About 5 years ago, my cousin reached out to me regarding some 8mm footage that he had converted after finding his old camera. He had taken this camera across the country on a road trip back in the early 90's. Along the way, he and his friend stopped at my house and stayed with us for a few days. I remember seeing his camera for the first time; I was beyond fascinated. As soon as I picked it up I knew I wanted something to do with whatever the strange little object could offer me. I spent most of that summer swimming, eating watermelon and trying to figure out how to lose my lisp. The day I received the footage, I was right in the thick of starting my production company. I was shooting everything from short films to club videos and everything in between. I was living in Tempe, AZ, just trying to make it to LA. That morning was strange for reasons I’d rather not get into just yet. When I opened the converted footage files, I skimmed through shots of The Grand Canyon until I got to my 7 year old self’ camera debut. I was walking throughout the house interviewing my family. I asked my mom what was for dinner several times, she shunned the camera and tried to turn away as I would change angles to annoy her. I badgered my older sister for some time about the school project that she was working on in the living room. She and I had a few back and forth exchanges of derogatory dialogue (not an uncommon scenario for the time). I interviewed my little brother, who at the time was about 7 months old. There’s a shot of my brother in one of those mechanical swings. I asked him a few questions about his hair and his day. His blank expression sometimes parallels subjects of my questioning to this day. The reason for this story and the motive behind this post is not just for the sake of nostalgia, but rather something more. The next shot was a simple one but it seems to hold an incredible amount of meaning to me. It marks the moment of a real and true proof for what I might call my own “legend”. I stood there, staring into the bathroom mirror for what seemed close to a minute or so. “When I grow up I’m going to make movies”, I so boldly decided to break the silence within that bathroom. Many of the memories from those days have long faded but this is the one that is not only trapped within my mind’s eye, but also, a dream of celluloid trapped in celluloid. You might just say that was the first day of the “rest” of my life. I’ve got this saying that I seem to constantly repeat, usually revealed to friends who are remembering the past as if it’s a burden of sorts.
It goes something like this:
Nostalgia is the closest thing we have to time travel.