My name is Ryan Moser, I am 25 years old, and this is part of my story.
I was born in Denver, CO on April 20th, 1985 to the parents of Robb and Vicki Moser. I am the oldest of three children. I have a younger brother and sister named Vanessa and Jason.
I lived a fantastic childhood that initially started in Highlands Ranch, CO. My family and I lived happily in Colorado until I was nine years old. In 1994 my family decided to move to Prescott, AZ. I lived there up through high school and I graduated from Prescott High School in 2003.
My passion for filmmaking began on a Friday night during my sophomore year of high school. My friend Jesse was spending the night when my brother and I picked up our parents camcorder and made a spoof on "Rocky". We titled our mini-boxing epic "The Ring". We shot the entire film sequentially and planned before each shot what we would say. We did every shot of the movie chronologically with only one take. Once we finished filming our credits, which were handwritten on a piece of paper, we put the tape into the VCR. We had just completed our very first film. No need for editing. It was already put together. As we watched we laughed to the point of tears and we may have even peed ourselves a little.
The next morning we woke up and made a new film. By Sunday we were on to special effects and we made a film titled "A Day in the Life of Twins". In this film each character had a twin that they would interact with on their way to a "twin party."
It took us approximately four to six hours to shoot our twin epic, which ended up having a screen time of about three to four minutes, but I loved every single minute of creating it. Time went by so fast.
After dropping off my friend Jesse at his house on Sunday evening, my mom and I began discussing how people actually make a living creating films. At that point I knew exactly what I wanted to do for a career.
During my senior year of high school I began researching film schools. I had fallen in love with editing so I figured I should be formally trained and get a more professional and solid background. I was interested in a film school in San Francisco but the tuition was quite expensive. During "Career Day" at my high school I heard about 'The Zaki Gordon Institute for Independent Filmmaking'. It was located in Sedona, AZ which was only an hour from where I lived.
I remember I applied to the school immediately. I sent in my application in November of 2002 because they only accepted 20 students a year and I wanted to be sure I had the best chance possible of being selected. To my enthusiasm I was accepted in June of 2003.
The school was a year long intensive program that I began in August 2003. I learned a lot from attending the school but I also learned that filmmaking is something that cannot entirely be taught. Since it is an art form, you cannot teach the intuition aspect of filmmaking to students that I believe true filmmakers possess. I personally believe I possess this intuition.
I believe my two strongest points as a filmmaker are my instinct and my perseverance. I have a hard time taking 'no' for an answer and my drive has gotten me to where I am today. I think many people would have given up on my dream and taken a simpler route of finding a more "solid" career. I cannot argue with my heart or my passion. I am proud and happy to be where I am at and I don't see myself stopping any time soon.
I graduated from film school in May of 2004. It's funny to think that I learned more the year following school than I did while attending. School was a stepping stone that gave me the concepts and ideas. It was after I graduated that I really began to delve deeper into what I was taught and try to really explore everything for myself.
Around this time my brother was studying photography in high school. I would purchase rolls of 35mm film and take his camera out and learn how to properly shoot stills. Metering light and making a single frame interesting helped me realize there is much more to cinematography than pointing a camera at actors. I really began learning the craft of composition.
I began reading anything and everything I could about filmmaking. I knew I didn't want to create "amateur hour" work so I studied everything I could to make my projects have a more professional edge. I studied everything from photography to music theory. I eventually took classes at a Small Business Development Center so I could learn how to properly run my own production company.
I also wrote my first feature length screenplay. The story was called "For Better or Worse." It was a story about the ups and downs of relationships. I doubt that I will ever let the screenplay see the light of day but I am glad that I wrote it. I learned a lot in the process of writing it. I mainly learned what not to do when writing a feature length screenplay.
During this time of my life I feared having to write so much. I had never written so many words before and I didn't know if I could possibly do it. Ever since I began taking writing seriously, I no longer suffer from this problem, obviously.
"For Better or Worse" was mainly a plot driven screenplay. I learned from that moment on that I would hate anything more focused on plot than character development. I think the personal distaste of my first writings has caused a lot of my bitterness towards many mainstream movies.
I was sick to my stomach when I was reading the rough draft of my story. I had my characters doing actions just for the sake of driving the plot forward. This happens, so this can happen, so this can happen, etc. etc. If my characters were real life human beings there is no way they would rationally behave in the manner that I was forcing them to.
I realized at this moment that the best stories in my opinion are based around relatable characters. If you are so entranced by a character, you can even be interested in them simply brushing their teeth. I learned that I needed to have my characters drive my story forward. Not force them to do something for the sake of driving my plot in a direction I wanted to take it.
(To Be Continued)
-Ryan Moser.
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