The Artistic Language of Film
Nick Luna
Hey, how’s it going? My name is Nick Luna. I am a 23-year-old guy from Orlando, Florida and film has been a big part of my life, but it is not as simple as that. Most people would probably point out how they have loved film since they were a kid and have made "X" amount of movies and won student awards and all that jazz, but I am not as traditionally experienced in film. I started making little short YouTube videos, literally just experimenting with anything I could think of at the time. Figuring out what I could do with film. And I have kind of been doing that ever since, just seeing what I could think of and translating that to the screen in the most interesting way I could think of. I know now the more I learn, the more I need to learn. In high school I was able to take some film classes and ultimately work for the "Florida Film Academy", but I found I was late to the game when compared to my peers. So, I had to catch up.
It is weird to think that I am 23 years old, I don’t even think I can call myself a kid anymore. As I think about it, it makes me want people to remember me as someone whose ideas lived on posthumously and the best way to do that is through artistic expression. For me anyway. I am not the kinda guy who is going to inspire a movement or be a world leader, but I have always been a thinker. So, my first thought was writing. Maybe, I could write a book! Books like "Frankenstein" and "The Divine Comedy"(specifically Dante's Inferno) enthralled me as a kid (a slightly younger kid, I’m gonna call myself a kid as long as I can), but a few short stories later I realized this was not my primary artistic language. While I love the idea of putting pen to paper and creating lush worlds and characters, it was not the native artistic language I speak. Just like English, Spanish, or Mandarin are native languages, I believe that our native artistic languages are what lets us flow most freely, it is what we are most comfortable with and can really make our own. Just like the writer’s mastery of English, I had an innate draw to use Film as my language. All my practice and research with my little films has taught me the beginnings of what I will need for the future.
After I realized this, I dug into it, not just film though, I rounded myself in artistic studies starting with helping on sets, joining the film club and taking any film classes I could get my hands on. Additionally, I have been looking into music theory, I looked into photography to learn how to better capture each scene and utilize every frame. I studied philosophy to give my writing a deeper subtext, but I also realized that not everything needs to be a deeply sophisticated masterpiece. I enjoy a movie like "Ghostbusters" and "Monty Python and the Holy Grail" just as I much as I love "Citizen Kane" or "A Clockwork Orange. "
We all want to be remembered after we die, and Film is the way I want to leave my mark. Something that will stand the test of time. I want people to see something that I’ve made and keep a small part of it in their hearts and on their minds. A world where the audience can see “a Nick Luna film” and rest easy knowing that it means quality or at least a good time. Or even a world where people are talking about the great filmmakers and my name is merely a passing phrase. That is the world I want. And the more I learn about this language we call Film, the more I want to be able to communicate through film fluently, meaningfully, and with purpose. Filmmaking is my artistic language.