30 Before 30: Day 28 - Ambition and Summer Short Films

It took me a long time to realize how ambitious I was. As well as hard working, driven, and passionate.

Just not in everything.

In fact, if something isn't creative it's hard for me to keep an interest and all those traits I just mentioned tend to go out the window.

Math for instance. I ignore it as much as possible, do it when I need to, and turn anything math related into a story to garner interest for myself.

But when it comes to my creative pursuits, which I see as my livelihood, I throw in all those traits. That is why I've now shot 3 short films this year, all of them quite a bit different, but each one very much in my style of filmmaking. One is finished, one is nearing a rough cut, and the third just finished filming.

When I found out I'd be returning to Kansas for a week for my birthday my first thought wasn't anything like, "Awesome! A vacation from all this work!" No, my response was instantly, "A week in Kansas? I can make another movie!" And so I contacted my friend and we figured out a script within about a month, he did all the producing work, and yesterday I shot an entire short film in the middle of the Kansas woods on a hot summer day with a total of 4 actors (including me) as I directed, shot most of it, and had a rotating number of people for grip and sound recording.

In the end I'm pretty sure I got all the footage I needed.

Also, it was fantasy, which may be one of the most difficult things to do on a very low budget. Though, this one we wrote with that in mind. And what I like about filming in Kansas is I can get locations for free. In this case, it was a patch of woods that don't look they belong in Kansas but that's exactly where we were.

So in my ambition I continue to make films and they tend to be pretty intense. I tend to push things pretty hard in the films I make and there tends to be A LOT that is shot in a short period of time. I've learned how to do things on very little and it's worked to my advantage.

I'm just hoping this little short comes together in post. I have a feeling it will when I look back and see how well Winter's Spirit turned out.

So in the coming month look forward to 2 more short films: Red Roses Painted Black and Summer Sonata.

I hope you enjoy them as much as I've enjoyed making them. My stories aren't just for me. They're for you. Without an audience, my stories have no home.