disaster, love, pain, forgiveness, sorrow, joy, revenge, etc. People identify with the characters in film. Films speak to people, they have spoken to me. Films let people dream. They let people escape from the pain of their lives. For a few hours someone can escape from their world and join the world of a few other characters. Films invite people to become superheroes, bank robbers, international spies, witty poets, computer hackers, archaeologists, aliens, sports champions, the president, a famous rock star and anything else their imagination is big enough for. Films don’t have a limit. Anything can be done, especially with the technology of special effects that we have today. Any story can be told. I believe that films can change lives, and that they will. Film is more than just entertainment for two hours; it is a tale, a journey, a story. Films have more than what is just on the surface. Films let people imagine. Films help people to remember. Films show people how to hope.

Films have changed the world. One of my favorite documentaries, Invisible Children, started a movement that is changing the world and saving lives in Northern Uganda. Without this film, thousands of lives wouldn’t have been saved. A movement of thousands of people started because of the courage of three young filmmakers from southern California to fly to Africa to film the horrible events in Uganda. These are the kind of people that inspire me. Film informs people about situations that are going on around the world. The camera is not just an instrument, but a portal to somewhere else, whether it is in the past, the present or the future. To me, film is not just some thin strip of transparent cellulose triacetate covered with a photographic emulsion and perforated along both edges intended for the recording and reproduction of images (courtesy of dictionary.com) but a way to transcend the gap between cultures, between races, between generations, and to tell stories that come deep from someone’s imagination, or even from past events that are reenacted on the big screen.

Whether I make it into Hollywood to direct feature films, work as an independent artist, become an editor for a studio, a cinematographer for Discovery Channel, or travel the world making documentaries, I will be living my dream. I will be making films. I will transcend people’s expectations, I won’t take no for an answer, and I will show you how I see the world through the lens of my camera. The world is a beautiful place, and I want to capture it in motion…