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Film Journey, New Day, Fresh Start

Nine Months of Positive Growth

Grand Providentia United

Before I delve into the future, or even the present for that matter, I thought I should revisit the recent past. When I started my studies at the Savannah College of Art and Design on September 11 of last year, I was confident that I could publish regular updates to this blog while also being enrolled in three courses per quarter at the college. I knew that the blog would have to take a backseat to my education at SCAD, but I thought that I could accomplish both tasks simultaneously, as long as I kept my primary focus on the coursework. Within the first couple weeks of classes I realized that it would take all of my creative energies and my undivided focus just to reserve ample head space for the learning curve that would be required for my academic success. Was the past statement wordy? Yes. In short form, it reads more like this – I had to abandon my blog posts temporarily and adopt a new outlet for creative expression, namely the Film and Television Program at the Savannah College of Art and Design.

I feel extremely fortunate to be enrolled as a graduate student at the Savannah College of Art and Design! I’ve completed my first year of studies in the MFA Film and Television Program with a focus on Directing and Experimental Filmmaking. My current unofficial GPA – 3.66. I could never have made it this far without the incredible support of friends and family who have generously invested in my success! Thank you all, I truly appreciate your help!

Now, I’ll move on to a more comprehensive and detailed description of my experiences over the past nine months at SCAD. For readers who are satisfied with the big picture as I’ve already described it, this would be a good place to click your way to some other worthy story on the vast dataspace of the world wide web. Thank you kindly for visiting the “Grand Providentia United” blog site!

These photos were taken the first time I toured the Backlot at SCAD (September 2023). This is a partial view of Phase 1 of the Backlot project. Phase 2 is currently being built and construction on Phase 3, the final phase (likely to be completed after I graduate in the spring of 2025) has already begun. It’s an exciting time to be learning film production at the Savannah College of Art and Design!

As a sexagenarian and someone who had not been in the role of student at college for more than twenty years, I was quite self-conscious about my age while attending the first few weeks of class at SCAD. My classmates were all at least twenty years younger than me and most of them were obviously well ahead of me in terms of their technological proficiencies and knowledge concerned with the art of filmmaking. This self-consciousness was expected, in truth it had been nagging at me since I made the decision to apply to the program in February of 2022. In the lead-up to the first quarter of classes, I spent many an hour during sleepless nights worrying about my ability to make the grade and ultimately graduate with an MFA in Film. Throughout the first two quarters of classes, a nagging uncertainty dogged me day and night. I badgered myself with constant internal questions: Was I up to the challenge of graduate level studies at my age? Was I delusional, thinking that I could keep up with the academic demands and ultimately make the grade? Was the dream of becoming an independent filmmaker beyond my creative reach? All these questions, and many others, came to a climax at the beginning of the second quarter when I realized how much work was required to make it through just two of the three classes, I’d registered for during the winter session. Toward the end of January, I was so worried about the amount of course work in front of me, that I had an experience that I can only describe as a panic attack brought on by a massive wave of the imposter syndrome. Thankfully, a classmate (a new friend) was there to provide a more positive perspective on my circumstances. He advised me to stop looking at the whole staircase and focus on one step at a time. As soon as he gave me the advice, I realized that it was the same advice that I would have given to someone else if the roles were reversed. This snapped me out of my spiral thinking almost immediately, and once I had returned my focus to the work at hand rather than wasting energy on what-ifs and worries about inadequacies, I was able to prioritize the course work and finish the quarter on a high note. Even more importantly, I was able to relax and do my best work in the third and final quarter of my first academic year in the MFA program at SCAD.

From the 26th Annual SCAD Savannah Film Festival, October 21-28, 2023. What an exciting event it was, albeit a little overstimulating for me, considering that it took place during my first quarter of studies!

Graduate studies at SCAD are said to be comprehensive and fast paced no matter what creative discipline or area of focus you are there to study. In my opinion, that comprehensiveness and learning pace demonstrates that they are adequately earning their tuition fees, and this educational strategy on its own, effectively and continually grows their reputation as one of the top art colleges in the world. One of the things that I’ve come to recognize after finishing my first year at the college, is that I would right now be feeling disappointed and less accomplished had the last nine months been intellectually easy on me. As a result of my struggles, I experience growth, physically, spiritually and intellectually. The way I see it, my first year at SCAD was a great success!

Various BTS photos – Muta, Samantha, Ian, Ved, Eric and Scott
Left to Right – Will – Skeleton King vs. Timber Rattler – Scott, Lilly, Damian – Damian – Ved
Images above are behind the scenes photos taken on set of Father Nature. Photography by Kris Patel.

Father Nature was the first time I directed a film with a team of talented filmmakers. I wrote the script during December of 2023 and captured the principal photography in February of 24. I edited the film over the course of the Spring quarter, adding sound as I learned the process in Sound Design for Film and Television. There are certain aspects of the film that I am still not satisfied with, but I decided it was time to put it to rest and move on to the next big idea. Something I’ve practiced throughout a lifetime of creating art – know when to say the work is finished.

Link –https://youtu.be/no8V6ev5eC4?si=7XLJYKDAvFeE3BOV

This film was intended to be a proof-of-concept piece and I was planning to further explore the concept for my thesis project. I decided at the last moment (during the Graduate Review Meeting) to leave further exploration of Father Nature until after graduation. The thesis will instead be a short film introducing the “Grand Providentia Projection”

Over the course of the spring quarter, I decided how I wanted to proceed with my education and the remainder of my creative journey. I enrolled in a class called Experimental Film and there I found an enormous amount of inspiration. One of the driving forces behind my decision to apply to SCAD was inspired by the work of the surrealist filmmaker David Lynch. After taking this course I decided to lean into the surreal – gravitate toward the supernatural – run straight into the horror – experiment with science fiction – and dream a fantastic dream. I want to make films that make people wonder.

Link to “Green Blind Man” – https://vimeo.com/1094456817?share=copy&fl=sv&fe=ci

Mindful Creativity

Welcome to Exploratory Sunday!

Grand Providentia United

We stand on the banks of a river of consciousness. Except that this is no ordinary river of consciousness, it is the tumultuous accumulation of every trickling stream of consciousness that has ever found its way into the one massive torrent of universal potentiality. Where we are now standing, has been the starting point of every great physical, metaphysical, and spiritual exploration ever embarked upon. We have the choice to stay here on these solid shores of security, these granite outcroppings of little risk, or we can choose to trust in the current, and allow its beckoning calls to entice us into its liquid embrace. For sure, there will be dark depths and shallows of light along the course of this magnificent flow. There will be risks taken and rewards earned. And knowing all of this, we will make the choice to explore with abandon or stay stagnant in our stasis and watch the others let go. The entrance is by way of a shimmering trail, a pathway of light, hovering just above the surface of our shared consciousness. For some, the pathway appears to be a rickety wooden dock, for others it is as solid as a golden brick road. I am now walking just above the surface of the river, following the vaporous scales of a rainbow serpent’s body. Dive in with me; as you will see; the only threats found here are the ones we ourselves conjure, using the well-rehearsed incantations of our deepest fears.

Now, we’re releasing the rainbow serpent’s head, as it dips down and withdraws, we become one with the fluidity, two with the solidity, and three with the ambiguity. We are at once a musical note with twice the reverberation of a bull moose bellow, but we’re also a smartphone ringtone described by a cello. We wonder about the stars, on Hollywood Boulevard, while we are dreaming with Costner about wolves dressed in baseball uniforms. Not old school uniforms, they’re not worn in uniformity at all, more in tune with motley crew outfits, donned by the cast of the Deadliest Catch. We all catch a chill, and we release it as well. These days there is a shortage of every fish it seems. Even white wine served at room temperature has a short fuse. Bullets and bombs should be stored in root cellars, let the roots stay connected to the tree trunks who need them. Gold crowns encrusted with white flour by star studded bakers, are eaten by preachers, leading their flocks of daily bread takers. We’ve now entered an eddy, a roundabout in the road, our way forward is spiral, ham-hocks and tick-tocks gone viral. To avoid motion sickness, we’ll watch the horizon, where every big event appears smaller, with the exclusions of waterfalls and sun rises. Back to the main flow, orientation a given, we now understand, why our lives are worth living. It’s not for the fame, the cash flow, the glory. It’s not for the pain we attach to our story. We live to experience what it’s like to be human. To experience the love and forgiveness we offer to ourselves and each other. To break bread and share joy and relish the wonder of this incredible adventure we call existence.

Exploratory Sundays are likely to continue indefinitely. Hopefully, they will always be enjoyable, and ideally, they will encourage a smile!

Head Tales

Casting Dark Shadows #1

Grand Providentia United

Chapter 1

~ Black Dogma ~

As a boy I often wondered exactly how dark the color black could get. I also wondered about the brightest white, just not as often. While being forced to sit on a metal chair at a cafeteria table in Catechism class, I made drawings of demons with a #2 pencil. Totally dissatisfied with the results of my creative efforts, I wondered where I could get the blackest pencil on earth. I imagined myself making a deal with the devil to get the blackest pencil, and once he had forked it over, I’d ask him to please sit still so I could capture his unholy likeness in my current cartoon style. I never did get the opportunity to cut a deal with the Master of Demons back then, and years later when I finally did, I’d already learned just how dark the blackest black was, so bargaining for a magic pencil no longer seemed relevant or appropriate. I’d come to know that the blackest black inhabits a place of no coming back, or if you do come back, you always bring some of the black back with you. Your shadow gets darker, your life-light gets dimmer and your chances of achieving sainthood grow slimmer. Absolute black is a living organism. It resides in the place where night terrors gnash their teeth and shriek their fury. It holds its rightful place within the infinite span of our cosmos at the gateway of every sucking black hole in the Universe. Now I’m left wondering whether every black hole in space might lead to the same Catholic Hell. Eternal damnation becomes a serious consideration when you’re raised to fear God, Satan, and fire. Isn’t it interesting though, that a fiery hell on earth seems more and more plausible when you factor in the onset of global climate change? I can’t quite remember – Is digression one of the seven deadly sins? If so, you can add it to my lifelong list of transgressions so I can atone for it later. Great balls of lightning, I must get back to the point! This narrative is not meant to be funny or fictitious, or even an attempt to entertain. It is a grave warning. It’s a metaphorical fable about what might happen to you, if you dare to go looking for the source of absolute black.

“Unwound”

I’m still sifting through the finer details (i.e., the charcoaled remains of my journey to hell’s gateway) in an attempt to find reason, or at least some semblance of rationale behind my decision to follow Darkness to its source. A central factor in my choice to set forth on a fool’s quest to find the origins of evil, was my premature introduction to the story of Jesus Christ. Like most of my childhood friends, I deeply appreciated my Catholic upbringing, on one day each year – December 25th. But when it came to Sunday morning masses and Catechism classes, I thought the toys and candies of Christmas fell short of sufficient payment, especially when I took into account the yearly quota of lost playtime hours invested. Halloween, on the other hand, asked for no penance or devotion, seeking only a one-night stand of some good old-fashioned gluttony and a propensity to play pranks on unwary adults. And at least the inventors of Halloween were forthright about its roots being firmly grounded in fear and morbidity. Halloween was, and is still, one of my favorite holidays. But the world doesn’t offer a religion based on Halloween’s moralistic principles, and even if it did, I’m sure my mother wouldn’t have approved. So, it’s back to Saints Peter and Paul church and my misguided interpretation of the story of Jesus Christ.

This is the first chapter in the first book of a trilogy I’ll be writing. The three books will be based on the true story of my lifetime (as yet unfolding…). Please feel free to criticize. But do be advised that I still have connections in the Kingdom of Absolute Black!

Head Tales

Casting Dark Shadows #2

Grand Providentia United

Chapter 2

~ Wicked Babies ~

Jesus said, “Father forgive them, for they know not what they are doing.” Luke 23:34

And maybe the Almighty Father did forgive them, but I didn’t. Even as an eight-year-old boy, I was convinced that they knew what they were doing, and they did it anyway. The life story of Jesus Christ that I was taught during those many hours of indoctrination into the Catholic religion, stirred in me an enormous internal conflict. I’m sure the reaction I had to the story is fairly common among children when they learn how Jesus’ life ended. However, when I began to internalize the teachings, I am certain that I was too young to understand that the “they” in Luke’s passage did not equate to ‘we’ in my life story. In a single misstep – a naive misinterpretation – I accepted an overwhelming amount of guilt and a huge burden to make recompense for the unspeakable atrocity we committed in the crucifixion of Christ. I embraced the idea that, ‘We knew exactly what we were doing, and we did it anyway’. Here was this miraculous human being who taught love and forgiveness, healed his brothers and sisters, openly accepted sinners and saints alike, and we decided he should be tortured and killed for daring to be different from the rest of us. I became secretly enraged by all of this. I focused the magnitude of that rage inward. It’s so strange to think that I identified more with the teachings of Jesus than I did with the teachings of my grade-school teachers, and because of that, I nearly destroyed my capacity to identify with either school of thought. This is when I started to wonder about the blackest black.

The troublesome thing about childhood wonder – it can lead you a long way down a path in one direction or another, and due to inexperience, you might arrive at a place of new understanding, a place where you’re no longer wondering about that specific thing, but you find yourself hopelessly lost concerning every other thing. I’ve learned that the distance between absolute black and the brightest white is relative to the number of gradations on a gray scale your current senses are able to perceive. Everything comes down to life experience. When I first began wondering about the blackest black, and when I started making my plans to challenge the unholiest evil, I was grossly inexperienced. Could I have used the word innocent here, instead of inexperienced? Absolutely not. There exists a similar ‘gray scale’ between innocence and guilt that I’m not ready to explore at this point in the story, and besides, one of the very first lessons I learned in catechism was that we humans are all guilty at birth. Original sin exempts us from innocence. If there is a completely neutral gray, a tone that is precisely centered between the blackest black and the purest white, and we insert the equivalent of that gray on the scale between guilt and innocence, the church teaches that we are already closer to guilt than we are to innocence, even at the moment of birth. It’s a bit of dogma that I’ve never been able to come to terms with. It seems unfair that the human race will never be free from original sin – and furthermore, never be eligible for a complete collective redemption. But I guess that’s where the story of Jesus Christ intersects with the story that I’m telling you now.

Down the Tube

The story of Jesus sparked in me a black/white obsession, but there were many other stories that fueled it into an internal raging inferno. So many stories of heroic avengers doing the right things, following the right paths, and coming out clean and righteous on the other side of their trials and tribulations. From the Holy Bible there was the story of David and Goliath, from contemporary literature there was Frodo Baggins from the Shire, and from Hollywood there was Andy Dufresne from the Shawshank State Penitentiary. I was disappointed in God’s failure to intercede on our behalf and infuriated with the devil for leading us so far astray. I vowed to avenge Jesus of Nazareth and every other human being that had ever been bullied, tortured, maimed or destroyed at the behest of Satan and his horde of demons. I would willfully confront the Prince of Darkness and demand full accountability. A disobedient speck of stardust countering the darkest forces of the Universe.

We all have our stories to tell, and I’m committed to telling you this one. If you appreciate the entertainment, please consider leaving a tip in the jar on the Contact page. Every small donation will help towards getting me settled into Savannah and ready for classes starting on September 11th. Thank you for your consideration!

Head Tales

Casting Dark Shadows #3

Grand Providentia United

Chapter 3

~ Curiosity Could Kill the Kid ~

When the pendulum swings toward angst, I am in the pit. To ride the pendulum back out of the pit, I must summon forth and exercise heartfelt serenity. When I was a child, I found it almost effortless to initiate, fluctuate, and regulate my spiritual energies, largely because it seemed to occur naturally. I would be completely bummed out in one minute and then entirely elated in the next. I was thrilled when we kids found a long-forgotten railroad bridge in the woods across the street from my house. It had deteriorated to the point that its wooden cross beams were seemingly only held together by the corroded steel girders and rusty tracks the workers had so long ago spiked into them. The trestle over the river had a short span and an even shorter height – its rails were perhaps only twenty feet above the surface of the shallow flow. Although there were some jagged piles of dangerous looking debris down below the span, crossing it was probably not a matter of life and death. But death was certainly not out of the question either. At least that’s the argument my dad would have used to scare me straight if he found out I was crossing that rotted bridge. At the age of seven, with three of my best friends cheering me on, I tiptoed carefully, and deliberately, over the span from the near to the far shore. As I remember it, my friends all chickened out that first time, meaning I had to return to the near shore almost immediately so we could stay together and seek out other brave new worlds and daredevil challenges until darkness fell. While the fear was definitely real in the moments of crossing the bridge, it was the recurring nightmares I had as a result of the crossings that turned out to be the most terrifying part of the experience. As the term recurring suggests, the dream was always the same – a Tyrannosaurus Rex chases me to the rickety hulk of the train trestle – for reasons unclear, the beast’s shadow is always scarier than its blood slathered jowls – I cross the bridge as if in a dream (I was), leaping expertly from tie to tie and avoiding the gaping black holes in its steel-strapped wooden ribcage – when I stick a solid landing on the other side, I look down, and there on the burnt coal ground of the far shore I find a cherry flavored Pixie Stick, unopened – I pick it up and start to pour the sugary contents into my mouth with nary a care about, or memory of, the dinosaur’s monstrous shadow or the fact that I’d even been having a nightmare. I suppose that’s how easily the pendulum swings when you’re just a kid.

Within a few years of that ‘First Great Trestle Crossing’, the local adults figured out how dangerous it was to keep the skeletal remains of that bridge in place. I reckon the Hope Mill property owner recognized the potential financial liability the dilapidated trestle represented, so he made it disappear. We children claimed to be upset about its disappearance, but deep down inside I think we were all relieved to some extent because we knew we would never be dared to cross it again. Before long, we had collectively dragged a few of the old timbers that the demolition crew had left behind to make our own bridge, this one being much closer to the river’s surface. For me, the deeper significance of the bridge crossing was not in the physical danger it posed, but in the spiritual and mental challenge it represented. I remember it as the first time I tempted fate – the first time I challenged the devil to strike me down if that was his big plan. I see now that his plans were significantly bigger than I could have imagined back then. So, the devil laughed openly at my baby steps, and it’s likely God could see that he’d soon have his hands full trying to keep this young fool from wandering too far into the absolute black. In my understanding, God is always smiling though. The Great I Am bears an embarrassment born of the haplessness of our willful ways, and is thoroughly amused by us, just the same.

The Arkwright Bridge (built in 1888) is a couple miles downriver from the trestle in this story. Although it was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1978, it will likely be one of the next disappearing bridges in rural Rhode Island. The bridge was closed to automobiles in 2011 and then closed to foot traffic in 2019, after the death of a local youth who was diving off the bridge with friends. (Wikipedia)

If I could have seen the recklessness of my actions early on, perhaps I might have saved myself a decade of increasingly painful hardship. But as the devil has been purported to say, “Where’s the fun in that?” Besides, if I hadn’t gone searching for the devil’s lair, I wouldn’t have this wonderful story to share with you all. Lucky for you, I am one that needs to learn the hard way. As a child I tended to rise to the challenge again and again, even if it meant sacrificing every last shred of self-preservation and esteem I could muster. I was intent on finding the source of absolute black, and when I did, I would start to beat the demons back down inside of it. When the supreme leaders of both the black and the white forces heard of my plans, all of the Universe enjoyed a great big belly laugh.