Film and the Existential Pursuit: Through Hindsight and Foresight

Being an only child, one has conversations with himself, some mundane, others
extremely complex. These conversations most often lead to infinity- the source of flashes
of insight especially in the absence of the Muses.

As I myself am an only child, I was not excused from these conversations growing up. If
anything, I reveled in them and exercised them freely, often to the point of interpolating
my own theories with standing doctrines on phenomena. These conversations roused
within me an interest on the broad spectrum of things- from the petty to the fanatical.
This is the reason why my interests are so many.

Evidently, I love filmmaking. It is one of my greatest passions. Filmmaking is the

culmination and combination of many passions. The passion I have for writing and
storytelling, my passion for music, visual arts, philosophy- essentially the entire gamut of
life and its associations- are amalgamated into the discipline of filmmaking.

For me, filmmaking is where different aspects of reality become engaged to fabricate its
extension. May it be a mirror, digression, hyperbole of reality, it still emulates something
concrete.

Poetry is one interest of mine which is significantly interspersed with visual disciplines.
The phrase poetry in motion is an understatement and is illogical for poetry assumes its
existence from what is already mobile- things that exist. One of my motives is to
condense poetry and motion into film for it is my supposition that film is a medium that
effectively converses the ideas of both. One can be as abstract or as direct in film, with
the added bonus that the visual aspect incorporated can have the temporal element of
escape- an escape so vivid that it affects one’s perceptions of time and space.

Music is also one of my preoccupations. Not that I am schooled in it, though. I am always
adamant about the DIY ethic. I play drums and guitar- drums being the egress of
emotions over multiple genres from free jazz to death metal, and guitar as the primary
songwriting tool for my uninhibited love for heavy music. I’ve come to the conclusion
that the only relevant schools in music are those on opposite ends of the spectrum- jazz
and its fusions, metal and its amalgamations. Everything else in between is tailored to suit
a motive not especially artistic- especially in an MTV generation.

Photography also one discipline I recently reacquainted myself with. Since analog SLR
photography with was too expensive back in the day, I had no choice but to wander
elsewhere. The arrival of digital photography however changed the entire landscape of
photography. It became much more affordable, though not necessarily more efficient.
Digital made entry much easier, and it made many (like me) believe in a format that
sacrificed quality over ease of use. But such is the compromise that has to be made. And
although digital is shaking up the world of photography, I’ve come to find another
approach to it, going back to traditional film but with a twist- Lomography. Now if I
could just afford…

Now we go into philosophy- the biggest catch-22 of them all. For this reason, philosophy
never seems to interest me enough. By living we all develop philosophies- the gamut of
doctrines we live by. What interests me most in philosophy is not the selection of dogma,
nor the wide range of tenets. It is the simple fact that no matter how I postulate the
fundamentals of the smallest of particles in relation to a grand scheme, there can never be
a single school of thought that entirely elucidates. I say let life lend its elucidations and
let philosophy and the thought process be the hand that extends it. In that regard,
filmmaking is above my exercise of philosophies and elucidations- my attempt at being
God.

The bottom line? As bogus and as jaded as it may sound, I want to grow in filmmaking
leave my own eulogy- one which is visually compelling and myriad in its associations.
Be it in television or in cinema, I want creativity and technique to reflect the
unfathomable ocean that is life. You may say these are empty, callow statements- dreams
of a dynamic ego- true, but then again this essay was conceptualized and completed in the
vast provinces of that same ego... so you can never tell.