My Return to Filmmaking

My story roots go back to film. I made 8 mm films as a teenager and later went on to film school at UCF. During school and for a spell afterwards I continued to make Indie movies and commercials. Writing scripts actually came before short stories, although I did a fair amount of them as a teenager too. My first finished, long form story pieces were screenplays and I wrote them long before I wrote my first novel.

Lately I’ve been returning to my filmmaking roots by teaching my kids how movies are made. We purchased a nice DSLR and various other pieces of gear to get us going. So far, they are having a blast and so am I. When I gave up filmmaking and joined the AF for a real job, I couldn’t imagine ever getting back into it. It was expensive and it required a team to do effectively. So I took up writing and continued to tell my stories as novels.

Now that my sons are old enough we actually make a pretty good little production team. Over time, we’ll get good enough to make some short films that we can post on YouTube for everyone to see. But for now, we are in learning mode and making simple, demonstration films to learn the craft. Below is a scene from our first practice film.

Technology has progressed at an unbelievable rate since I stopped making films. Now we can shoot and edit digitally and some SPFX are actually easier now than ever before. I would have thrived as a kid today. I’m hoping to spark the same creativity in my own kids. If not, then at least I’ll have the tools I need to get back into it as a hobby.

I expect there will be more posts in the future about our filmmaking adventures. Stay tuned.