Beau Babics, Film & Media Arts BFA, Senior, Graduating Fall 2021, beaubabics.com

Since starting my education at the University of Tampa, I began to realize how little I actually knew about filmmaking. I had never taken any proper film production classes in high school and only grew my knowledge through YouTube and practice. Looking back at my first films at UT, I think lesser of them as every day passes. Films that I thought were great at the time make me self-loathe now. This is a good thing because it means I’ve grown and matured as a filmmaker. My introduction to the film department was Professor Márcio Gonçalves who I took for Sound, Image, and Motion. He helped lay the foundation for what I know now. Professor Santiago Echeverry helped push me in new directions which I never thought I’d be skilled at in the world of digital creation. Professor Aaron Walker helped me hone down my skills as a storyteller and exposed me to dozens of extremely high-quality films.

Cinematography is my main focus in film and it is my greatest strength. Conveying stories visually and capturing them exactly in the perspective I want the audience to see is invigorating. To me, it is about telling the story as best as I can with as little distraction as possible. I strive to create beautiful images but I don’t want that to be the main focus. If I do my job properly, I suck the audience into the story and immerse them in the world of the film.

The area I struggle the most is coming up with the stories I tell. Scriptwriting is my least favorite part of the filmmaking process. I don’t know what it is, but there is often a mental blockage of being able to create worlds and interesting characters on the page. That being said, after taking Screenwriting Shorts with Aaron Walker, my lack of skill has been slowly chiseling away. He has helped simplify the scriptwriting process and made me think about telling stories on the page in a different way.

After I graduate, I would like to start working at a production company as a cinematographer. My dream is to work on big, well recognized films so I have to start somewhere. My education has helped me become a well-rounded filmmaker and creator. All of the production classes have enabled me to build a portfolio of films and improve my reel to show what I’m capable of.