My First Videos

My generation is also the Information Era’s guinea pig. The once prohibitive tools of filmmaking were now accessible on the internet, and I had Sony Vegas to make my own videos.

I’m in middle school, 12 years old, asking for permission to turn in video essays instead of reports. I made sure to use the guitar solo from Blue Oyster Cults “Don’t Fear the Reaper” as the soundtrack for my project on the Cretaceous Period. R.I.P. the velociraptor. 

After my dad died, my mom moved to the Philippines to support the family. I spent a few years raising myself and was lucky to have my first existential crisis at 14 years old. Questioning death or what is life made me a weird kid. 

Writing what I know helped me to understand and accept the different parts of myself, and this became the catalyst for my filmmaking philosophy: to share the common thread that connects people.