People of MoFo,

Hi. Again.

If you don't know who I am, look at my profile, look at the posts I've written and look at the threads I've created. The profile itself is a bit outdated, and some of my old posts represent my immature high school self (and, in later years, my immature "I think I'm a funny Internet user" college self), but I'm not going to update it I think. At this point for me, it's a bit nostalgic, and it's a reminder of how my old high school self used to act and think not only on this website, but socially amongst others as well; my posts and the style I wrote them in are a representation of who I was socially, both online and off, and I don't want to forget who I once was.

I used to post a lot here back in those days, with my prime posting time on being during my sophomore year of high school of 2004-2005. I had joined a year earlier, but for some reason, during that year, I was glued to this site. I liked interacting with the users, I liked making posts, and I liked making a name for myself to a community of people who liked what I liked. I actually made some e-friends on here that I would talk to on a regular basis on AOL Instant Messenger and MSN Messenger. I don't talk to them anymore. Like my status on the site, we grew apart. But I don't care – I'm not upset or anything like that. It just happens.

In later years, my presence here has made me a “No Show MoFo” - I just stopped coming here altogether, save for a few random posts here and there. Why? Mainly it's because I grew tired of the forum format. A response I made earlier in a separate thread clearly explains this:

I have this ego problem when it comes to posting on Internet forums... I still feel that the one with the most posts gets the most respect and the most quoted responses and interaction from other members while the new poster is ignored and quickly forgotten. To me, I find it very hard to make a name for oneself on an Internet forum. Hence why 4chan is good in that regard... no creation of "threads" so-to-speak like that of other forums. Everyone's anonymous, no need to register, there is no post count of just one user, and unlike most forums where there's a "dead time" say, in the middle of the night where you wait hours and hours for a response in a thread you made, the /b/tards are all up 24/7, giving you responses and interaction constantly with little wait time. This is the reason why I left MoFo... I'm an on-the-go kinda guy who likes things answered prompt and immediately. It's no one's fault - that's how forums are. Except 4chan.
While this is the biggest reason, another is that I just grew out of coming to the site. I just naturally moved on, but I never forgot about the community, and I'm surprised they never forgot about me. And despite it being true that my account collected dust on the main site, I've always made an appearance at the annual MoFo Oscar Night Chatroom Chat (I know it's not called this but clearly it should), where my presence is still remembered.

No, I'm not trying to make myself out to be some grand individual who's finally come home. I'm just stating the obvious.

And, now that the obvious has been said, let me talk about what I've been up to in my years absent.

My user name isn't a lie - I do make movies, and have been doing so for quite some time. Ten years, to be exact – the same amount of time in which this fine website has been kicking it. In those ten years, I've made a lot of crap. A lot artists, especially film makers, do. I've made attempts to make movies, some big and some small, only to have them never see the light of day. Again, it's all part of the process, despite what your emotions might make you believe.

But I did make some movies that saw release – granted, nothing large scale, but they were filmed and completed nonetheless. I made a name for myself at my high school, where my film's controversial subject matter caught one too many people's attention, and my obscure and weird personality only further helped get my name spread around. I've earned YouTube Honors for my work directing a film that, at its core, carries an anti-pornographic message (myself being a Christian, I felt good about this). Of course, those films are by no means contenders to being additions to the Criterion Collection, but I'm proud of them either way. Have you ever earned a YouTube Honor, despite the subject matter or genre of your video? Let me tell you, it's not easy, and not many people have.

But while my films showed my comedic side, the scripts I wrote were laced with my attempts to tell a serious story. These were mostly film noir tales, but I later on found myself writing stories that I can only be described as darker episodes of The Twilight Zone – dark subject matter and characters complete with a twist ending. A lot of my scripts also have subtle religious references and themes, something I chose to do on purpose due to my faith and how I wished to express it.

Now, lately, I'm glad that I've stopped only making short comedic films. I still make them, yes, but it's because they were made for film school, made by force to just earn a grade, and not made for any artistic merit or value (with the exception of one, made outside of school). In other words, I hated making them. The shoots were long because I never had my classmate crew members there to help me (why, I don't know), and the short films I made were never the ones I had originally set out to film. I had ideas, yes, but they were always scraped when I realized there would be no classmates there to help me, so I was always forced to start over at the last second and think up something much more smaller in scale which could be done quick and easy – an insult to the work I truly wanted to churn out.

These were the films I made for my Film Product 1 class.

Apparently, despite being made on such an unprofessional scale, the films I made for school proves that I've come a long way as a film maker, and I've learned a lot at film school. But I haven't learned everything yet, and perfection in any form is still a ways away for me. My film professor is a fan of my work, and many have faith in my talent and skills. However, I don't always share the same feelings. But we are our own worse critic, so I guess this goes without saying. I say that because it is funny to note that, for the earlier films I made, these were the ones I thought were going to be great and possibly go viral and be generally well received, on top of hopefully getting my name out there. These were the films that always fell flat on their faces (even the ones that earned me my YouTube Honors – none of my friends, save for a select few, ever actually liked them). It would be my later films, the ones from my Film Production 1 class, that I would hate. I would find myself calling them “stupid”, “terrible”, “pointless”, “generic”, and branding them with a label that read “Utter Failure”. These were the films that would bring out the best of me, that they would be the ones my professors, classmates and finally, friends, would love and praise the most. It's something that still baffles me to this day.

In other words, irony at its best.

But that's for you to decide.

Every audience member is entitled to an opinion, and it's my goal to make your opinion a favorable one. So that's why I'm showcasing my three latest films.

The first one is called The Ultimate Autograph. It first started out as a project for my film class, but it proved to be too much to handle due to no time and the fact that it would have to be carefully shot on black and white 16mm film. But I liked the idea, and was fortunate enough to learn from my film professor about a Time Warner Cable short film contest. So I took my basic concept, turned it into a script with a voice-over narration, and shot it on digital with my camera (a Canon XL1S, the exact same model used to film 28 Days Later), with some lights my professor signed off for me to borrow from my school. It was my first narrative film ever, and while it didn't get selected as a finalist for the contest, I had enough faith in it to submit it to the film festival circuit. Hopefully it'll get selected, as I submitted it to my hometown's film festival, the Cleveland International Film Festival. They tend to like showing any world premiere's from a local film maker, so that's why I think I might get in. Here's to praying I do.




On December 7th of this year (2010), my “film company” turned 10 years old. Knowing full well it's not an actual film studio, I decided to have fun with re-telling the company's history, and to mark off the 10th birthday, I included a short I shot for my film class. While filming it, I absolutely hated every second of it. The project called for us to put to use lighting and the framing of a scene. I tried, but knew I failed. It was my first time ever loading a 16mm camera in the dark and it was the first time I ever read a light's temperature for exposure. It was all very hard and time consuming, and I cursed my classmates not helping me out the entire time. Thinking what we filmed was either underexposed or overexposed, I was literally taken back when I saw the processed footage. We just shot random stuff just to eat up the film role and quickly wrap up the shoot (which did indeed take as long as the film says it did during the closing credits). Never did it occur to my friend or I at any point to edit it to the music we chose. Everything that seemingly fits with the film and song is just a pure coincidence. I actually enjoy this film, as it serves as a reminder about some school projects that you try and put your heart's worth of creativity into but can't in the end: they're just for school. No one will look down upon you for making something that may not be as creative as the other guy's. It was made for a grade, and that's it. This class in general wasn't a class meant to teach storytelling (that's next semester's class, Film Production 2), but rather to teach the basic understanding of shooting on film and how to light it all. A little fact that took me quite a while to accept, since I'm such a story-driven film maker.




It's my second serious narrative short film, and its description on Vimeo actually covers all I have to say about it. The only thing I want to add is that, despite the happy tone of the actual description, don't let it fool you: I do not approve of this film because this wasn't the one I set out to make as my final project for the class. The plot itself, while original at parts, is generic to me, and I strive for originality in my films. And it's flawed beyond belief. But, again, it was made for school, and clearly everyone who saw it thought else wise. It's also a clear example of having no one to help me out at all. So if you find yourself not liking this short, it's OK: I don't like it either, and I made the thing.

Lastly, I recently won a $1,000 in a contest where contestants had to film a 15 second commercial for a local lawyer. That's not online yet, but it certainly makes for an impressive mark on my future résumé. When it's put up, you'll know I'll post it on the site.


In closing, I just want to say that, despite the long breaks I take, I've never forgotten about MoFo, its community and my place within it. The point of this thread is to show those who care what I've been doing, how far I've come, and just how true to life my user name is. Hopefully you all have enjoyed the little showcase I've put together here, and please, give me your honest feedback. All of this would have been for nothing if none of you did. I also apologize for this length, but I feel it's necessary – when you're gone for a long time, only to suddenly reappear, you're going to have a lot to say to make up for time lost.

My dream and goal one day is to become an established film maker. I'm not out for any Oscars, nor am I having desires of becoming wealthy (not yet, at least). I'm in it to make a name for myself, a name that I hope will be published in books one day, a name to have its own Wikipedia entry one day, and, ultimately, a name to be projected onto a large silver screen one day.

Always remember me Movie Forums, as I have yet to forget about all of you.


- Seth, A.K.A. MovieMaker5087

P.S. Long live Django.
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Everything I do, I do to make my second stepdad proud.