My cousin got me into movies by showing me a student film that he had made for a class. When I saw this I was about seven years old and it was after seeing this film that made me realize what I wanted to do with my life. I wanted to make movies. While watching the movie all I could think of was how he was making these people fly or walk in the air and I observed movies in that light ever since. I just figured everyone thought this way and the ideas that would pop into my head were normal. I never considered myself as an artist, but when I would analyze movies and tell my dad how I viewed movies he told me that not everyone thinks that way and he could see how passionate I was towards films. When I started making them I would always get excited going behind that camera whether it was a big day or a quick little scene, everything seemed amazing to me. When I would show my dad these films that I worked on, he pulled me to the side and simply said “Joe, this is what you have to do.” This was when I realized that what I had was a gift and that I couldn’t give up.

Ever since I started making my own films, not only would I get better at in, I was also getting more advanced experiences.  When I was in Nashville, Tennessee over the summer, one of the crewmen I was working with said something that struck me.  We make television.  We get to entertain people for a living, and we have the pleasure to make what people watch everyday.  This stuck with me ever since he said that, and it has been a piece of my inspiration to my work.  I want to make films where people can escape into a whole other world and make them experience many different feelings with something that I have created.

Over the years, I have created a sharper image of the style of movies I want to make.  It's kind of funny because when I'm around my friends, I am always told how funny I am and that my friends and I should create comedies.  I usually can't write whenever I want, an idea usually has to come to me and they always arrive at the most random times, but the best ideas I come up with are probably the last thing to comedies.  I usually write thrillers and dramas, and as funny I may be around my friends, I have always found comedies to be the hardest kind of movies for me to write.  While I write I have always found examples of my favorite directors in my work.  The films made by Alfred Hitchcock, Quentin Tarantino, the Coen Brothers, Wes Anderson, and so on have always been the kind of films that really get to me, which is probably why I can't write comedies.