My name is Twm and I'm 18 years old, yeah I know it's a strange name, it's Welsh, because I'm from Wales. (It's in the UK next to England) I really like my name, and I'm proud of where I'm from because Wales is one of the most beautiful countries in the world, and everyone here is lovely, Wales has a sense of a really old British community and I love that. Here's Brecon which is around the corner from my home.
So why is a teenage boy from a rural countryside community blogging about movies? Well I've always had a love for cinema because it's played a massive part in my life growing up. My family couldn't really afford to take me and my brothers abroad for holidays, but they always wanted the best for us as a family and tried to make the most of our situation. So they took me to the cinema or we went camping, it may sound pretty boring for some people but it's all my family could afford to do and I love and respect them so much for making the most out of what they could do for us.
The first film I can remember watching in the cinema was Monsters Inc in 2001, so I would have been around 3/4 years old, I can remember it surprisingly well for the age I was. I can remember sitting there excitement for the film to start with my popcorn and drink that were bigger than I was and it was the best feeling ever. Here's a picture of my local cinema that I attended a lot growing up and I still continue visit frequently. It's a really old pretty building that opened in 1938, sadly it doesn't get much of an audience so most of the time I find myself sat in an empty cinema to myself.
When I wasn't in the cinema or watching films at home I was out making my own adventures in the countryside around home, which there was a lot of, I was quite popular growing up so I had a lot of friends to spend time with. Pretty much every Saturday we'd go out into the woods, playing hide and seek, building rope swings, fighting and arguing with each other, building dens, climbing trees and cliffs, swimming in rivers, playing in the mud and just being general nuisances. I may have wound a lot of adults up in my childhood, but that's what kids do right? And I wouldn't change an aspect of my childhood because it was perfect.
Obviously since I've matured a lot, and I'm no longer playing in the mud, my love of movies and cinema is still there immensely, in fact I'd say it's the biggest passion in my life. I'm currently studying Media, Film Studies and Religious Studies at A level at college, which is about 17 miles from home and closer to the big city. I'm studying Film and Media at college because I plan on studying a masters degree in Directing Fiction at the National Film and Television School in London so I can pursue my life dream of becoming a director, my parents aren't really too happy with what I want to do because they'd rather me choose a more practical career like a lawyer or architect, but sorry mum and dad I'm being a director and it's a career I'm willing to chase if it means giving it my absolute everything. Here's a picture of me in college with my friends from media class Dale and Claire. (I'm the little guy in the middle holding the sign, yes I'm wearing a tshirt from the movie The Birds, because I love Alfred Hitchcock.)
So who are my inspirations? Well my biggest influences are Martin Scorsese and Quentin Tarantino. My first introduction to Martin Scorsese's work was in Gangs of New York and it blew me away, which then led on to me watching films like Casino, The Departed, Goodfellas and my personal favourite Taxi Driver. And now onto Tarantino, Quentin Tarantino was the first serious movie director that wasn't Dreamworks or Disney. In fact the first time I watched Pulp Fiction I was 8. Yeah crazy I know but let me explain the story.
So I know earlier on I was talking about being a rebellious child growing up and this is a perfect example of that. My parents had just bought Pulp Fiction on DVD and it was the first time they had seen it since the release in 1994, so they were talking about the film over dinner and the story intrigued me, so I asked if I could watch it, and I was told no for obvious reasons (Parents don't want to see their 8 year old child watching Marsellus Wallace being butt fucked), this made me really envious and I needed to see the film, so I stayed up super late until my parents fell asleep, probably around 2 o'clock in the morning because my parents tended to stay up late, I went into their room and stole the Pulp Fiction DVD and sat on the in living room until it was light outside watching Pulp Fiction, I had no clue what was going on because I wasn't old enough to understand, but I absolutely loved every second of it. I'm pretty sure this is where my love of cinema started.
I felt it was necessary to introduce myself and my love of movies to you guys, so there it is that was long and probably pointless introduction about my rebellious childhood and love of films.
Thank you so much if you've read up to this point, means the world, the support I've had already is crazy, almost 1000 pageviews in 5 days, that's crazy, thank you again - Twm the Tree Swinger
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