Since as early as I can remember I’ve always loved being creative. Throughout my early years I’ve fantasized having different careers. 

When I was five or six years old I wanted to be an astronaut until I saw the space shuttle Challenger blow up. Then, when I was in third grade, I wanted to be an engineer because I loved building Legos and thought building cool cars and gadgets would be even more fun. Then I found out about how much math was involved in engineering. 

In fourth grade my parents had just gotten a divorce and I had a lot going on. That’s when I started drawing my own comics.

I loved creating my own characters and getting lost in their worlds. I made many different comics over a two year period; such as The Lousy Sargent, The Better Detective, The Lost Tribesman, Victor the Viking squirrel, and many more. These characters of mine were perfect for me because I would combine my favorite characters to my liking and take out anything I thought to be a flaw.

The reason I made the comics was to entertain myself while making them, but also for the fun I had reading them later. This was the start of my passion.

Later on I thought that it would be a good idea to make movies of my comics. The only problem was that I couldn’t find anyone to act in my films at my elementary school. So I continued making comics until the outbreak of the coronavirus now known as COVID-19. 

This next chapter in my life is definitely the most impactful to my career. It was the day before lockdown and we were going to see my grandparents for the weekend.

Usually I would bring a lot of toys to play with at my grandparents house in Palm Springs but I decided not to because I wanted to spend more time with grandparents (also I procrastinated and didn’t pack until 10 minutes before we left). But I did end up bringing a Lego Flintstones car, and some silly “stop-motion kit” that was a regift from someone. 

Then boom! We were stuck at my grandparents for ten weeks! 

And all I had to entertain myself was my iPad and a few things I brought from home (and my loving grandparents of course). Literally the day we got there Covid lockdown started in California. Looking for something exciting to do I cracked open the stop motion kit and started playing. At the time I had no clue it could become my career.

I remember seeing the first stop motion I created, and I had this feeling of “Wow! I can do this”. This triumph kept me busy for all of middle school. I would use my action figures and make stop motions on the floor of my bedroom. I then stared using green screens on my table to make little shorts. 

When my Uncle Jasper saw my films he called up my Mom, and the two of them built me a studio in my garage. It is dark in there so I could control my lighting. He even gave me a professional camera that I could use with Dragonframe, which is the software used by top filmmakers. He taught me iMovie for editing my films, and eventually Final Cut Pro.

My mom realized my old computer was not up to the demands of this new software. She invested in the latest MacBook Pro for me, and set up an editing station in my bedroom with a large screen and Wacom tablet.

Stop motion movies were perfect for me because I did not need any actors and I could do the voices myself.

At this point I wanted to go to an art school. I was thrilled to get accepted into New Roads, my current High School. At New Roads I not only had film and script writing classes, but I had basically a whole school worth of actors. This is when I started making live action films in addition to my stop motion films. 

Thinking back to before Covid when I used to want to be an astronaut I can’t believe that I’ve made it this far in doing something I really love. In my eyes this all is a miracle. If it weren’t for Covid and that little stop motion kit, I would probably be in some other career that wouldn’t be nearly as fulfilling as filmmaking.