Forays into Film

Under the bright studio lights of the former KSPR newsroom, my neck and palms began to sweat. Five cameras beamed upon me, monitoring my every facial movement. A tiny clip-on microphone tied me to the armchair, recording my every sound. I was being interviewed, alongside my friend Marcus, for co-creating a short film for last year’s SATO48 film contest. He was the producer/director, bringing 30 people together to storyboard, shoot, edit, and soundtrack our film, no small organizational feat. I was the screenwriter, a title that overstates my role since our film’s dialogue was largely improvised. A few sound checks, and I felt a pressure in my bladder – that would have to wait, it was important that the show’s producers captured the entire conversation in one free-flowing, hour-long take.

So how did I end up in this position? By saying yes to opportunities, and often. I met Marcus last year at Startup Weekend, an event that I nearly backed out of attending. A month later, he invited me to Springfield’s Rated SGF film festival, which, truthfully, I only attended because I wanted to become his friend. Paying $35 to watch a 16 hour movie marathon didn’t sound like my idea of a fun weekend. But the majority of the films were incredibly enjoyable and memorable, especially those that were followed by live Q&A sessions with the filmmakers. The after-party featured some fun interactions with the directors, writers, and actors that we watched on-screen, as well as with local filmmakers. At some point during the weekend, I learned about SATO48, and to this day Marcus maintains that it was my persistent urging that drove him to assemble a team for the contest.

For a first-time director, Marcus assembled a power team. Our cinematographer, Michael, came with professional camera equipment and video editing software. Our sound guy, Andrew, brought an array of microphones and a vast knowledge of sound effects. A professional composer, Daniel, created original music to accompany the film, sight unseen. Five experienced, semi-professional actors volunteered for yet-to-be-determined roles. Then there was me, the lead writer, with no screenwriting experience. My task was a challenging puzzle: incorporate our actors, locations, and inspiration package into a coherent, Black Mirror-esque sci-fi concept that both entertains and conveys an instructive message. I’m reasonably pleased with the resulting film, Memory Chip, considering we had only 48 hours to condense all of our ideas and scenes into a 5-minute piece.

Most importantly, it was a ton of fun. Especially after the fact: we attended a screening with several of our friendly competitors at the local independent cinema, where it was fun to watch our production on the big screen. Then the SATO48 awards ceremony was like a mini-Oscars, where our film was nominated for a few awards and we had the chance to rub shoulders with seasoned filmmakers/actors/critics. Our film aired shortly thereafter during the SATO48 Sci-Fi special on the Ozarks CW network, and we attended the watch party hosted by the contest’s organizers. This was a tremendous experience, discussing strategies, feelings, and effects from the constructively critical perspective of film enthusiasts. A particularly vindicating moment came when one of the hosts said to me, “It’s great to see fellow chemical engineers get into the film industry.” I’m obviously far from a professional, but the welcoming encouragement keeps the distant dream of working as a Hollywood science consultant alive!

Back to reality, I believe it’s very important to continue cultivating your hobbies as an adult. I nearly forgot the joy that I felt making short movies as a teenager, competing in the library film contests, and pushing the boundaries of what was appropriate for school projects. It’s been incredibly satisfying to rediscover my past interests that ended up on the back burner, including outdoor adventuring, making music, and now filmmaking. You never know where your side endeavors might lead – yesterday, mine led me to a lengthy sit-down interview and TV studio tour, culminating in some light recruitment to join the news production team. It’s been a wild sequence of events, complete with plot twists, unexpected highs, and a bunch of new characters in my life. Now I can’t wait for the sequel.

Hindsight 2020

Each new year presents a novel opportunity to reflect on the previous year and make resolutions for the next. This new year came with extra fanfare – there was no escaping the preponderance of ponderances put forth about the last decade. Initially, I didn’t feel compelled to add my observations to the muddle, mainly because I am still making sense of some mixed feelings about my first ten years of adulthood. But the first day of 2020 provided just the clarity I needed.

On New Year’s Day, fittingly, I was visited by a next door neighbor with whom I hadn’t visited in several years. Josh is ten years younger than me, a cooler version of my late high school self, a varsity cross country and track athlete and high-achieving student across a range of subjects. People are just beginning to ask what he wants to do for college and beyond, and while he probably could do anything in life, he hasn’t given the matter much thought yet. We talked for two hours, and he asked about my chosen path and how my outcome compares with my high school classmates. I was swept back an entire decade to when I was a naïve and unflappably optimistic 18-year-old approaching the first decisions that would impact the rest of my life.

In the days before 2010 arrived, I was vigorously cobbling together my college applications. Having only a vague idea what my major would be, I applied to 4-5 schools with high-ranking engineering programs and a purported willingness to offer merit-based scholarships. My essays were neither very good nor adequately polished, in hindsight, apart for one: for the question “Why Rice University?” I wrote that I was applying to access all of the STEM opportunities in Houston, listing NASA, the Texas Medical Center, and various Rice institutes. Luckily, I was accepted to Rice – my lone acceptance – and I can’t imagine doing those four years differently.

After a year of general engineering courses, I happened upon my major, chemical engineering, because it existed at the intersection of my interests in chemistry, technology, and the environment. I did not realize that the curriculum was tailored to prepare students for the oil/petrochemical industries, but I found the material interesting and eventually excelled. While my peers applied for internships in large petrochemical companies, I researched lithium-ion battery materials and applied for PhD programs during my senior year. Another major decision point, and this time I may have bungled it.

When I applied for graduate school, I again didn’t fully understand the career implications of the decision. An engineering PhD opens the door to high-tech research positions, but it can also pigeonhole you into a narrow field of expertise. I chose to research a hot topic, perovskite solar cells, over more established courses of study with flexible employment options. I chose to work for a rising star at Vanderbilt over tenured professors at slightly higher-ranked institutions. Within the first year, it became clear that the field was progressing faster technologically than our lab could keep up. Once I learned the extent to which academia values prestige and publication, I feared that I might be left behind if I continued on the same track with my dissertation.

By my sophomore year of college, a second, parallel track was starting to take shape in my life. After the Joplin tornado of 2011, I spent several weeks volunteering to clear debris and help with the rebuilding efforts, a personal reminder of the pain, loss, and poverty that many fellow humans experience. I longed for a way to apply engineering to improving the human condition, and I found it in building indestructible safe rooms for children and parents who survived the catastrophic tornado. When the most recent Moore tornado occurred in 2013, I became obsessed with understanding the science behind tornado formation. In the fall of 2016, I ‘mastered out’ of my program at Vanderbilt and sought to apply the chemical engineering principles of thermodynamics and fluid mechanics to professional-level research on the tornado problem.

Once I veered away from my linear career arc, the path became even more winding. I’ve blogged previously about attending conferences, experiencing the lifecycle of a startup company, and traveling the world. I still haven’t found my professional niche, but I have a much broader understanding of the paths that exist. Looking across at several friends who have found their professional niches, their paths were often winding, and they may have discovered their passion during college, after college, by accident…the commonality is that they were all willing to explore their interests. While I’m not as successful or famous as my 18-year-old self likely fancied, I have certainly explored my interests and grown as a well-rounded, thoughtful person. And more importantly, I’ve come to appreciate the journey, the people I’ve met along the way, the experiences we’ve shared. Here’s to another decade of exploring, finding, creating, building, completing, sharing, and feeling!