Hero
There's a lot of controversy thrown around whenever someone mentions the word hero. What is a hero? What truly makes a hero? Is a hero someone who enters your life? Begins your life? Or someone who you look at from afar? What makes someone heroic?
I question this today simply because right now I find myself at a crossroad in life. I feel like in the past year many of my dreams have died. I've put a lot of my hopes and aspirations aside as I've come to terms with what my life will most likely be. And for me, in the long run, I believe this to be a good thing.
I no longer live under the assumption that I will one day be rich. I no longer operate under the assumption that I will one day be famous. I do know that I will be
successful, but I no longer think that success will be blindly given to me.
So that brings me to question much in my life, but a good thing I've been doing is questioning, what do I want my life to look like? What do I want to do with it? And finally, whose life do I want to emulate?
Behold, my first hero:
For those of you who don't know who that is, this man is Andrew Cymek. He's the director of Dark Rising, Medium Raw and yes, even Weeber. It's because of him that I had any contact at all with the film medium and broke into ACTRA. Because of this man I decided that maybe this whole actor thing could work out one day. It hasn't yet, but the important thing is that there is always hope for the future.
So what makes this man so heroic to me? Well, allow me to show you something.
This movie is Medium Raw. Those of you who troll me on IMDB will surely recognize this movie as the one where I star as the Voice of the Asylum. Andrew directed this movie, and while it was very heroic of him to cast me in it, that is not (just) what makes him heroic to me.
Tonight I watched the commentary for this movie and though I'd heard stories about it while working with Andrew, hearing the commentary added a new level to the depth of it for me. By the time I was involved in the movie, the film had already been made, edited and for the most part was complete. {Andrew gave me a few lines to read into a tape recorder in the middle of freezing cold North Bay... (I guess that's redundant, but still relevant I swear!)}
Anyway, this movie was a ten year process for him. Over the course of a decade this idea went from a concept to a full fledged movie. I'm not really doing it justice when I look through this, but this project damn near killed him and he saw it through to completion.
Everything that could go wrong on this set did, and he still kept going. He had his funding pulled twice? Possibly three times? And still he persisted. He kept going. He kept working on it and through his hard work he got his movie made.
Is it perfect? No. Is it a masterpiece? No. Is it good? Absolutely. You look at his first movie and compare it to this one and you can see the man growing as a director by leaps and bounds. (Don't hate, I love Dark Rising OBVIOUSLY, but this movie does a great job of showing his growth, and the directions he could go once the Dark Rising franchise is finished).
Because of this man I got to meet some amazing people who I still hold near and dear to my heart. He exposed me to the entire Dark Rising family and really helped me come out of my shell in a lot of ways.
On the fist day of filming for DR2, I was a nervous wreck. I kept thinking to myself that somehow this man had made a huge mistake by hiring me to play Weeber. Was I prepared? Was I excited? Yes. Was I so nervous I could plotz? Absolutely. But thankfully I was accepted into the ranks and always treated as an equal.
Andrew is a dear friend to me, and as he and his team continue the Dark Rising adventure without me (for now... I have a feeling Weeber shall return. Lets hope it's before I'm 30) I wish him nothing but the best.
I was supposed to talk more about Medium Raw and how much I admire the man for creating something so painstakingly over the course of a decade. If nothing else I want him to know that he inspires me to do more. He inspires me to know that I can do more, and though it may take a while, things will eventually start to move in my favour.
So thank you Andrew. Thanks for being my hero.
