【正文】 * Subject: Columbia Film Studies East of OmahaI left a secure job and a lifestyle that would have catapulted me into the upper middle class by age 30. I disappointed my family and shock ed my friends, but the applause from the packed auditorium vindicated my dec ision to pursue my passion. At great expense, I decided to follow my dreams, to refuse to be disappointed or discouraged by life. As I reflected on all the difficulties I persevered through in reaching that point in my life, I f elt a hand patting me on my shoulder praising my work. I was born in Omaha, Nebraska on August 28,1972 because my mother slipped on an onion peel while shopping at the local Hinky Dinky Supermarket。 the fall induced her labor an d out I popped. In this rather unsophisticated environment, where on Saturda y the second largest city is a packed college football stadium, I somehow de veloped artistic aspirations, but did not have the opportunity to make cultu ral pursuits a major part of my life. At the age of twelve, my father accept ed a job with Levi Strauss and moved the family to Kansas City. At this cruc ial stage in my development, I found the arts fascinating, especially while studying literature in junior high. Unlike the other students who flocked to the hundreds of early eighties Spring Break movies, I developed a discrimin ating taste and longed for the quality I would find in a Stanley Kubrick fil m. At night, tackling Crime and Punishment or watching Dr. Strangelove took precedence over arcades and carried my love for literature with m e when I attended the University of Kansas. I also studied economics, which bined my interests in philosophy, history and mathematics. However, while I studied economics for somewhat practical reasons and never thought of the discipline as pelling enough to devote my entire life to, my interests i n film and music began to mature. Exposed to the unconventional films of Hal Hartley, Mike Leigh, and John Sayles and to the poetic music of Tom Waits a nd Leonard Cohen, I prized their works?brilliant storytelling, and this feat ure inspired my own work and my eventual pursuit of high c ollege loans and a desire to be economically secure, I chose not to pursue m y dreams immediately out of college. I fooled myself into thinking my passio n for filmmaking was just a hobby and that I would be better off pursuing a more 搒erious?career, one with respect and a high salary. As a result, I too k a secure, fortable job as a financial analyst just two weeks out of col lege. My family was proud of me, but I was not proud of myself. I quickly be came restless and began to think seriously about film. After much deliberati on, I knew what I had to do。 I may have known it all along, but I needed tim e to work up the courage, to make myself determined to succeed. I informed m y mother and father of my decision to move to New York and pursue film, and I saw disappointment in their eyes. Despite my mother抯 crying and pleading and my father抯 clear dissatisfaction, I quit my job, rented a UHaul, and h eaded New York, I took out a loan and signed up for the New York Fil m Academy’s twomonth intensive program. Not applying any of the risk manage ment skills I learned as a financial analyst, I was going for broke, either I would make it, or I would go down in flames. The first day I had my hands on a camera and by the end of the program, I had written, directed, edited a nd produced four films. Both thrilled and humbled by my experience, I got a glimpse of exactly how difficult the craft of filmmaking is. After two month s of dedicated hard work, I had not even scratched the surface of what en passes being a filmmaker, but I had reinforced my love for filmmaking. At this point, I knew I needed additional education to acplish my goals。 I needed to truly push my creative and intellectual limits if I ever I were to master the craft of filmmaking. After seeing the quality, diversity, and pr ofessionalism of NYU graduate student films at a screening last spring, I kn ew NYU could provide me with exactly the skills I find the idea of pa cking 100 strangers in a dark room to watch a piece of film pass through a p rojector to be an incredibly peculiar idea. But in this peculiarity of the a rt lies the miracle, for humans are willing to suspend disbelief and be move d by a character on a screen. The audience can somehow feel what that charac ter feels and learn from that character’s experience. More than just this, f iction also gives the audience the ability to examine different facets of th e human condition. Trust, resentment, affection, flirtation, love, disappoin tment are issues that every human must deal with every day of their lives. T hey are issues that everyone deals with differently. Fiction allows one to e xperiment with putting people in different situations and seeing how they re spond. Writing and directing my own films is my ultimate ambition. I know, h owever, that I am much further along in my development in the art of editing . Siting in the editing room watching every single frame, is one of my passi ons. Every single frame is important, each could change an entire film. Like a mad scientist, with my hair sticking straight up, I work frantically with dozens of sections of film lined up around me. Still, I know where every si ngle section is, every single frame. I spent many hours in the editing room piecing together my last film until I had created something I could be proud of. As the lights turned on and the audience抯 applause died down, I turned to see who had put his hand on my shoulder. It was Jeanyves, my actor sitti ng next to his admiring and grinning father. He said, that was beautiful. At that moment, I felt like a filmmaker. I want to feel that way again. Subject: Speech Therapy While my friends are of