Where the Sky Ends: A Story of Beginnings

This ASL movie entitled "Where the Sky Ends", directed by Sean Christopher, who also wrote The Blue Box and has been involved in a big or small way in nearly all my other projects. We shot this film within a few days using an HVX200 camera and basic lighting. This is an inspiring story about a young boy who is given a birthday present that will change the rest of his life!

We all have moments in our lives that set in motion a series of events that creates the person we become. While this story isn't based on my life, there are striking similarities between the young lad and myself. When I was 13 I had a hearing friend, Mike who always talked about making movies. I still remember reading, "Dude, we should make movies or something." from his lips over and over again! That was the first time I wondered about filmmaking and developed a growing desire to learn more about filmmaking.

Mike moved away a few years later and I started hanging around with my Deaf friends more often. One haunted Halloween night after a party I don't remember, I found my car on the side of the road where I parked it in very bad shape! Someone scrapped their car along the side of my car. Turned out to be some drunken lady whose excuse was that she dropped her keys and was looking for them while driving and hit my car (uh, the keys where in the ignition slot lady!). Anyway, long story short, the insurance company gave me two choices, $1500 to total the car or $1300 for me to get it fixed. My dad was confident he and I could fix it so we took the $1300 and ended up spending only $300 or so fixing it. My mom and I shared the car so we split the money. Don't worry, I have a point to this story.

Christmas was coming up and my parents asked what I wanted. I said, "I want a camcorder!" My dad laughed (our usual Christmas limit was around $100, if I remember right) he said it would cost too much money. I gave him the $500 from the accident and said, "I want a camcorder, get me the best you can find with this money". So I got my first camcorder, it was a VHS-C JVC camcorder and it was awesome! I took a filmmaking course in High School. My friends and I made our first film: "The Blob" .



I've copied this video so many times and the quality has seriously deteriorated! Looking back, I wished I preserved my videos better. At the time we didn't have any editing system, we eventually added music and titles when we had access to an editing system in High School. Anyway, we had a blast! We couldn't stop making movies. So, that's the story of how one car accident presented the opportunity that led to my aspiration to become a Deaf filmmaker.

Lance