Autobiography

**AUTOBIOGRAPHY**  My very first job was in television production. I was once told by an old lady from my childhood that the very first paying job you have is one you will do for the rest of your life. I’ve spent many years working in some form of television production, and no matter what job I presently have, I always find some way to incorporate visual communication into it. That is the way I see television and movies: communicating a message to an audience utilizing all the senses, but basically in a visual manner.

I want to use my degree in an academic situation where I will continue teaching but this time concentrating more on the scriptwriting aspects of motion pictures and television. The second thing I want to do with my degree is to start working in the industry and gradually wean myself away from an academic setting. I've always tried to stay current in my field and I feel once I leave AAU I will be a very marketable individual.

I bring a variety of skills and a rich background to the MFA-MPT program. Currently I work as an online instructor for the Art Institute of Pittsburgh, Online Division, as a facilitator of their Desktop Video courses. Though I instruct the students on the technical aspects of nonlinear editing, I pride myself the most on being able to help the students realize, through viewing their favorite films and their prospective productions, how to communicate a message to your audience using various elements of production. I feel coming into the program with an appreciation of this knowledge, along with an excitement for the classics and the history behind films and how they are constructed, makes me an enthusiastic learner waiting to absorb information that excites me.

I look at my time here at the Academy as being on a hero's journey. Here I am given the opportunity to quest for a desire saturated in my bones: storytelling and creating movies. I have lived in movies my entire childhood, and even attribute movies to helping me learn singing techniques that aided me in my past career as a professional singer. Now, as a student in the MFA-MPT program, I am on the path where I will never say, "I wish I had learned how to write and produce movies."