I cannot remember the circumstances surrounding the situation, nor can I remember exactly how the quote was phrased, but I do remember my father trying to explain to my nine year-old self that “life is not all about movies;” and this is a concept I have been grappling with for the past nine years. I know this statement to be true, but if not for movies, I am fairly certain my life would be much less interesting; my love of film defines my personality and my personality begat my love of film.

Stricken with polio, Francis Ford Coppola created puppet shows to amuse himself. Suffering from severe asthma, Martin Scorsese drew storyboards for imaginary films. I have cerebral palsy, a condition that, while it does not cease physical activity altogether, I am unable to walk. In this similar way, film became my source of amusement.

I did not realize until the age of thirteen that films could be more than entertainment, that they could be works of art. In my mind a movie was a movie, it was supposed to be frivolous entertainment. Movies like David Lean’s “Lawrence of Arabia” and Stanley Kubrick’s “2001” made me truly understand why they are called movies; they are moving pictures, extensions of paintings. Film shows us an approximation of life in all its beauty and sorrow. Film shows us our hopes, our fears and our wildest fantasies.

Film is such a titanic medium, more than a novel, a symphony, an opera, or a painting, people from all walks of life watch movies and absorb the messages sent through the screen. I want to be able to show audiences their unspoken thoughts, their dreams, their fears, and themselves; sometimes the world never seems quite real until you hold a mirror up to it. No, perhaps life is not all about movies, life is the movies.

I am currently attending the University of Southern California’s School of Cinenematic Arts, majoring in Writing for Screen and Television.