Memoir

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.