It was midnight one special Friday night.

It was particularly special because as an 11-year-old staying up past 10 was something I had never done before.

This night was different.

My friend Hunter was over and we were hyped on pre-Halloween candy and having a horror movie marathon.

Just a few on the list were Pumpkin Head, Halloween 2, Leprechaun, Nightmare on Elm Street, and Night of the Living Dead.

When NOTLD came on I had no idea what was about to happen.

My life was forever changed.

Seeing zombies for the first time was extremely frightening. That feeling stuck with me.

It made me want to evoke the same emotions into other people and have a lasting impression. It made me want to make movies.

Over the next few years, I bought a couple of cameras and started making movies on HI-8 film tapes.

Once I got to High School I immediately enrolled in TV Productions.

It wasn't long and I was cranking out video after video in no time while also studying broadcasting by putting on the morning news show.

In 11th grade, I had the opportunity to make a short film for a festival in my area.

I grabbed a few of my friends and in 2 months we had made our first official short film "Plan Si" with a 27 minute run time.

We entered the festival and ended up winning first place in BestStudent Comedy.

The following year I decided to enter it again.

In 12th grade, I again got some friends together and we shot my first official horror film "Cover your Tracks" coming in at 16 minutes.

I again won Best Student Film. I was on cloud nine!

I got accepted to F.I.R.S.T. Institute in Orlando Florida for studies in Film.

From there I wrote and directed our senior project film called, "Roommate."

It was an honor to be chosen as the head of the project.

After graduating in 2011 I moved to Michigan to pursue film where I got hired as an extra on Disney's "Oz: The Great and Powerful." They ended up not using me but it was definitely a wake-up call after Michigan cut the tax incentive that same year.

I ended up moving way up north Michigan where I met a tight-knit group of filmmakers and we ended up doing a bunch of short films in the area.

One of them was my lifelong dream of working on a zombie film.

I got hired to be assistant director on a zombie film called, "WADE."

Starring Kim Poirier of the Zack Snyder film "Dawn of the Dead." A remake of my second favorite George Romero movie. I was loving every minute of it!

After a few other shorts, I took a long break to focus on myself and save money for a move to Cali.

I also started a band so we were making music and music videos.

I then turned to wedding videography as a form of business and have been doing that ever since.

After a long hiatus from filmmaking, I made my return with my film "The Vial."

It's been great being back in the saddle and writing and directing again. I'm currently writing some other projects so stay tuned to see what shenanigans I'll get into over the next year!

Thanks for reading my short life story on my love for film that started with George A. Romero's Night of the Living Dead that made me want to be a filmmaker.

The greatest horror film ever made (in my opinion)