IMAGINAVISION

GENISIS
I’ve always seen the motion picture camera as more than a tool. To me, it’s an instrument of truth, emotion, and expression — a moving canvas where stories come alive. My journey has never been about chasing titles, but about discovering what motion can reveal when it becomes art.

EARLY IMAGINATION
I began my childhood as an only child, and television quickly became my introduction to storytelling. Silent film legends like Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton, and Laurel & Hardy taught me timing, movement, and structure long before I knew the terminology. Even The Little Rascals shaped my sense of character and comedy. I noticed things most children wouldn’t, like a small fuzzy circle appearing in the corner of the frame before a scene changed — dust forming on the glued splice of film. It felt like a hidden language, and I followed it instinctively

DISCOVERING 
Life eventually brought me to Rochester, New York — home of Eastman Kodak, where the foundations of modern film were created. A school trip to the Kodak Museum opened a hidden door for me. I saw the earliest cameras, the daguerreotype, and the first experiments that turned still images into movement. It felt like discovering the blueprint behind the magic I had been studying my whole life. After that visit, I couldn’t stop creating motion. I filled the corners of my textbooks with bouncing circles and stick-figure animations, flipping the pages to make them move. Without realizing it, I was practicing stop-motion and learning how to make drawings come alive.

FINDING MY VOICE
By the time I reached high school, storytelling had become my second language. I filled notebooks with scenes and characters, and my teachers often noticed that my writing read like movies. I studied films constantly, reading screenwriting books from libraries and bookstores, breaking down structure without realizing I was teaching myself the craft. When I finally got access to a VHS camera, nothing about my direction changed — only the tools did. Filmmakers like Gordon Parks and cinematographers like Lisa Rinzler shaped my early vision, showing me how style, emotion, grit, and humanity lived inside the frame. I didn’t consider myself anything at all — I was just exploring the art in front of me. Each new tool simply gave me another way to tell a story.

LEARNING THE CRAFT
Film school was the first time I touched real film, and it felt like holding both history and possibility in my hands. We were given one or two three-minute rolls, and as a broke artist who had moved from Rochester to New York City with nothing, those rolls felt sacred. I was excited and nervous, knowing that if I exposed the film incorrectly, I couldn’t afford another. Shooting on a Bolex or Super 8 changed my approach completely — there was no rewinding, no erasing. Every shot had to be planned with intention. I learned from Alfred Hitchcock to “edit in my head,” to visualize the cut before capturing it. Film school didn’t just teach me technique — it taught me the history and psychology behind the motion picture. I studied the evolution of images, the science of exposure and movement, and the theory behind why certain shots affect the human mind. I learned how cinema can shape meaning, influence emotion, and carry power — and how that power should never be used to control, but to inspire, reveal, and entertain. Editing on the Moviola and Steenbeck was tough at first — mechanical and demanding — but the rhythm felt familiar. It echoed the invisible cuts I sensed as a child watching television. That instinct had always been there, and film school gave me the language to express it. At SVA, I met artists who were as passionate as I was. Their creativity pushed me to grow, to learn more, and to take the art seriously. Film school deepened my respect for motion picture and taught me to create with intention, patience, and heart.

INSIDE THE INDUSTRY
During my third year at SVA, I took a part-time job at a video production house to stay afloat. That job eventually became full-time, and I couldn’t afford my fourth year of film school. For a moment, it felt like my path had shifted — but the calling was still there. I reconnected with friends from school who were working in the independent film world, and one opportunity led me to my first major set: 50 Cent’s Get Rich or Die Tryin’. It was exciting,overwhelmingand nothing like the quiet world of film school. I knew the art of cinema, but the machinery behind it was something else entirely. I became a sponge. I watched directors work, listened as producers debated budgets and equipment, and observed the rhythms of actors and crews. I wanted to understand everything — not for a title, but because I knew I would one day build something of my own. When a producer asked what I wanted to do, I told him I wanted to direct. He said I was on the right path, that Assistant Directors often became directors. I didn’t know then how rare that actually was — but I believed him, and I committed myself to the climb. It took years. Long hours, long winters, and personalities that tested every part of me. Eventually, I reached the Directors Guild and became an Assistant Director. It felt like an achievement — steady pay, health insurance, a seat in the room. I worked side by side with directors, producers, actors, and cinematographers. Many of them, well-known or not, inspired me in ways I couldn’t have predicted. But after enough years, I began to see the truth: the AD track doesn’t lead to directing.
It leads to becoming a better AD. One day, it hit me: if I had spent those same 10–12 years writing and shooting my own work, I might have made a film already. The industry teaches you how to serve someone else’s vision.
Directing requires you to claim your own. That realization changed everything. I stepped away from the machine, followed my own voice, and started building the future I had once imagined as a child. I just needed a name. The obvious names were taken. Then something inside whispered: Imaginavision.

(Picture: Muybridge Horse)