 While I had previously gained some experience with video through my National History Day documentaries and my father, the films of my high school years revealed filming, editing, and producing as great interests of mine.
In the spring of my sophomore year, Wes Spears (a friend) and I co-founded the FHS Film Association (or film club) to explore our vague interest in filmmaking. Many of our early films even lacked scripts. Those that didn't saw suffered from bad acting, bad audio (true sign of an amateur), and bad editing. But we all had fun. With time, our numbers grew and we all honed our skills, as we found our appropriate roles. Wes was our premiere writer; Nathan our sound man; Patric worked on horror films; Devin our comedic relief. I became the cameraman, editor, and our logistics coordinator. In other words, I called everyone up and cajoled them into showing up for shoots. Over the summer of 2008, a local group, WilliamsonWorks, was kind enough to donate money so the club could upgrade to prosumer level HD cameras, posing new possibilities and many new challenges.  By senior year Wes and I had focused on one project we wanted to complete by graduation, Project Hero (a working title that stuck). We almost didn't finish by graduation. Shooting from August 2008 to April 2009, with the majority of post-production in April and May, we managed to produce a 50-minute film, our longest and most polished production yet. As graduation approached, I prepared to pass leadership, equipment, and the last pieces of knowledge onto the underclassmen. The film club made high school an exciting four years. More importantly, the experience showed me what a future in video production could feel like.  Click on this link to visit the FHS Film Club Website; once you're there, click on "films" to see all of our work. I might recommend watching Project Hero, parts 1, 2,& 3, if you have time, as well the commentary, to gain a look behind the production. You could also view the First Anniversary Trailer, to get a feel for our first year of production, or A Work In Progress, for lighter side to our work.
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First semester at Vanderbilt I had the luck of discovering a great group of students, known at Wilderness Skills (or WilSkills), who take a whitewater paddling, climbing, or backpacking trip almost every weekend. Of course, I had to shoot video, to capture both the beauty of the environment, and the camaraderie of the trip.
