What’s going on guys??? My name is Zane Gray and I am a senior at Gardner-Webb University. I was born in Atlanta, Georgia, but I grew up in a little city named Cumming, Georgia. I’ve got a younger brother and a little sister, so naturally, I spent a good amount of time with them, and the same goes for my parents.
My earliest and fondest memory of watching movies has to be when my mom took me to see A Bug’s Life, the second and latest Disney-Pixar movie, at the time. It was my first introduction to film, and the genre of animation. granted, most 2 year-olds probably wouldn’t be able to retain those types of memories because minds at that age are in very early stages of development. But for the strangest reason, my 2-year-old self was blown away by the beauty of what movies could look like and how much it made me root for an animal/creature like an Ant. That was the start of something truly special and it became the movie that made more passionate about the art of filmmaking. Some of my favorite films are ones that are fresh, innovative and most of all, something that will stick with me for the rest of time. Movies like Skyfall, Toy Story, and Prisoners are some of my best experiences watching a movie, simply due to how drastically different all three of them were from another.
I’m going to tell you guys a secret, and I’m suggesting that parents shouldn’t do this to their kids, but as a kid, I think it’s safe to say that I probably watched more R-rated movies than I did Disney movies. So, to put in that in perspective, I watched A LOT of Disney movies. What I’m trying to say is that movies have been my biggest sense of inspiration. When I was in elementary school, my parents introduced me to a little program called Siskel & Ebert & the Movies, where it was just Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert talking and reviewing the latest Hollywood release. It made me delve more into the possibility of being a film critic because all I want to do is talk movies. Doesn’t that sound like the coolest gig ever???
It’s not just people talking about the movies, but for me, it’s also all about the one who’s telling the story. My favorite director, without a doubt, is Steven Spielberg. I grew up watching his movies on a religious matter and his career should really speak for himself. His movies alone were the origin of my empathy, but that was the case for all the movies I saw. After each movie, I saw it showed me how to put myself in the shoes of someone who’s different from me, and that’s been my best reason for my love of movies. My favorite film decade has to be the 1980s because most of the films I grew up with were all released in the 1980s.
I’m really looking forward to this class and hearing everyone else’s take on film and filmmaking and how it affects you in different ways and why it fascinates you. Oh, and the picture you see above had something to with our first day in class, and the mention of Will Ferrell came up and the movie Elf along with it and it felt as if it perfectly sums the two kinds of people during Christmas.
Zane Gray
August 23rd, 2018
Zane's take at the Cinema's 