Striving for the Moving Pictures
By: Aidan Callari
Tags: Filmmaking, Film Studies, Film Student

I’m Aidan Callari, I’m 18 years old, and I’m majoring in Filmmaking at Montclair State University. I am looking to graduate with a GPA around 3.7, which will require me to score only As and Bs in all of my classes. More generally, I would like to learn as much as I possibly can about the craft of filmmaking in my four years here. Currently, I am working on building a personal brand for myself. This includes working on a lot of photography with film cameras, and publishing them online. This also includes working on films in my filmmaking classes, and promoting them online once they’re finished. I also work on fleshing out film ideas in my spare time, and I’d like to have a few finished and fully developed screenplays by the time I graduate, so that I can use those to establish myself and get work. I’m not a huge internet personality, but I enjoy publishing my work, and having it out there on the internet.

My main passion is film, and I’ve had this passion for just about my entire life. I love watching films, I love analyzing them, and I have more recently begun to love making them. I love to write both film criticism and films themselves, and I especially enjoy creating those films that I write. The feeling I get when I see the words I’ve put on a page come to life in front of me is truly incomparable, and all the work I put into it is worth it for those moments. These overlap, in that I both love filmmaking, and I am apparently good at it.

This is the final project my group created for our Filmmaking I class this semester, written by and starring yours truly.

10 to 15 years from now, I would love to be a working writer-director who has made at least one of my features with an indie studio, like A24 or NEON. Currently, in trying to one day reach this goal, I am refining my filmmaking skills in my college classes, and I am applying the knowledge I’ve learned in my Film Story Analysis class to the scripts I am working on. I am also trying to use photography to enhance my ability with creating an image; ever since I’ve taken up photography this summer, I’ve noticed improvements in how I frame images. In my future at MSU, I am aiming to take part in internships during my junior and senior year, so that I can meet people in the industry and make a bit of a name for myself.

This is a photo roman (a story told through images) that I created out of images I took this fall.

Grit defines a person’s perseverance of effort combined with their motivation to complete an objective. While I’d like for my grit to be better in some areas, when it comes to filmmaking, I am decently gritty. When I work on a project, I like to see it through, and when I get the opportunity to make a film, I make it. In order to get my dream job, I am willing to put in the work, make it through the lulls that will no doubt come, and work hard to create a name for myself and get the opportunity to create films and stories that I love. I know the film industry is a tough and competitive industry, but I am prepared to put in hard work, make a good impression, and do the best I can with the opportunities I am given.