Take One, Action!
Growing up in
Arlee, a kid named Dom became my best friend at an early age. I remember going
over to his house almost every day to hang with him. His basement became a
place to play since it was so big. The soft carpet welcomed you as you glided
down the stairs. You knew once you
walked down them you entered the best place on earth. I can still remember looking into the toy
room. Toys filled the shelves, buckets, and drawers. You never wanted to go
back home after seeing all this. The supplies available provided us a new way
to use our imagination. Making movies let us express our creativity in our own
way. We’d grab the camera and tripod and jump right into action. Every little
kid likes to fight or kill things so that’s what we usually filmed. Killing
robots, Pirates of the Caribbean and WWE wrestling ranked high on our
favorites. Wearing different outfits let us become the characters we admired. These
movies bring me to laughter every time I watch them. These times burned into
memories that I will never forget.
Camera set up
remained easy and simple. It was figuring out what to say in front of the
camera that was challenging. Dom would usually improvise and come up with the
script while filming. Arguments over whose ideas should be used for the movie broke
out quite often. I don’t think I won many arguments against Dom. He was pretty
serious when it came down to making the movie perfect in his eyes. I’d get in a
few ideas here and there but it came down to Dom to be able to create the
movie. We didn’t have any money, so we built our own props and had our
imagination take over. We used props from what we could find in the basement like
boats made from couches, wrestling mats out of cushions, and horses out of
brooms or long sticks.
After finishing
a movie we would go through all of our film on the camera and delete the scenes
we didn’t like. We then would give the camera to Dom’s mom, Amy, and wait for
her to put the film on a video. We waited anxiously and couldn’t anticipate how
well the finished product would turn out. I’m not sure how long it usually took
her but it always seemed like an eternity. Once on video we immediately put it
in the VCR player in the workout room. Getting settled in and finding the
perfect spot to sit was vital. From the second the video began to the end the
laughter wouldn’t stop. The laughter wouldn’t stop as we made fun of each other
time after time. We made all theses movies because I was lucky enough to
meet such a great friend who ended up having the basement ever.
