The first movie I watched that made me fall in love with the world of film was Quentin Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction. I know it gets talked about all the time but it really is worth all the hype. I have watched it more times than I can remember, will probably watch it later now that I’m talking about it, and will show it to my kids at a somewhat inappropriate age just in case it gets them excited about movies in the same way it did for me. I first watched it in my dark room in the middle of the night by myself, everyone else in my house hours into their sleep. Everything stood out to me; I paid attention to all the little details and fell in love with everything from Tarantino’s style of storytelling to John Travolta and Uma Thurman’s iconic dance scene in Jack Rabbit Slim’s. 

Up until that point I never really paid attention to the different techniques, visuals, and aspects of cinematography directors use in order to tell the story the way they want it to. I also preferred to watch television shows at the time. I started to watch a whole bunch of different movies, new coming of age movies like Lady Bird, 80s cult classics like Heathers, and old Hollywood movies like Rebel Without a Cause. And even after watching so many movies I still wouldn’t consider myself a film buff, because there’s still so much I’m dying to see. There’s just something so transportive about leaving your reality to catch only a glimpse of someone’s story in the 1-3 hours that movies last. 

One day I thought to myself, does this have to be a hobby? I realized that I spend a good amount of my time creating different scenes in my head that have zero context. And I get really into it too; I dream about and write about and make little moments that would happen to an imaginary person. I give them a backstory, and sometimes there’s music playing in the back. I also realized that I’ve made and edited videos for fun before, and I actually really enjoyed it. I also remember wanting to be an author as a kid; I even tried writing my own story/book but it went unfinished and was also awful. I had a passion I didn’t even know I had. 

After hearing all of this I think it would surprise people that this whole time I’ve been working towards becoming an engineer. During my high school years I realized that not only was I good at math, but it was the only subject that I actually tried to do well in. I learned topics really easily and when I didn’t know something I would spend my own time thinking about how to figure it out. There is creativity in engineering, and I saw myself being happy choosing it as a career. I still do. And while having this internal crisis, I also couldn’t help but think that saying you want to be a film director is the equivalent of someone saying they want to be an actor or a painter. All the odds are against you. But someone recently told me that I should try it, at least at one point in my life, even if I still choose to be an engineer. I think they’re right, because you miss one hundred percent of the shots you don’t take, and I don’t want to grow up and ask myself why I didn’t just try. Who knows, the movies I make could be awful like my story in fourth grade, or the world could know my name one day. 

 

Rhetorical Situation

The text is a personal narrative that talks about how I came to find one of my interests/passions, which is movies. It also discusses how I decided to incorporate this passion in my life, and how I decided to pursue it at one point in my life, even if it doesn’t end up being a career.

I am the author of the narrative, which discusses my personal experience with film, what about it interests me, and how I plan to keep it in my life. A lot of the movies I have watched over the years also shaped me to be who I am and a lot of them are really special to me.

The audience for my personal narrative is anyone who would want to read someone’s  personal experience. It can also be targeted to teenagers and young adults especially because they may relate to it somehow or apply it to something in their own life.

I chose to write about this because I think it’s important that people find things that make them happy in life. People find passions and interests at all ages, and they do not have to be experts to enjoy them.

The setting I was in when I wrote this was in my room at nighttime. It was quiet, which helped me come up with what I wanted to say. The relaxed environment allowed me to reflect on my life and the importance that this interest holds for me.