So I sit here, this cold December night wondering a few things. As I draw, up new character designs. The graphite of my pencil glides across the crisp white paper with ever stroke I make. First undefined spontaneous lines quickly become defined structure, resembling form taking on mass until they are what I see in my head.

I've been drawing now for almost twenty-three years, self taught for the most part. Many years ago, I had aspirations of becoming a Disney animator. I worked night and day, perfecting my skills. Then when it was time for me to go off to college, the industry as I knew it was quickly changing. What was once done by hand was now being done with the aid of a computer. That which was still being done by hand though, was being sent to overseas artists, corporate America is always looking for a cheap substitution.

While in college, I found myself drawn to live action entertainment. Thus I change my focus from traditional drawing to digital media. For three years, I wrote and produced short films that for the most part failed miserably.

It was in my last year of studies, that I took on one the biggest projects to that date. I co-wrote a short western with a good friend and decided to produce it in the summer of 2003. Somehow, we manage to raise the $6,500.00 dollars needed to produce the film. Yes! Even short films are very expensive to produce.

So with the money in hand, I organized a crew of my friends and we set out for three days in the blistering hot Arizona sun to produce a western. I learned more in those three days then I did my entire three years of studies. Maybe there's something to be said about that…

At last count, my cast and crew drank 348 bottles of water over that weekend just trying to stay hydrated. My audio engineer suffered from heat stroke and had to leave the set early. The audio board we To Be Continued…

were using over-heated, and we were forced to come up with some really creative ways of capturing our audio for the film. Needless to say, as with most short films with a limited budget, the audio was sub-par at best.

The western town we rented was great but in the end. It's what cost everything! Turns out the owner of the location decided to play hardball and by hardball, I mean the Hollywood way of doing things.

About week after we're done shooting, I'm back at school when I get a call from the VP of education. So I make my way down to his office, and I find out that the owner of the studio is accusing me of not paying the rent for the location. That is $150.00 dollars anyway.

This of course was not true, but the school decided to handle the situation without first coming to me and paid the $150.00 to the studio owner. There're explanation to me was, they were afraid that I harmed a professional reputation of a studio owner in the name of the school.

Turns out the owner was going to sue the school, thus I learned hard and fast just how the movie business works. I was kicked out of school for a term, only to be reinstated three months later at higher tuition rate. I lost my student job and more or less lost all respect I had for this institution.

To Be Continued...