I wrote several screenplays over the years to really polish my craft and learn from my mistakes.

Get back up, shake the dust off and keep going. Keep going, because Hollywood is set up to make you fail.

Screenwriting and making movies is really playing make-believe like most of us did as children.

Today the challenge is not visuals, but to be able to tell a riveting emotional story, something that can reach deep down inside the audience's heart and twist it like a toy to make them laugh, cry or jump out of their seats to root for the hero.

In college I wrote for the university newspaper, and I had several short stories published in small press. I think it's just been a natural progression of where to go with the imagination and not have to grow up.

Growing up in the 80's, I think a lot of us saw things that were "new," an experience we don't get too much of these days. We saw things that were never done before. When Star Wars first came out, no movie before that had ever looked that way.

I found my father's Super8mm film camera when I was around eight years old and started shooting with it. I had no idea what I was doing at the time, but that's really where my filmmaking began.