As my interest in filmmaking grew and my skills developed in Adobe Creative Suite, I became the editor for my college a cappella group.
I re-edited footage together with the high-quality live audio to create music videos. Additionally, I edited together a video during my senior year to bid farewell to our friends in the graduating classes below us.
When I decided to pursue a career in the film industry after school, I discovered the Cornell in Hollywood program which was instrumental in helping me get my start in Los Angeles. Through networking events and internships, the program aims to establish Cornell's presence in the film industry, following in the footsteps of Howard Hawks, Christopher Reeve, and Jane Lynch.
Upon graduation, I became a member of the Cornell in Hollywood alumni organization in order to help recent graduates from the other side. My friend from the program, Elizabeth Jaleigh Davis, invited me to help her to create a promotional video to get more students to join the program.
In addition to having full responsibility over the edit, I also helped with filming on-set, acting as an unofficial assistant director.
Beyond my work for various clubs, I began experimenting with Adobe Premiere and my cellphone camera to create short films.
I began to pursue my interests in filmmaking more seriously by enrolling in a Film Minor, where my team, Group 222, wrote, produced, filmed, and edited a short within a week.
Finally, I used everything I had learned to write, produce, and direct my first major short film, Plague, which I filmed with my roommates. We used our creepy basement as a finale set piece, and the whole project was filmed on my Google Pixel and edited on Adobe Premiere installed on the library computers. In all, the final budget was around $400-500 including food for the cast.
The short was inspired in part by my fascination with the haunting birdlike profiles of plague doctors during the Black Death. My mother, heralded in our family for her ability to create customized Halloween costumes each year, designed and constructed the Plague Doctor's uniform, lending a considerable amount of believability to what is otherwise a micro-budget student film.
My directing talents have certainly evolved since, as evidenced by my most recent short, shown below, but I still hold
In the winter of 2023, I teamed up with my former improv teammate Reed Rosenberg to create another short film. L is for Lonely was the result of those efforts, premiering at the Marina Del Rey Film Festival in 2024. The film is still making its way through the festival circuit, so while I can't post it in its entirety here, I'm excited to share some screenshots from the final cut.
