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Faculty Perspective: Joesph M. Somodi '97 A vision, a voice and a dream I have lots of dreams as a filmmaker. One is to be in a crowded movie theater showing one of my movies, sitting in the last row and watching how others enjoy what I have created. Another is to win the elusive gold statue -- an Oscar. I think I have these dreams because I live in New York City, where anything is possible. I worry sometimes that my drive to reach such heights might impede my vision and voice as a filmmaker. Only recently have I begun to take stock in where my professional journey is going. At Binghamton, I was always driven to succeed. Academically, I took 300-level classes my freshman year, and branched out to study not only film (my major) but also theater and sociology. Non-academically, I became a resident assistant for three years, played on the golf team and even trained and ran a marathon in under four hours. Success was measured in manageable, bite-size doses. My ups and downs seemed less unwieldy, and in the end, my choices and experiences at BU were a whopping success. Seven years since leaving the safety of the campus life, I have the difficulty of defining success in much grander terms. Each choice now seems to profoundly shape who I am, from my friends to my jobs -- even down to the way I conduct my personal finances. (There isn't room on this page to go into that.) Finding myself back in New York City after BU, I was driven to discover independence. So I began my own video production company. I incorporated the Video-Scrapbook company in 1999 (see videoscrapbook.net). I had no idea what I was in for. The company was founded to produce commemorative videos using old "home movie" footage that people had collected through the years and edit it in an entertaining way to be shown on special occasions. The idea took off, and soon I was expanding this concept into demo reels for actors and singers. Eventually my exposure and networking generated business for larger clients, with bigger wallets and demands: L'Oreal to Columbia Business School; Broadway divas like Karen Mason to Tony Award-winning composer and lyricist Richard Maltby Jr. My career peaked in the fall of 2002 when I sold and co-produced a segment for HBO on Esera Tuaolo, the third NFL player to come out of the closet. This success was a highlight of my career and a sign of bigger things to come. Gaining confidence, I began two independent projects on my own. One is on homeless gay youth in New York City, titled Living Close to the Knives. This documentary profiles kids going through the first LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) youth shelter in New York City, and examines the broader issues of gay homelessness on a city-wide level. My other documentary project builds off the theme of the HBO-produced segment, investigating further the complexity of a young gay male athlete who has to have the courage to "come out" to his teammates, coach and family in high school (see outjocks.com). Balancing my clients (the income!) with my conviction to work on personal projects has been challenging. Countless nights have been spent at the homeless shelter interviewing the kids, pitching the projects to potential funders over cocktails, preparing budgets or writing grant applications. My determination to continue these projects has been further challenged by the teetering economy and the slow decline in the number of clients I have had over the last year. Yet the overtime that I am spending on my own projects has become a hidden education into the craft of finding my own voice in this medium. I guess, when I think of success as an artist, I see it more for how I can make people listen to what I have to say. I am, after all, in an industry that can command a very broad audience. I have so many who have inspired me to channel this voice. Distinguished Professor of Cinema Ken Jacobs is one of those individuals. Professor Jacobs has an unrelenting passion for his work. His interest and appreciation for cinema has a distinctive voice, which I can still hear to this day. As a teacher, his insight into my films and writings always left me with more to ponder. I appreciated these echoing effects he had on my education and his impact on how I view cinema. At BU my professors gave me a stage where I felt uninhibited to explore, make mistakes and be challenged. Today it is drastically different. Mistakes cost me clients, which cost me money, which slows my growth as a business. The stress is enough to keep me up at night. I won't ever stop dreaming about reaching for the stars and winning an Oscar. Why not, right? But what holds the glue together for me each moment of each day is realizing the voice that I am honing -- a voice that I hope will echo into others people's hearts and minds -- a voice that will make the difference, like so many of my friends and teachers did while I was growing up at BU.
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