DMA Assignment #5 - How Are You Composed?

     "What are you made of (What influenced you)?"


     Art.  I'm made of art.  Ever since I was a small boy, I've had an interest in art.  One day I just started drawing, and it all took off from there.  And it never stopped.  I stuck with drawing most of the way through elementary and middle school, until my sophomore year of high school, when I discovered acting.


     Acting was an entirely new beast.  I had always known I had the ability to act.  It was something that just came naturally.  I had always done cartoony voices and memorized scenes from cartoons, movies, etc.  it wasn't until high school where I actually did anything with it.  In a moment's decision, I tried out for my school's production of "The Wizard of Oz."


     I ended up playing The Wizard.

Bad picture, but here I am in costume.

     From then on, for the rest of my high school career, I was an actor.  It was through my school's theatre program that I was introduced to the world of film, but more on that later.


     Actually, right about...


     "Who influenced you?"


     ...Now.  This man:

Sorry ladies, he's married.

     This man is Scott Paynter.  He was the director for my high school's theatre program.  This being the case, I ended up working with him a lot.  He's the guy that made me an actor and a filmmaker.  not only have I learned a tremendous amount from him about both acting and directing, but he's the reason I ever even considered film as a career option.  He taught a class at my school called Radio and TV.  I bet you can guess what it was about.  But it was here that I began to learn the language of cinema (Camera angles, lighting, etc.) and where I became fascinated with the world of filmmaking.  I can't possibly thank this man enough for everything he has done for me.

     And also...

     This man:

GENIUS!

     Dr. Hunter S. Thompson. "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" is the first film I saw that really put me through an experience. It was something more grand and important than a story could ever be. It was so different from everything I had seen, and in that way it was perfect. In my eyes, something so delightfully twisted and beautifully ugly could only be inspired by the mind of a genius. Thompson was that genius who, to this day, inspires me to embrace the weirdness inside. This is my favorite moment from the film. Gives me chills every time.

     "Where influenced you?"

     This one's kind of tricky, since there really is no one place that inspires or influences me.  I can often be inspired by particularly interesting rooms and such.  Like rooms hidden behind bookcases, those are usually pretty cool.  Or something like this:

Awesome.

     So a room with a particularly interesting layout or characteristic can intrigue and inspire me, but there's no one place that is a source of any significant inspiration for me.

Well, that's all for this post.  On to the next one!  Wherein I am interviewed by myself O.o