Fire Side Chat

Artist Statement

For my fireside chat, I wanted to talk about something that meant a lot to me personally. From the day I was born, my dad could not wait to have me star in his short films. He had just recently graduated BYU as a humanities major with a film emphasis. So while my mom was away teaching third grade, my dad was at home babysitting me. His first movie with me was called “Olivia’s Day Out”, which was a short film of me dropping a toy and the journey I had to take in order to get my toy back. This was the start to my dad’s way of bonding with me and my siblings. The films that followed were sometimes spoofs off of our favorite movies, and some were just random stories that either I or my dad thought up. I saw this as not only a way to bond with my dad, but also a great way of journaling our lives. So this became a passion of mine that I felt very strong about believing in. 

For the media portion of the chat, I decided to find a short film that I had a bigger part in. It happen to be one that I thought up and starred in. I was around 8 years old, and it was based off of my favorite book, Bernstein Bears. It has my sister in it as well. Every time I go back to these short films, I really appreciate them, because they not only remind me of my life back then. So I thought that this short would allow the audience to see how ridiculous these films were, but yet allow them to share a personal experience with me. 

I am not big on journaling, nor am I big on documenting my life in any way that consists of me writing down memories of mine. Personally I regret not writing down what happens in my life, because this just makes it easier for me to forget great moments that I have. The way that I chose to document the memories that I create, is film them. Sometimes I would create a story for them to go along with, and other times I would just film for fun. So when I look back on all of my films, I really love seeing how I looked back at the time, and the people that I was with. I see all the changes that I have gone through. Whether it be my appearance, or my friends, or my style, or even my interests. There was a video that I made 10 years ago of literally my family doing nothing. I thought it was fun to film them all in their own element. At the time, I thought that it was just a random idea of mine, but when I watch them today, I notice so many things that I had forgotten. I would see what I had hanging on my wall, or what movies I was obsessing over. It is so liberating watching the past. It reminds me of all the things I have done with my life. 

These short films help my realize that I have a great amount of memories that are waiting for me to watch or even share. It also reminds me of my passion of filmmaking. I personally believe in documenting our lives in any way we choose. I just want everyone to remember all the memories that we all have, and that they helped us with our development as a human being.