UWRF URSCA Gala - December 2nd, 2025
On December 2nd, the University of Wisconsin - River Falls hosted its annual Fall Gala for the URSCA department. At this gala, many different projects were shown off, including my most recent project, Behind The Curtain: The Jason Show Story. This was one of the first times I got to show off Behind The Curtain to people before its official release on December 5th. This was an incredible opportunity to display my hard work and effort put into the documentary.
When presenting Behind The Curtain, I got to reflect on the work that I put into it for the three months I spent working on it. I reflected on the connections I made with Jason Matheson and his incredible team on The Jason Show. I also reflected on my growth as a filmmaker and how this project made me step outside of my comfort zone in unexpected ways. I have never created a documentary before, so this project was a huge undertaking for me, not only for that reason but also because of how important The Jason Show is. I knew I was going to have to put in a lot of work in order to do it justice.
I am incredibly proud of the way the documentary turned out, and its reception from the team at Fox 9 and The Jason Show has been incredible as well.
A Reflection on my Journey
On June 29th, 2015, I created a YouTube channel where I made small video game review videos for fun. Most of the time these videos had no coherent script or thought put into them, I more so just turned on a camera and started talking. As I got older and kept making these videos, I found myself getting better and improving at my editing skills, and even began writing scripts for these videos. I kept at it making these videos all the way until my first semester of college where I created my last video on the "JGUY" channel; "The Christmas Party".
In my second semester of college, I joined a class where we were tasked with creating a web series throughout the spring. This is where I cemented my love and joy for the filmmaking process and the people around it. I learned a lot from this class both technically and personally. I attribute this class and the people I worked with to teaching me my skills I know today with filmmaking. I always say that I am self taught, which for the most part I am, but these people are the ones who pushed me into the deep end where I got to learn as I went.
Now as I enter my final semester of college, I look back and my silly little video game videos I made a decade ago. I see those videos as my small steps to get me to where I am today. I fell in love with filmmaking when I was young thanks to may factors. A small video game YouTube channel, a high school news program, a multi part web series, and even a documentary about a talk show.
If there is one piece of advice I would give to everyone when it comes to becoming something you want, it's to do one thing...
