I heart Metaphors

When I began pre-production on my first short film, I started thinking about what to call my budding (or pre-budding!) little production company. A lot of people use various interpretations of their names or where they live, and others use some object or term that has some kind of personal meaning behind it. For me, I went with something that reminded me of home and who I am at my core.

Like many people that live and work in the Houston area, I am a transplant. I grew up in North Louisiana, in the middle of the Kisatchie National Forest. Those gosh-darn pine trees were all around me. As a kid, we’d throw pine cones and poke each other with the pine needles. That was the extent of the fun though. You can’t climb them – they just go straight up. This was also the reason they were pitiful shade-makers. The sap dripped onto the top of my first car, and one big pine almost fell on our house during a bad storm. My step-grandpa would carve things out of pine to give as gifts, which, honestly, I rolled my eyes at as a teenager. When I moved away, those “good-for-nothin’” pine trees became a kind of symbol for the things I hated about living way out in the woods. Maybe they are good for burning and making paper, but that’s it. I ran away from the forest as fast as I could.

However, life has a funny way of bringing things full circle and teaching you lessons as an adult. (Wow, is that cliché or what?) Almost exactly one year before I shot my own first short film, suicide caused an emotional earthquake in my family. My step-mom, who had been married to my dad since I was a baby, decided to take her own life. I spent 9 days in a row glued to my dad’s side and with my two paternal brothers. It changed my life, in every sense of the term “change”. During the healing process, I started to appreciate the things that came from my step-mother that made me who I am. Those pine trees are right in the middle of it. I have a small heart-shaped wooden plaque she gave me when I was young, and when I ran across it while packing last year – it hit me.

My core, my heart is made of a material that is strong, but pliable. It is not stone, but it is not mush. I CAN withstand a lot, and I HAVE, but I have scars there as well. And that’s ok. I want Pine Heart Productions to be an extension of me, but an outlet for my colleagues as well. Don’t get me wrong, my products will not all be sappy, life-changing, dramatic, artsy movies and videos.  Some of them will just be silly! HUMOR is a big part of who I am (I get that more from my mom’s side), and how I’ve gotten by for so long without going *completely* crazy. But, I hope to always remember where I came from and how my past will help me get to where I’m going. As for my audience, I hope that others just enjoy the ride and learn a little more about themselves in the process. At the least, I just want to make you smile and think about things a tiny bit differently.