And Now For Something Completely Different (Patreon)

I went to NYU film school in the 80s and while there, stumbled my way through the actual filmmaking process because I was so bad at the technical side of things. Editing, lighting, camera operations, I made multiple physical mistakes at all of these things. My ideas were decent -- which is why I got good grades in my film and animation classes - but I melted down whenever I had to do anything with film equipment. I ended up gravitating towards screenwriting classes, where it was just me and a typewriter. A typewriter I could understand. It was in those classes that I felt the beginnings of becoming a writer, or at least understanding that I might be able to do more than just draw if I ever got into comics. Because by the end of film school I realized that my medium of choice was comics. In comics I could control everything without having to use cmaeras and equipment, just paper, pencil and pen. Film was slow, film required other people and money to do certain things, film involved film people. And if nothing else, film school kind of made me wary of film people.

Which is a long way to get to the point of this post. In film school my best friends were Max Stoltenberg and Tim Sullivan. Max and I met in high school. When we had to start making short 16 mm films we were three fourths of our working crew. Everyone would take turns, directing/writing, camera, lighting, etc. I don't have any of my NYU films, I was always pretty down on ym work and used to trash my art. I did the same with my films, and later on regretted it. I also never picked up my sound 16 mm projects and they were tossed, I also threw away my final sound animation reel that was required for my animation class. And never completed my animation final film, which had been pre-sold to two schools. All that's a matter for me and my therapist someday, I guess. Or a comic. Then again, therapy's quicker.

However, there remains a record of those days because I recently reconnected with Max and he still had some of his NYU work. So, gasp in amazement at a very young me, my friends Max and Tim (in a brief cameo -- Tim made horror films, btw, he's on IMDB. He also helped out on the film THE DEADLY SPAWN (1983*) while we were in school) and the NYU environs circa 1983. You can see Washington Square Park and the office for Continuing Education at NYU, where Max and I worked (and I got fired, go figure). Also! My then-superhero comic collection makes an appearance!

NYU was a weird experience for me, maybe someday I'll dive into it here or in a comic. I was too young, mentally, to be there. Afraid of everything and most everyone, felt out of place and dumb. Still in class clown mode for the first two years. I did well, grades-wise but didn't focus or follow through on anything. Ah me.

Anyway, I hope you get a kick out of seeing us in film school, trying to make sense of things. Please forgive my "acting", we had to be our entire crew and we didn't know anyone else. These are student sophomore films, and we were kids.

And I'm feeling super old today after rewatching them.

*I once slept in the house where the giant spawn prop was stored in the basement -- it's huge! And super creepy in person.