As most of you know, I have my own
channel on YouTube dedicated to spreading my love of film by expressing my
opinions of them. They aren’t expert opinions but then again what is an expert
opinion really? Just because somebody gets paid tons of money from a newspaper
to write their opinions of a film doesn’t make them “experts”.
With that said, I really only look
up to one film critic and that is Roger Ebert. His essays on film are
enthralling to read because he doesn’t use enormous words or write in a way
that sounds pretentious. He writes from his heart. I have always wanted to
bring my love of film out the same way. I remember a time in Jr. High when I
briefly wrote film reviews for the school paper - it was really fun to do but I
never gave it any more thought. In fact, it’s been at least 10 years since I’ve
thought about it. I find it fascinating that seemingly random events in my life
have greater meaning the older I get.
We live in a day and age where
printed newspaper isn't the main source for expert film reviews anymore. All of
the reviews that I have read in the last 5 or 6 years have been on the
internet. A few years ago I began to ask myself how I should review films. I
stumbled upon the answer one day without even realizing it. In the weeks before
I started my YouTube channel my film library contained over 1000 titles. I
always wondered if there were other people that had the same amount of films
that I did.
During the first week in January in
2011, I was on a lunch break from my job and decided to get onto YouTube on my
phone. I began my search for random funny videos just to help pass the time.
The thought then popped into my head that I should search for videos in
relation to DVD collections. What I
found were countless videos by Shawn C. Phillips, aka "Coolduder". He
was a film reviewer and vlogger that shared the same love of film that I did. I
was amazed by the amount of films he owned. While I was viewing a video of Shawn's I saw a
video by Robbie Webster that had been recommended to me by YouTube. This was
another cool guy that was inspired by Shawn to make the same style of videos. I
became addicted to watching them both. I ended up watching all of their
uploaded videos over the next few days. I began to think that this was a pretty
cool thing they were doing. I then had a revelation - I too could review films this way!
On January 18, 2011, I decided to
film my first video with my cell phone. I was extremely nervous and didn't know
how I was going to do it. My first video topic was me discussing my top three
films of 2010. I look back and laugh at it now but at the time it was a big
deal. After I uploaded the video, I had a huge amount of support from friends
and family to continue to make videos. I thought that nobody would like my
videos but to my surprise, Robbie Webster became a huge help in getting my foot
in the door to the YouTube community. Another great help was my buddy,
"The Raz Man", who is the host of "The Raz Man's Reality"
on YouTube. He found my channel through Robbie Webster and they have been there
with me since day one.
It has been 22 months now and I
have made over 120 videos and still love it the same as day one. I have made
countless friends and hope that I continue to meet other film lovers that I can
share my love of film with.
