Loose Change: A Memoir of Childhood

The narrative throughline of Loose Change: A Memoir of Childhood is based on my own experience as a kid where I walked an awful long way to a pet store to by my hamster, Rodent, a new cage. Only to find when I returned home no more rodent. This is not the only element of autobiography in Loose Change, but the most direct. For the most part, Loose Change is a look at my own delayed adolescence of spending money in places and on things that might not have been the wisest, but nonetheless a part of growing up.

Memories of childhood, or at least mine, are a bit obscure and often leading to the dots not connecting, however the structure of feeling remains. This is what I attempted to capture in this film, hence the vivid production design and use of the wide angle lens.

Loose Change: A Memoir of Childhood has been over 11 years in the process of making. The script was first developed in graduate school, and then slowly produced as I learned how to be a fiction filmmaker. Along the way I received tremendous support from my former and current students and colleagues at the University of Colorado Denver. In particular, Jaime King, Nasheka Richardson, and Yonas Seltene were the first students to profoundly demonstrate their belief in me and the film, quickly followed by my wickedly talented colleague Jessica McGaugh who signed on to be Director of Photography.

Loose Change: A Memoir of Childhood marks my first expression as a fiction filmmaker.