Filming Wonder:The Director’s Note

Wonder, an original motion picture involving the skills of cinematography, writing, music production, audio engineering, & voice acting, is a reflective film which asks the viewer to dive deeper into their own process of desire. What do you want from this life? What does life want from you? This is the question that was raised to the forefront of my mind throughout the production process that I intend to deliver to you. Over the course of several months, I methodically put every peace together with what I believe to be the help of Grace or divine assistance. It’s truly a labor of love, & I hope you enjoy this work of art half as much as I did creating it! If you wish to learn more about my behind the scenes thought process of this film, please read the text below. If not, I wish you a blessed day…   

Nearly an entire year ago, my twin brother (a musician) asked me to create videos for him to spread awareness of his brand. At the time, I was completely devoted to photography within the realm of creating images, so I was actually against videography. I perceived it as a cheap, instantly gratifying way to grab attention. My purpose for wielding a camera was to gradually bring viewers into a meditative state. This request seemed like the opposite of my intentions. But I love & support my brother, so I complied.

Over the course of several months, we would collaborate to create a series of videos in vertical style that did reasonably well in the eyes of the public. They weren’t blockbuster hits, but they were able to convey a story to my brother's audience that showed more of who he was & what he enjoyed creating. The only aspect of this process I enjoyed was being of use to an important person in my life, not the videos themselves. In a business sense, it appeared to be the correct course of action; but my soul wanted something more. I began to consider the limitations of these vertical style “shorts” & how I could break the boundaries of them in my own style. Eventually, my brother brought to my attention that the images I create through photography resemble stills from a movie. The light bulb ignited in my mind to spark the next thought: motion picture. I then understood I already had the vision & skills to create a film, I just lacked the connection to manifest it until now.  I realized I simply need to look for frames I would normally turn into a photograph; & instead of using the stills function, I flip the switch to capture video. A somewhat childlike epiphany I know. To me, however, it was the beginning of a new frontier of creativity: keeping the frame absolutely still as if it was a photograph, but allowing the contents within the frame to express their movement. This is the same experience I have during meditation when all sorts of phenomena are appearing, disappearing, & transforming amongst the stillness of my being.  

I spent the next several months devoting all of my freetime to traveling around the DMV area hunting & gathering motion pictures I saw to be magnificent. The first frame, captured on August 13, showed me something spectacular I had never seen before. Immediately after my tripod arrived in the mail (an essential tool to keep the frame still), I set out towards a local park no more than five minutes down the road. It was during the first several minutes of golden hour, an image maker's playground. I was so excited to gather my equipment & leave that I could feel the cells in my body dancing. I had the intuition that I was traveling into an amazing moment in my life. 

I reached my destination after speeding down the road & quickly walked into the forest with all of my gear. Its heaviness could not be felt by such a vibrant state that I was operating in. Not long before I walk down the trail do I see a few frames that look interesting enough for me to set up a shot. They looked beautiful: the frame was still as I had planned & the subtle sway of trees exemplified the gentle energy I was looking to capture. But my heart was telling me to keep walking, there is something better. 

I listened & walked deeper into the forest to reach a place where the late afternoon light that was beaming towards me was slightly obscured by a sparse treeline. It created an almost sacred looking, cinematic effect that at the time I believed was beyond my expertise. As I captured the scene’s powerful simplicity, where I have walked through many times before, an exotic bird reveals itself on the left side of a trail  opening, & walks carefully all the way to its right. I was speechlessly in shock that I had captured such a mystical occurrence that I had not one time seen before & have never seen since. This creature wasn’t even advertised to have existed at the park, & I have never seen it in any book or wildlife documentary. As I pressed the shutter again to end the clip, the blissful buzzes in my body anticipating an intriguing event were confirmed by what I just witnessed. I knew then & there that this film was something I was ordained to create. The moment gave me all the energy I needed to complete it within the next several months. 

Over & over again on my outings through the area of a 150 mile radius, rare moments like these I have never observed in my 26 years of living occurred in front of my camera’s recording. I suppose it was because the mental frame I was traveling with was tuned to a different frequency. The logical reasoning as to how I was able to consistently capture incredible motion pictures one session after the other is completely beyond my understanding. When the Mormon temple reflected brilliant lighting into my lens with storm clouds behind it during a transition from sunlit rain to clear skies; when a man helped his friend out of the potomac river amongst the water valley of the Great Falls cliffs where it’s heavily advised to not swim, & when crows perfectly executed backflips over Shenandoah hill forests for no survival purpose but just to enjoy their ability to remain weightless at 4000ft above sea level; all of it! I have no reasonable explanation why these things happened exactly when I was set up to record them 

I perceive myself to be a vessel for the Spirit who gives me assignments to display for the prosperity of the world & self. So I’m ready to see that it was the Spirit who orchestrated these mind bending events for my life. If you do not believe in such things, you could write it off as luck. But even then, is it lucky that I was the sole owner of thoughts to travel to these specific places at these specific times with this specific equipment & mindset? I wonder which answer is correct. My guess is as good as yours!