Amanda
Hey whats up I’m Amanda and I loveeee film. So some background first, my dad is an actor and he’s been one ever since college so I got to grow up with movie posters in my living room. He has these really old and worn ones for Casablanca and A Street Car Named Desire that I used to love before I had even seen the movies. So as one can guess, film was just always a part of my life. From my dad telling me about what roles he was auditioning for to him taking me and my sister to the movies every chance we had. I like to say that I’ve spent a big part of my life at the movies. The whole atmosphere is forever etched into my memory, from the smell of way too much butter on my popcorn to the uncomfortable seats that by the end of the movie, I never wanted to get up from. Nothing felt better than sitting down watching the previews and trying to guess what they would be and then getting to become part of a whole new world once the movie started.
My love for movies didn’t end at the theatres though, I would leave and go right home and watch more. My parents had this deep cabinet of movies and I would just pick a random one and put it on. Then one day my parents show me a different kind of movie. It was animated but different than the many Disney and Pixar movies I had seen before. The movie was Kiki’s Delivery Service and I absolutely loved everything about it. After watching this movie all I wanted was more like it. The old Disney just wasn’t enough. So I had my friend over and we watched Spirited Away together. I don’t remember much about my first time watching it except that my friend was absolutely terrified and scarred for life and that I was, on the contrast, ab-so-lut-ely thrilled. I felt like something just sparked inside me and I would never be the same again. Looking back its like I knew what this movie would do for me. Every single time I’ve watched it since its been an amazing trip that I never want to end and now its by far my favorite movie.
Once I had seen Spirited Away and realized that there was so many more movies by the same director, Hayao Miyazaki, I wasted no time becoming obsessed. They became my life, I spent one summer watching every single movie that came out of the studio, Studio Ghibli, and that was probably one of my favorite summers. But then suddenly summer ended and I was out of Ghibli movies to watch. I was distraught thinking that that was all I would be able to see of those fantastical worlds, and characters that I had become so attached to, but then last summer something that I thought would always be a far away dream came true. I went to Japan, and got to go to the Studio Ghibli museum like I had dreamed of for years.
Nothing I have done compares to my experience in that museum. Just walking in through the front door was amazing because there is a beautiful stained glass mural of all the movies combined there to greet you. I can even honestly say it felt like time stopped when I saw the first room that had all the original drawings from the movies pinned all over the walls with not an inch of extra space. All the photos were just too much to take in at once, I remember spending too much time in there making sure I saw as many photos as possible. One of them stood out to me most of all, it was an early drawing of Kiki from Kikis delivery service. Her face was different and she had a different colored bow and I imagined what the film would have been like if they had kept her this way. Staring at this little drawing was so important to me because this was the character from the movie that started it all. The entirety of this one room had me in awe. So much so, I even cried. Now I realize that’s a little dramatic for just some doodles, but these doodles were everything to me. Without those doodles being the base for the characters and scenes that I would come to love, I would not be the person I am today who wants to go into the film industry. These whimsical, mysterious, and just wild films about adventure, friendship, and finding who you are; are at the fore front of what makes me, me.