Little Black Book asked filmmakers how they fell in love with film this Valentine's Day and director and creative executive producer Ryan Patrick takes us down memory lane:
Growing up in Florida in the '90s, I had an unusual film education: I was spending my weekends and summers looking around the sound stages at Disney World and Universal Studios. The theme parks back then were obsessed with demystifying movie magic—pulling back the curtain on short films they made for the parks. It transformed filmmaking from this distant Hollywood idea into something tactile and achievable.
Like many, Indiana Jones and Star Wars also provided that initial spark. And later, discovering Michel Gondry and Spike Jonze through the Director's Label DVDs revealed what was possible in short-form storytelling. But it was that early, intimate exposure to the craft at theme parks that really shaped my perspective.
The final piece clicked into place in high school when I discovered Adobe Premiere. I'd vanish into the software for entire weekends, emerging dry-eyed but increasingly confident in my grasp of how editing worked. I even started negotiating with teachers to accept video essays in place of written papers—which many, somewhat surprisingly, embraced.
Those countless park visits and late—night editing sessions did more than teach me filmmaking – they wired me to tell stories. Every shoot still feels like I'm sneaking behind that theme park curtain, looking for a bit of that magic.
Ryan Patrick
Read Ryan and other directors' responses here on Little Black Book Online.
