Chapter 1
13 Years In a Nutshell

People often ask me when I started making movies and I've told them that I started around the age of 10. To this day my mother still tells people I started making films at the age of 4. Now you see, my mother and I are refering to 2 different experiences.

At the age of 4 I spent a good portion of my time drawing random pictures. Most of which had to do with my intense fascination with video games. One day my mother discovered this when she moved my lamp. Behind the lamp, against the wall, was a random character drawing, but this drawing wasn't written in pencil. Oh no, my drawings were special drawings. This drawing on the wall was carved from a nickel. That's right, a nickel. My parents soon discovered that this wasn't the only masterpiece on the wall when they started moving my television, books, bed, drawers, etc. Let's just say the landlord wasn't too happy about that.

On the 10th X-mas of my life I received my first...case...or at least that's what I thought it was until I actually opened the case. There I caught my first glimpse at a color VHS camcorder. This nice piece of equipment was my first true camcorder. Before that I had been toying with the Tyco Video Cam. You know, the one that you hook up directly to the VCR you're recording on. Yeah, I couldn't exactly shoot anything in the field with an RCA cable holding my Tyco Video Cam back. And so, this began my days of moviemaking.

At the time, I had resided in good ol' Port Jefferson Station, New York. This was your average middle class residential neighborhood. This was my place of birth and my place of residence all the way until I was 13. Therefore, most of my childhood was spent there. I had lived the young boy's American dream with a standard-sized family. My mother Dorie, my father, Steven, and my sister Desiree.

In high school, my father was the strong silent type. He usually was calm and collected, but he also was a football player all throughout high school. One thing you didn't do was mess with my father back then. If you said something disrespectful to him or his family, he wouldn't think twice before pounding your face in, fortunately the people he sparred with usually deserved it.

My mother was the artistic type around high school times. She enjoyed drawing, painting, singing, dancing, and acting, and she was good at all of them. Growing up in a tough environment, she was able to pick up a lot of street smarts and this often results in many lectures being drilled into Desiree and I's heads.

My sister Desiree is 2.5 years older than I. Many of my single-digit years were spent being knocked around by her. Eventually I learned to defend myself against her raids of attack. When we were younger my sister had been skilled at swimming. She was also proficient in the ways of screaming at me at volumes exceeding 1000 decibels. Other than that she was good to have around.

Back in the day I was a curious kid, but quiet. Some might say I was more of the listening type. I actually enjoyed sitting down and listening to people's stories and problems. To pass time I would usually just beg my mother to drive me to Blockbuster so that I could rent the latest video game. But this didn't mean I was a couch potato, far from it. I had participated in Baseball, Basketball, Track, Cross-Country, Soccer, and yes, even cubscouts. Heck, I evan played a handball-like game called Suicide during recess.

Most of the time, anyone I hung out with were peers that I had either met in school or in cubscouts. I think it's safe to say my first solid friend was Nick Tocci. Probably the best friend I had in NY. Coming from italian heritage and being slightly shorter than average, Nick Tocci and I started hanging out around 2nd grade. Like me, Tocci spent a good amount of his downtime entertaining himself with video games. When we would hang out we would often sit in his den and play a few rounds of Bomberman or shooting some crooks up in the Sega Genesis version of True Lies. When we were bored we used to climb to the roof of our elementary school and collect roofed handballs. If we weren't doing that we would participating in Nerf battles. Now let me set aside a paragraph for these great events.

When we got bored, Tocci and I would get his brother Mike and his friend to come down to the den. We would then spilt the Nerf weapons and ammo up between two teams, which usually meant Tocci and I vs Mike and his friends. We would then take about 15 minutes to set up forts on opposing sides of the den. Soon after, we began the battle. The rules were simple, if you were hit by a Nerf ball, dart, or missile 3 times, you were out. The battle isn't over until there is no one left on one of the teams. The intensity of avoiding and dodging missiles while picking them up to plan your counterattack had to be one of the biggest rushes I have ever had in elementary school. No recreation can top Nerf Battles.

Of coarse, Tocci and I have had our share of misconduct as well. One time I grew curious as to whether a nearby house was abandoned or not. So we snuck in, spilt paint all over the rooms, put shaving cream all over the bathroom, and drank old Coca Cola stored inside. One day some adult walked in on us when we were hanging out in his backyard with my dog, a.k.a. the backyard of the abandoned house.
"Hey! What are you kids doing?"
"Uh...nothing, we were um, chasing after my dog. He likes to uh...run out on us."

Let's just say he didn't buy it. Tocci and I were grounded for a good month. His mother wouldn't let us hang out because of my bad influence, but that didn't stop us from hanging out in the near future.

Another friend of mine was an Italian kid by the name of Frank Papalao. Now this kid was a storyteller, but I didn't care since I was the listening type anyway. We had met in cubscouts. If we weren't hanging out in cubscouts, we would play video games, talk about stuff, or just go see movies. One time Frank and I brought a BB gun into the woods behind my house and decided to dig a hole trap, covered in leaves, in the path between my house and another house across the woods. After venturing forth even further we ended up in the backyard of some old guy's house. He asked us what we were doing with a gun. So we did what any brave 11 year olds would do, we ran like hell! Through the bushes, the trees, and over traps set by us we managed to successfully outrun the old man. But not without consequence. Soon, Frank and I heard a loud "uggghhh!" in the distance. We looked at each other franticly knowing what had just happened. The old man came stumbling out of the woods, holding his hip. Perfect time for my mother to come out.
"These kids dug a damn hole on my property!"
"Uh, sorry, we didn't know it was your property sir."

Yup. I got grounded for that one too.

When the 4th grade rolled around, I met a kid named Jared White. This guy was pretty fond of basketball, but I didn't mind shooting a couple rounds with him every other day, even if the driveway we played on was slanted. The best thing about hanging out with Jared was the fact that he was right up the block from me.

One thing that you should know about both of us is that Jared and I were both pretty competitive. We would often call cheap shots or fouls on each other on a regular basis. We were both pretty sensitive to comments made while becoming too intense during a game. One time this resulted in a scuffle during a basketball game in front of Kristi Madden’s house. We let bygones be bygones after having a thorough talk about Donkey Kong Country 3. I do have to say Jared was the better basketball player, but I wasn’t too far behind at the time. Now I’m sure if I played him I’d get pulverized.

To all of you who are curious about my filmmaking path to power, Jared White was actually my first filmmaking associate. We spent a large portion of our time imitating animations from the Nickelodeon show, KABLAM! We put to use a technique called “stop and go” animation and made action figures seemingly move by themselves by starting and stopping the recording process as quickly as possible. We also applied this technique to clay figures. The motion of these clay figures had to be moving at a speed of 4 to 6 frames per second if that, so the comparison to the usual 30 frames per second that real animation is shown in was uncanny to us. Until I learned the power of a Microsoft program called 3D Movie Maker, this was my method of making motion pictures.

Port Jefferson Station was quite a source of fraternization of the opposite sex. Often I was caught tripping over myself when I was in a certain range of a beautiful girl, but there was one girl that I could keep my posture around. This girl was Kristi Madden. This girl had great sense of humor and a body that would distract any postpubescent male in Port Jefferson Station. I think it might have been the way I was introduced to her in 4th grade that kept me from trembling.

Because Kristi lived right across the street from my good buddy Jared, Jared would often invite her over to play basketball on his slanted driveway. Now you see our friend Kristi here was not your typical materialistic girly girl. Not at all. In-fact she was the tomboyish athletic type, which made for some good competition. Believe me, she was no pushover. Well...maybe in basketball.

Kristi's main skill was playing soccer. Whenever Jared couldn't convince her to play basketball, we'd play some soccer on her front lawn. That's usually when me and Jared had our asses handed to us, but we put up a good fight considering I couldn't dribble for crap and Jared focused primarily on basketball. This girl wouldn't hold back either, if you had the ball she'd kick you right in the shin without hesitation. Then she'd apologize profusely until you regained your composure. We called a lot of fouls on her.

Over time Kristi and I begun hanging out in our spare time. Usually I wound up hanging out at her house working on homework whether it was mine or hers. Kristi also enjoyed the occasional video game from time to time.

Unfortunately, being in the Madden residence meant putting up with Kristi's older sister Megan. On many occasions I found myself at the mercy of Megan Madden's death grip on my cheeks. She thought my cheeks were "cute." I often tried my best to evade this death grip but to no avail.

Of coarse I've had other peers that I hung out with in New York, but none have had such a substantial impact on my childhood as the ones mentioned.

Around 5th grade I became fascinated with this one particular movie making program called 3D Movie Maker. This program made in 95' allowed you to select from a cast of about 40 animated actors that could do anything from walking to dancing. You also had the option of selecting what scene and camera angle you could choose. For a while I made these animated movies with the assistance of many different voice actors.

I even submitted a video for a math contest called Pie-day. All you had to do was make a video that relates to math. Most of the videos were extremely corny and boring so I made an animated movie about aliens who come down to the planet Earth and emit a light that makes humans forget how to use math completely, thereby bringing about destruction. The purpose of this video was to emphasize how much of an impact math makes on our lives. I received a technique merit for the submission.

Eventually the time came. On April 1st, 1999 my family and I moved to Jim Thorpe, PA. Apparently the tremendous rise in real estate costs forced the move to happen. In Jim Thorpe I would soon discover a new lifestyle, and a new group of allies.