Storytelling

This is another article I wrote for KiptonART as well as Moviehatch, I've since made some minor changes.

I’ve written a few articles for KiptonArt’s website, but given that this is the first that will appear in the magazine, I feel I should introduce myself once more. I’m a 24-year-old filmmaker from New York. Well, I’d say aspiring. I believe that one should not call oneself something like “filmmaker” unless one is both making a solid living doing so, and other successful filmmakers acknowledge you as an equal, not necessarily in that order. I think I’m on my way there, but not quite ready to be on the level of those who I admire.

On the same topic, people do ask me what I do though, and I find I do not like to say I write, or direct, or produce specifically. I think of each of those tasks, and the others I perform, as all part of the creative filmmaking process.

Casting: Names vs. Talent and Going with Your Gut

Here is an article I wrote for KiptonART. You can get those at www.kiptonart.com/magazine.

So I've been doing some casting lately. It's fun. I love talking to actors. For whatever reason, thankfully, I've managed to stick to meeting with only some classy folks. It goes without saying that I'm looking to cast based on two qualities: Who fits the role best and who's the name that will get the most eyes on my film.

This all makes me think back to sophomore year in high school. Have you ever heard somebody say that the biz is like high school? A popularity contest?






















Shane Tela was a girl (yes, a girl named Shane, straight out of a Johnny Cash song, right?) who started at my school freshman year. I went to a really snobby Upper East Side school that was bad, but not like it’s portrayed on Gossip Girl. Shaney was a half-Black, half-White downtown import. I don't remember much about Shaney (I call her Shaney, she calls me Seany, it’s really cute, trust me) from freshman year though. That year, the new girls who got all the attention were two who made close friends with popular girls right out of the gate—one presumably because she came from a pedigree of cool people, the other because her Brother was a cool senior that year (both of these girls later redeemed themselves and turned out fantastic). Shaney was pretty but nobody noticed because we were too busy gossiping over who was going to date the other two hot freshman noobs (discussions were moot, as they ended up dating older guys, a guy in a band and a jock, right away), and Shaney never made herself look nice for school. It wasn't until sophomore year that I really made friends with Shane.