It seems minor, but when Giancarlo Esposito’s character, “Buggin’ Out,” gets his Air Jordans scuffed by the Boston Celtics fan, triggering an argument, it was the first time I saw something and said “That is my life.” This little moment gave credibility, in a weird way, to the world in which I lived. My fellow Brooklynite Spike Lee had made something that resonated with me like nothing before. But when we watched Do the Right Thing (1989), I was locked in.

From Godfrey Reggios’s Koyanisqaatsi (1982), to Billy Wilder’s Double Indemnity (1944), to Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), my eyes were being opened to a world I’d never known existed. Chase would show us laser discs of some of the most obscure films I’d ever seen. Chase sure noticed, and commended me on understanding the language of film. I don’t know where I got that shot from, or how I knew it would “work,” but Mr.

Thinking I could condense time (because who wants to watch a character walk down two flights of stairs and open multiple doors), I cut from a shot of her on the platform to a shot of the AT&T logo above the street-level payphone, tilting down to her as she walked up to make a call. My story required that I get her character from the train platform down to the street. I was shooting at the South Orange train station, and my girlfriend at the time, Savena, was the star of the project. The first film project I made was met with a nugget of praise that inspired me to keep going.

It was also where I’d first met Emily Konopinski, a freshman in the class and someone who would prove, like my friend Joe Mettle, to be a crucial partner on my post-film school endeavors. This class was an elective, mostly populated by students trying to find an extra 45 minutes in the day to nap, but for me it was exactly what I’d been looking for. To say I had finally found my passion would be an understatement. After a brief stint where I wanted to be an architect, I took a Super 8 mm filmmaking class taught by Mr.

Transitions by Pete Chatmon