Speech

William Townsend

H. English II Per. 8th

Speech

This award is the greatest award that any director can ever achieve in his or her career. It is the award we dream of as kids, and the award we battle for as adults. Year after year, us directors bring screenplays to life; whether it’s one we wrote. or one written by a talented writer, in hopes of winning this award, and this year it is my honor to humbly accept the Achievement in Directing Academy Award.

When I finally started telling people that I wanted to be a filmmaker when I got older, they couldn’t believe it. They would ask me, “Why?, Why would you let all of that muscle go to waste? Why don’t you play sports, bodybuild, or bodyguard? Why?” I would always tell those people, “It’s easy to build muscle, but making movies is hard, and I’m not one to take the easy way out.” When I was first starting out, I didn’t have all of the equipment or gear that I needed to make a good short film, but I didn’t let that stop me. I started saving money to get the equipment I needed. I knew that writing was an important part of the filmmaking process, so I began to write scripts every week, while I saved. The first scripts I wrote weren’t any good, and I couldn’t quite figure out why. Not knowing how to write a good script lead me to read scripts that were written for the Best Picture nominees. The more I read, the better my writing got, and the better my writing got, the more I wrote. When I had finally saved up enough money to get all of the equipment I needed to make a good, film-like short, I started filming the scripts I wrote; starting with my least favorites ones, because I didn’t want to ruin any of the good ones. Week after week, I filmed my shorts. Eventually senior year came around, and I was accepted in one of the most prestigious film schools in the world; USC. It was there where my love of film grew even stronger. There is where I started to write feature length scripts. There is where I wrote the film that won me this award. Winning this award has taught me the greatest lesson anyone can learn. If you have a dream that is truly your own, and not one that everyone is trying to sell to you, then making that dream into a reality will come easy. Sure it will be challenging along the way, and sometimes a bit discouraging, but when you have a dream that is very near and dear; you’d do just about anything to make it come true.