I'm a firm believer that the universe has a way of shaping you, shifting you, and prodding you along until you've ultimately landed on the road that encapsulates your life's journey.
When we're kids, we look at the world and we think that there are endless possibilities for us out there. And that's only fair, right? When you're young, the world should be your oyster, set to conquer at the moment that you deem to be right. Our parents, our relatives, our teachers, and our fellow adult human beings just have to play along with the idea that any boy or girl can be anything that they want to be when they grow older.
Then we grow up.
And we become something else entirely.
And that's really, really okay. Trust me.
When I was a teenager, I wanted to be a filmmaker. Specifically, I wanted to be a screenwriter. That obsession started back in the eighth grade in my Language Arts class when my buddies and I chose to do film projects for pretty much every assignment we were ever assigned in that class. Hey, it got our creative juices flowing, so why would you ever stop it? It was fun, it was stimulating, and if I can just take a brief second to toot our own horn, my friends and I were quite good at what we were able to do, even at just 13 years of age at the time. It felt like there was something there, and so it was something that I pursued.
Flash forward to just a few years later in my senior high days, and a screenplay that I'd written, entitled 'Sinners Repent', had grabbed the attention of someone online, who said that they worked for some production company called Paradigm. They were interested in the script and offered me $1500 for it, with the condition that I change the ending to leave the door open for potential sequels. I can vividly remember feeling very excited about the opportunity that was almost sitting in my lap, but at the same time, the idea of changing the ending of the script irked me because I felt that I'd written a stand-alone story that was complete and finished. I didn't want to "open that door", so to speak.
In the end, I turned down the offer. Looking back, the only thing I can do is laugh at the whole thing. You were a kid, ya dummy! You couldn't use $1500 at the time?!?!? Your family couldn't use that kind of dough? But the flip side of that entire situation kind of has me going, 'Eh, all right. You go, kid. Keep those artistic principles!' Of course, $1500 is $1500, and I didn't see one penny of it. To that end, nothing really became of the script at all as I didn't shoot it or really do anything with it outside of this all-too-brisk encounter with an "almost payday".
In the last few months of my Grade 12 year, I can remember attending an information session about the Vancouver Film School that was held at a hotel in Saskatoon. It seemed impressive, but something about it just kind of came off as, I don't know, "manufactured", I guess? It was like they'd done this song and dance before and knew just what to promise any interested or prospective students.
When it came right down to it, Vancouver wasn't for me, but another BC city starting with the letter 'V' was, and that was Victoria. In June of 2005, I was accepted into the Motion Picture Production class at the Victoria Motion Picture School, set to start at the beginning of September. Fast forward, and by the time the summer was over and I was all packed up, here came the tearful goodbyes and all that emotional riff-raff before my mom and I drove out West. That drive and that journey was one of the most memorable times in my life, and it's something that I'll always remember about my late mom because it was just ours, this one thing of ours.
By the time school started up, I was in for some major eye-opening at the age of 20. Drop one small town prairie kid in the heart of a downtown progressive West Coast city, and culture shock doesn't even begin to describe it. Victoria was vibrant, alive, with always something to do and see, and it's the kind of city where you can almost feel the heart beating under your feet. Although I guess that'd be the ocean.
My time in Victoria is a span of eight months that I'll always remember for the rest of my days. I learned the ins and outs of movie set etiquette, I worked with some talented individuals, and I was able to fine-tune my writing and storytelling abilities. There were so many laughs shared, so many tears shed, and so many memorable moments that I almost wish there was a way to bottle those eight months so that I could go back every once in a while and experience it again. Life just has a way of containing those shimmering moments in time for us, and the memories always produce a smile.
But when I came home, there were virtually no options for a Saskatchewan-born screenwriter. I could go get a "job" with some local production crew where you're "paid with experience" while probably having to sling burgers or pump gas, or I could maybe get a job pulling cables on some show like Corner Gas. In the end, I answered an ad in the pages of The Outlook newspaper, and here I still am almost 17 years later.
So what exactly happened? Well, life happened. Things turned, they twisted, and I saw the forest through the trees. I got older, I realized that this screenwriting thing wasn't going to happen on a professional level for me, and I was okay with that. Instead, I found my voice in the news world as a journalist, and I'm proud to have been fine-tuning that every week since then.
Things change in life. Sometimes that change is exactly what you needed.
Even if you can't see the forest for the trees.
For this week, that's been the Ruttle Report.
