This is just a short post on how Science fiction in movies, books and popular culture have influenced my career choice. I watch a lot of sci-fi, it's my favorite genre. Science fiction has altered my perception and may indeed be one of the biggest factors in how I've evolved as an artist and an even more-so in how I got my start. I can't remember any film that came before Star Wars in 1977 which I saw in a battered old movie theatre in Hollywood Florida. I was seven years old. Yeah I had seen many films before, but I wouldn't have called myself a film buff before then, I was too busy playing basketball and ramp-riding with my bike.

Star Wars opened up a new desire in me. Not to visit space, or have a lightsaber of my own (which was just about every other kids dream), no, after I left the theatre that night, I wanted to make my own Star Wars movie. This was partly pacified by the invent of Star Wars Action Figures, Playsets and Vehicles. My brother and I constructed complex battle scenes in our room using anything and everthing to build our dioramas. You could expect to see such strange building components as irons, scrap wiring, tubing, empty soda cans, paper towel rolls, packing peanuts, vice grips and uneaten spinach smuggled from the kitchen table (to recreate the trash compactor scene, of course). Nothing was quite off limits.

This was when I learned two of the most useful skills as an artist, how to be resourceful and how to apply those resources to my work. It was how I learned that using all the resources at my disposal could turn a project into a success - where people (my parents at the time) would go, "WOW, I can't believe you guys made this, where do you learn all of this stuff?" It made me proud, and that was the payoff.

It wasn't until later that I realized that Science Fiction was what drove me to be creative. After I finished watching Empire Strikes Back, or Blade Runner, or even older sci-fi like "THEM" and The Day The Earth Stood Still, I always felt a charge of creative energy. It was like the worlds that these artists had put together gave me some sort of power and I could then apply that power to my creative work. It was transparent to me then, but it's all too clear where my inspirations and drive to become a succesful artist came from.

Thanks George.