We finished shooting 28 days ago, and I finally have my
computer running fast enough to edit 1080i HD footage. I am also devoting a significant amount of
time to waiting tables at the local Diamond Dave's. You can’t be an indie filmmaker without
paying your debts as a waiter…
Three years ago I graduated from high school and left for
the University of Iowa. I had a year of
college already finished with a 3.9 gpa.
I had studied for less than a week and not only passed but got a good
score on the AP Macroeconomics exam. I
was studying at the 8th best Economics program in the country and literally the
best Entrepreneurial program in the country. Three years later I was a college drop-out who was racking up $7,000 of debt.
I had been excited to go to college. I loved the idea of philosophical debates and
the legitimate intellectual discussion I didn't find throughout most of high school. My
first semester at Iowa I took Philosophy and the Just Society. When the professor told us we had to write a
term paper where our only instructions were to “philosophize”, I immediately wrote a 5 page
paper called The Cyclical Nature of Humanity as it Relates to Emotion,
Perspective, and Action. I hadn't
read a philosophy book since Thus Spake Zarathustra in 8th grade. I didn't know who John Stuart Mill was and I had
certainly never heard of felicific calculus, but my professor accused me of
plagiarism for trying to pass John Stuart Mill's Utilitarianism and the
felicific branch of calculus off as my own. I got a C. I failed.
I thought I could learn a lot from a class called Judaism,
Christianity, and Islam. I had spent a
few months as a Muslim when I was a sophomore in High School, and I wanted to
learn more about the interrelation of the three religions. Unfortunately the separation of church and state
reigned in this case, and it was a strictly historical class of memorizing a
bunch of pointless names from the past thousand years. My chance to truly learn something finally
came in a term paper comparing any topic between two of the religions. I wrote a five page paper called The Role of
Christ in Christianity and Islam. Every statement I made was backed up by a citation from either the Bible or the
Qu'ran. My only sources were each
religion's only true source. My
Teacher's Assistant, notice the lack of professor, said it was the best paper
in my class and he hadn't seen anyone cite religious texts like that in their
paper; however, the professor apparently required us to cite our lecture notes from his classes
to prove we attended. A college kid’s
notes of a professor speaking are deemed more important than the holiest of
books. I got a C-. I failed.
The entire time I worked in high school, I saved 50% of
every paycheck and invested it in mutual funds. The original intent was paying for college, but I deemed the
$3,500 Panasonic AG-DVX100b video camera to be of greater importance. Someone had recently won Best
Cinematography at Sundance shooting on this exact model. I was constantly rewriting my first feature
script, Eternal Punishment, and I devoted a large amount of time to
planning and setting up everything I needed for the film.
The summer after my 1st year of college, 2006, I
saw an opportunity to make money doing what I loved. A couple buddies and I started our own house
painting business, Morrison Painting. We painted a few
houses and made some great cash. The
next summer I tried to get more painting jobs, but a steep decline in market
prices and the failure of newspaper advertising led to me being out of work most of the
summer. My business failed.
In the fall of my 2nd year of college, I saw another
opportunity to make money doing what I loved. My buddy Ben Pohl was a high school football player who was being
recruited by the University of Iowa. I envisioned this grandiose behind the scenes look at the college recruiting process. Every week I shot footage of every one if his plays throughout the season. Ben overcame injuries and position changes to
go to the playoffs and make the all-conference team. He was even homecoming king. The University of Iowa called to offer a
scholarship, but he turned it down to focus on academics. Due to restrictions by the NCAA and missing
key moments, I didn’t have enough footage to make the documentary I had imagined. I devoted hours upon hours to this project,
and I failed.
I was scheduled to shoot Eternal Punishment the following
spring, in 2007. I had finally found the
right opportunity to make money doing what I loved. Emmy-nominated Director of Photography John
Houghton was attached to the project. A
screenwriter from LA was going to fly in to play Sean in his acting debut. We had even shot a trailer to show investors. Financing and Generalized Anxiety Disorder
led to me announcing the indefinite postponement of production. John Houghton left for the east coast and
dropped out of the project. My dream was
set up for me, but I failed.
I continued to line things up for my movie while still attending college. I may have been spoiled when it comes to
High School counselors, but barely any students in college even know what they need
to do to graduate. Students rely on their
counselors to make them graduate in four years, but they don’t take the right
classes and they don't know all their options. I had written
an excel spreadsheet that kept track of every class I needed for my degree and
compared it to my three year plan to see if I would graduate on time. I had used it since my senior year of High
School. My friend Brady Manriquez, who
had ran the painting business with me, had spent two years studying Secondary
Education and wanted to switch to business. No one could tell him how many
extra years it would take if he switched. I put his
past schedule into my excel spreadsheet, and showed him how in just two years, he
could earn his business degree and also get a minor. His schedule was mapped out for him.
We saw an opportunity to do what I loved, and I dropped out of school to
write the software that would enable all students to make decisions based on
their best career path, 4 Year Plan. I spent hours
upon hours writing a draft of the software and we got a meeting with the heads
of the counselors at the University of Iowa. We pitched our project to them with complete confidence our software
would better society. Unfortunately, you
can’t copyright this kind of software code. I had
taught myself the programming language. It wasn’t anything that a professional programmer couldn’t see and rip
off as his own. They took our ideas to
their meetings, and we never heard from them again. I failed.
I returned to my High School counselor to show her what I
had tried. It turned out the state had
just passed an unfunded mandate that required students to have four year plans
signed by their parents every semester. Counselors were forced to carry over 400 sheets of paper that would be
changed in pencil throughout the student’s high school career. If anything happened to them, they would have
to start from scratch. I spent the
following months rewriting my program for Muscatine High School. Society looked at me as a college dropout
that wasn’t making any money. The
pressure to abandon the project overwhelmed me, so I quit. I abandoned 103 pages of code, plus numerous
pages of visual design. I failed.
During the summer, I saw another opportunity to do what I
loved. I spent two weeks in the inner city
of Chicago filming a youth group and their ministry. I envisioned a feature length documentary
that could inspire youth groups around the country to go on mission trips
there. In less than 2 weeks, over a 100 people became
Christians, hundreds were fed, a free carnival a city block long was held, and
kids who couldn’t afford summer programs experienced a weeklong Vacation Bible
School. Relationships were formed, lives
were changed, and I found hope. You can
check out a short music video from the trip here. I felt success, but even with all the good
that was done, I still hadn’t made a feature length documentary. I failed.
I finished off the summer working post frame steel
construction. I completely humbled
myself by working harder than I ever had for a mere $8 an hour. In the fall, I went back to
school. After a few months of boredom
and frustration, I started working as a farmhand. I still made $8 an hour, but I dropped out of school anyway. I worked outside and began the final steps of Pre-production on my
dream, Eternal Punishment. A few months
later I was having an anxiety attack outside a local bank the morning of the first day of shooting on my first feature film. I had a new highly recommended Director of Photography and a
professional Sound Mixer on their way to Muscatine. We weren’t even using my camera, we had the
Sony HVR-Z1U shooting in High Definition 1080i. But I was in charge of everything, and I couldn’t handle it. I was the Producer, the Writer, the Director,
the Production Manager, the Assistant Director, the Key Grip, the Craft Services,
and the supporting actor. If I didn’t
tell every single person involved what to do, my dream would fail.
As I listened to “Gravity” by John Mayer, I wept. The night before, my mom had left a note on
my pillow, and I had it on my dash. It
said, “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.” Phillipians 4:13. The only strength I had ever found in my life
was being lifted up by my relationships. What I
cannot do alone, can certainly be done by or with God. I let go by putting my faith in Him lifting me up to accomplish something I couldn't accomplish alone. And guess what, everything worked out. I saw purpose in everything, whether society deemed it a success or a failure.
Every one of my failures had a positive impact not only on me, but on
others. My philosophy paper validated my
belief that my thoughts have meaning, it gave me the confidence I needed to
take my own path. My religion paper
helped me work out issues I had and was a key step in discovering my current
beliefs. I met my film’s composer in a class at
Iowa, and we have since co-directed A Silent Concert Film. I may have not painted as many houses as I would have liked, but the houses I finished still look beautiful and bring their homeowner’s joy and pride. Reliving the highlights
of Ben’s football season with him and his family was one of the coolest moments in my
life. It turned out delaying the movie
for another year was the best choice, because I have grown more intellectually
and spiritually in the last year than in any other year of my life. Plus, Bruce brought a completely different tone to the set that enabled everyone to shine. A little effort and my software could still
help a lot of people. The Chicago
project was the most spiritual experience of my life, and change truly occurred. My construction job
humbled me and showed me what it would physically take to fulfill my dream. Every anxiety attack I have ever had has
brought me closer to God and made this movie what it needed to be. Because of them, I have lived more, felt
more, and loved more.
Every time I have followed my search for joy I have grown
closer to my goals. Very rarely was this
growth considered successful in our Godless society. Let your passion and happiness guide you, and
you will find your own path. You won’t
always be right and you will certainly fail, but
in every
failure there is purpose
