One of the hobbies I still kept from my childhood was film, specifically cinematography. I initially took up a camera because I was bored and decided just to film random things that interested me: urban landscapes, animals, and any fun optical illusions that my camera allowed me to do. Nowadays, I do this hobby as a fun way to look at the world through my own lens. Thanks to film, I revived my interest in storytelling and found a way to escape from my current world.

I thank film first for finding ways to alter my perception of the world. A lot of the stories I tell in film have to do with human connections to the world around them. Retrospection, nostalgia, and introspection are key topics in my short films. One of the best projects I worked on was an interview between a present and future self, sandwiched between elements of nostalgia and a time now gone. The series of random skits I did satirizing quarantine (which, looking back, were embarrassing) helped me laugh off the then sad parts from the times of online school and daily voice chats with friends. They were fun clips then, but watching now, almost three years after I made them, told the story of an era we now have passed, creating a new world out of a dark time. I don’t know if there’s a word for nostalgia that doesn’t physically exist, but they’re what I feel when watching these back all these years later.

I thank film for also providing me with a lot of key skills that I use a lot with my role as Opinion Editor for The Arcadia Quill. In an effort to make The Quill less reliant on stock images, we’ve been creating our own graphics and cover photos for articles. Taking photos or drawing graphics would not have come as easily as it did for me without a lot of experience filming videos. Composition skills for details used in film helped a lot with editing as well, catching more errors and generally being more cognizant of a person’s argument.

To the hobby I have done for a decade, thank you. Film has opened my eyes to perceive the world from many different perspectives, catching little details that can make a difference and contributing tremendously to my job here. Here’s to a decade more of building memories and stories.