En 404 Past Present Future

Donald Ford EN 404 3/21/08 Past Present and Future I was born Donald Arthur Ford on November 28, 1984. I then spent three months trapped in an incubator because I was premature. I can’t remember what it felt like trapped in that small plastic box, but I bet it’s a lot like how it feels sometimes trapped in my apartment room now. I wanted to get out and see the world early then and I do now. Filmmaking is the way I do that. I get to explore through the lens. It took a while to get here. I grew up on the North side suburbs of Chicago. When I was two years old my parents moved from Palatine Illinois to Glenview because of the good schools there. I did enjoy most of my schooling. I remember kindergarten being fun. We got to do fingerpainting, play with toy trains and learn about sharing. I also remember eating paste, yum. Art and crafts where always around for me. My Uncle Steve was a musician and he liked to draw. We used to draw doodles together, usually on napkins or placemats. My mom also did some drawing and painting. She was quite good at it. I used to go with her to drawing and painting classes. The more I did art the more I liked it. In school it was my favorite class. My Mom and Dad also liked to watch movies. They had quite a collection of VHS tapes. My Dad had all the westerns, action movies and war films, while my mom had romantic comedies dramas and some musicals. I grew my enjoyment of movies from them. I gravitated towards my Dad’s interests more. I quickly became a fan of Clint Eastwood, Harrison Ford, and Steve McQueen. At that time I mainly enjoyed the films

for their entertainment value. I had no knowledge of filmmaking at that time, but I did wonder about acting or what it would be like to make a movie. I finally got my chance in 2003. My senior English class had a final assignment. We could choose from several options and one of them was to write a story and make a short film based on it. I quickly teamed up with my friends, some not even in the class, to begin our first filmmaking experience. After some initial drama deciding on our idea we finally agreed to do a spoof on the 1980’s Arnold Schwarzenegger action film “Predator”. I quickly wrote a script and away we went. The end result was “Gnome”. It like “Predator” had a group of commandos searching for a sci-fi creature, only in ours it was a lawn gnome. We were ecstatic about it and very proud of our movie. We where shocked when we only got a B on it. Looking back it was really bad. None of use actually knew any film techniques, we pretty much imitated what we thought was how to make a movie. Funny enough it has become well known around various college campuses and high schools. My friends and their friends have been showing it. Youtube also helps. That was my first filmmaking experience in a collaborative sense. I still didn’t have my own camera yet. It wasn’t till 2003 that I got my first video camera. That was the real start of it all for me as an individual artist/filmmaker. Family members got together and bought me a little Canon handy cam for my birthday. It quickly became my view to the world. My first project was converting the boring family vacation video into an actual adventure. I didn’t want my home video to be like a home video. I wanted it to be cinematic. My first attempt was our 2004 Iowa camping trip with my Dad and his old college buddies. I didn’t have to do any casting because my Dad and his buddies are already characters. My brother also kept things

moving with bad jokes and his general goofiness. I edited it together with music and stupid transition effects and it came out quite well. It is a great and fun document of one of our vacations. I didn’t stop there. Quickly following was our Hayward fishing trip. This one I wanted to be more epic. I had intro titles and I documented the road trip. It gave the movie a road movie feel. Then I added montages and formatted the trip in segment fashion. I introduced characters and all in all it was more epic. I really enjoyed making these videos. The editing was where I really found my calling. I liked the entire process but the editing was where I took this generic family video footage and tried to make more out of it. I used these videos in my portfolio to get my scholarship to MIAD. Those three experiences really got the ball rolling. I knew that I wanted to continue to make movies. I took a slight detour right out of High school. I had a passion for cars that overshadowed movies. At the time I was really interested in car design, especially Ford. At the time Ford had some of the coolest concept cars I had ever seen. They had the Ford Thunderbird, the 49 and the Mustang Bullitt concepts. I loved the retro designs and felt that I had a lot of cool retro design ideas. My favorite car was and still is the Ford Mustang. It’s ironic that one of the reasons I love the Mustang is because of the Steve McQueen cop movie “Bullitt”. The movie had an amazing car chase in it with a 1968 Mustang. I should have paid attention to my direction early on. Many of those old movies influenced my drawings. I used to draw cinematic scenes of action based on many of the movies I watched. I drew tons and tons of cars. Once I got out of High school I went to Oakton Community College to build up my portfolio for MIAD. I planned to study Industrial design. Math quickly made me have

a change of heart. I began studying graphic design and 3-D animation all the while still making short films with friends outside of class. I really took to 3-D design. I loved building models in the 3-D programs. It reminded me of building model cars when I was younger. Now I thought I was going to be a 3-D animator. So when I came to MIAD I was going to major in animation. Thanks to a strange registration process no body told me about 2-D animation. I didn’t even realize that MIAD didn’t have 3-D animation at the time I transferred. I quickly found that 2-D animation was not my thing either. I loved to draw but not 200 images of the exact same frame. Naturally I fell back into filmmaking. I’ve been happily doing it ever since. Coming to MIAD I was never quite sure If I would fit in. I didn’t see myself as a fine artist. I liked mainstream films, and I didn’t have tattoos or piercings. I felt like an outsider surrounded by people who all looked the same but called themselves outsiders. I promised my Dad that I’d give it a shot and I’m glad I did. Through the lack of development of the MIAD Time Based Media program I was able to blaze my own path. I’ve made movies that I wanted to make and I’ve done it in an environment that is more about fine art. In tern I have actually gained respect for choosing to do what I am truly passionate about and not conform to some of the MIAD conventions. Some of MIAD has certainly rubbed off on me. I feel like I fit in more. I see myself as a visual artist and can speak with animators, painters, drawers as well as designers and fine artists. I understand my craft as art as much as I understand a painter or graphic designer’s work as art. I’ve accepted art as the way of my life and it feels great. Life after MIAD is still with it’s uncertainties. Several opportunities have revealed themselves but now I have to choose my direction. I would like to continue to

make movies because that is my passion. I know I can’t do that without some way to fund myself. Some of these opportunities are also uncertain about If they will take off. There are two possibilities for launching media companies with partners. I also am working an internship that could lead to a job. My internship is with a Video production company that makes health care documentaries. I enjoy the work but the field is rather depressing. I’m more interested in telling stories. The two launches are uncertain as well. I don’t know when these things will happen. I also have to see what responses I’ll get from my thesis exhibition I have occasionally looked at my work and wondered why. This hasn’t been truer than with my thesis film. It is a cop film about corruption, redemption and morality. It is the darkest movie I’ve ever made. I’ve had times where I’ve wondered If it’s going to be too generic and weather it’s going to go beyond the common movie clichés. I’ve also wondered if it’s just going to add to the darkness of society or reveal something about it. I was telling my roommate these things the other day and he told me it’s too early to be worrying about those things. I need to finish editing it first and see what people’s responses are. He told me that I shouldn’t be so hard on myself yet. I suppose he’s right. I am extremely proud of how it’s all come together and how exciting and fun it was to make. Working with professional actors was a huge leap forward and it shows in the film. From my birth to my latest film a lot has happened that shaped my journey as a person and a visual artist. There are still questions about the future but as everything else seems to do those questions will be answered with time.