My Dream Wasn't Big Enough

In February of 2000 I was bit by the television production bug! It was a big bug and it bit me really hard. All my young life growing up I was always afraid of not finding my life's true passion. After my youngest brother passed away in 1999 I decided that life is too short to play it safe on the sidelines. I got out there and started to try different things hoping to find what I really love to do, and I did. I started taking Olelo Community Television classes on camera, editing, and producing, and I was in HEAVEN! I must say that I had one of the most amazing teachers I have ever had in my entire life, Tom Galli. He is someone I would refer to as master or sinsei. He was just so awesome and easy to learn from and willing to let me think outside the box. He never withheld knowledge from me and even if he didn't know something he would say, "Theoretically that should be possible," and I knew he would help me to find a way to get the effect that I was trying to attain.

As most of you know I am such a gung ho kind of person. I always reach for the moon and as a brand new client of Olelo I did just that. As my "First Works" project I wanted to do something spectacular and awesome. At that time, that meant a wonderful music rap video shot throughout scenic spots on Oahu. I along with my talent, my brother's best friend, worked countless hours on this project. As a first works project it was AWESOME (if I do say so myself LOL). I submitted it to the Ohina Film Festival that year and it was accepted. The Honolulu Advetiser (or Star Bulletin?) had asked the Ohina Film Festival people for a producer to do a feature on while advertising the festival in the TGIF section of the paper and I was selected. I remember that time so well, I was on cloud nine hundred and ninety-nine. :)

That positive experience and countless others at that time sparked in me a desire for more, to do more. I loved what I was doing and I didn't want to lose that feeling. I was actually afraid each day that that feeling of wonder and awe I felt every time I worked on production would go away, but it never did, and it never has. It was then that I had this dream, that one day I would have a movie play at the Dole Cannery Signature Theater and my name would appear in the beginning and at the end in the credits on the big screen. At the time it seemed like a huge and unattainable dream, but I felt that if I believed in myself and did the work and of course prayed really hard to my Heavenly Father for his help, that any thing would be possible.

Fast forward from August 2000 to October 2003. I had gone through a lot to get to this point and with the help of many kind and loving people, especially my family, and especially my sister, I was able to complete a short film about a successful Pacific Islander spy from a dysfunctional home trying to find himself. It made it into the Hawaii International Film Festival (HIFF) 2003 as one of the local shorts. I was ecstatic. I didn't realize until later that one of the screens my short would show on would be at theater 1 at the Dole Cannery Signature Theater.

My dream actually had two parts. The first of course, is that my film would play on the big screen at that particular theater. The second part was that my movie poster would be advertised in a specific spot. Now anyone who was a Dole Cannery Signature Theater lover back in early 2000 would know what awesome movie was coming soon every time he or she stepped out of one of the elevators and made his or her way to the ticket booth. Across the way and facing the elevators was a corner room lined with a glass wall. Whenever there was some hot new movie coming soon the larger than life posters would be advertised on that wall's central panel of glass... yes that is where I wanted my short film movie poster displayed! LOL And yes that is where it was displayed.

While I was mounting my poster up on the center of that glass wall, I was overwhelmed by a feeling of self actualization. I was in the moment of realizing one of my dreams and I was aware of it. It felt so surreal. I just cried. Tears of joy. I was amazed that I was actually doing something I had only dreamed about doing. Albeit it wasn't some national blockbuster and not some full length feature film, but it was a film and it was mine and it was showing on the big screen at Dole Cannery Signature Theater with my movie poster mounted on the center of that glass wall.

When I say my dream wasn't big enough, I meant it. I realized my first dream and then I didn't pursue it to the next level hard enough. Maybe I just didn't dream a second part clear enough and I may have gotten lost on a tangent, but I am glad of where I have been and what I have done because it has made me a better person, and a better filmmaker. I am ready now to dream a bigger dream. And as this year winds down to a close, I am pondering and working on the details of just what that big dream is for me.