Dateline: 2008 - 2010

DVDMemories was doing well until the economic crash and then people started doing it themselves or not at all — a sad day to not share your precious memories even if I don't do it, but the financial fall in the country — and the world — hit real hard to some while others went on a new diet for their spending.

I kept writing and editing little projects that I could. I took on more website work and joined the Final Cut Pro User group up here and eventually became the President for the local Mac User Group — all in hopes to make connections and find someone that needed my talents.

We made a Raley's commercial, and began writing Chardonnay after working for sometime at Double Oak Winery — a local winery that makes fabulous estate grown & bottled wine — I fell in love with the location: the trees, the vineyard, the open, not polluted with people, out in the boonies acreage — and after getting permission from Bob and Ginny Hilsman; I also got permission to use Friar Tucks — a great restaurant in Nevada City — and Squeeze In — a great restaurant in Truckee; I have some great lead actors and all we need is $300,000.00 to make a 2 hour family oriented, from the heart, tear jerker — some say it's a Lifetime movie and after contemplating it, I figure, why not, my first major production becomes a movie on Lifetime, SWEET!  But we have a long way to go before then, the money is tough to get in these difficult times especially for an unkown writer / director like me.

Kyriè — our daughter — was attending acting workshops and at one of these workshops — in May of 2009 — they mentioned that they needed actors for Access Sacramento's and "A Place Called Sacramento" film festival;   after looking at the site, I saw they also needed CREW, so I put together a few demo reels and my resume and headed down on a Wednesday evening — at their Cast & Crew call — and became the Editor — and audio guy — for Detective A.

I took on the project as though I was competing for an Oscar and making $80,000.00 — of course I wasn't but it was a chance to prove to people up here — and else where — that I have what it takes to be a story teller.   I spent many, many long hours creating a cohesive 10 minute project, as well as, a 16 minute version and 5 trailers.

Not expecting much of anything at the premier — held at the Crest Theater in Sacramento — to my amazement and surprise, I won the "Best Technical Achievement" award.   During the production of Detective A I met Gary Udell and Gary Agid, both excellent actors that I felt needed something more to challenge them, show their talents, and away so I can work with them myself.   Enter Chardonnay into the picture and two of the characters were written with them in mind.

When finding and searching for funding for Chardonny fell flat, I spent more time on the Sacramento Story I began after coming home after the Cast & Crew call — back in May of 2009 — and began to seriously put omething together — if say I wanted to submit something myself.   After 9 minths and 25 revisions — along with hours and hours of researching books in the library — I came up with THE GOLdEN TREE.

After many months of waiting, I was informed that THE GOLdEN TREE was 1 of the 10 winning scripts — out of 45 submitted — in the 2010 contest.   This time I was on thother side of the table at the cast & crew call.

Dateline: circa 2004 - 2007

I finished a 14 monthly post-production program in 8 months at Video Symphony located in Burbank, California. While attending I was lucky — I do have skills though — to get involved with Kevin Church to shoot and edited the BTS of Dave Markey's Lovedolls Superstar: Fully Realized, which is on DVD and for sell at Amazon. I was also involved with Acid Headz car show production called Maximum Street. And I also made friends with Dan Nelson, a very quick and energetic editor, Kristian Gabriel, and Jeanette Dubois. The school and working on projects have enhanced and solidified his skills in the film and video world.

I then decided that after learning about what causes productions to be delayed and seeing several productions get shelved or various reasons, I came home and started Aria Pictures my own independent movie production company. And I lens Paint my first movie where I was in charge of everything and knew that it would get finished — I did not know how good or bad it might be, since I never done everything by myself and direct it. I was amazed that it turned out really good; everyone involved was happy with it. We are now wanting, ready, and waiting to do a follow up to it called Paint² (Paint Squared)

I stay busy doing website work, writing screen plays, plays, novels, composing music, and editing other peoples home movies under the name of DVD Memories looking for that bridge.

Gerry's day-dreams and wishes are about film and music, and this is a great time for the DIY 'ers of the world because technology has made it cheaper, easier, and more available for people that found it hard or stayed away from the big business of entertainment--now he can say what he wants to say when he wants to say it — the crux of being Independent.

Dateline: circa 2001 - 2003

As a WWDC student member I was offered the chance to get a one time hardware purchase through Apple at a 35% markdown. I chose the 17" Powerbook which had a DVD burner; this was the cornerstone that occupied my time. I purchased the full version of Final Cut Pro and DVD Studio Pro and began to edit the hours and hours of footage I took over the past 15 plus years and put into nice organized packages — the powerbook was the answer I needed to further my creativity.

After getting my two AA's from Sierra College I went to CSU Chico to finish up my Bachelors Degree in Computer Science, but realized that was not what I wanted to do — I mean I loved to program, but the school was not the right school to learn it.

Dateline: circa 1995 - 2001

Editing footage began to get easier; the ability to digitize footage into the computer was more accessible and video editing software was coming of age — I tried Adobe Premier, Final Cut Pro, iMovie, and other obscure software titles and found that Final Cut Pro was much easier and much more usable &mdash ;but getting the footage back to a format that was ready to view was still, for me, a bit troublesome;nonetheless, I still worked on my craft and learning the tool. I also picked up my programming interest and attended WWDC.

Dateline: circa 1984 - 1994

I always carried my Canon A1 camera with me and took pictures of anything I could working on my skills as a photographer and pushing my imagination, I also borrowed video cameras to tape events and little stage bits; and eventually purchased a Canon Ultura MiniDV camera that I put 1000's of hours on it — I have over 200 tapes in storage.

Editing the footage was quite difficult and not very inspiring at this time — I did not have the ability to take the footage and put it into the computer and tape to tape editing was quite arduous, so I kept video taping with the thought that one day I would be able to create a library of movies that would be easy to view. I was thinking VHS but wanted DVD.

Dateline: circa 1980 - 1983

MTV began to get popular and I was intrigued by the concept of marring music and moving pictures together. The ability to take the imagery in a song and actually view it was a concept that entranced me, but not having the resources available to produce high-end professional quality recordings and not having the marketing and sales outlets for my music, like with everything else I have tried up to that point in my life, I was at crossing with no bridge to get me over, but I kept on working at it in hopes that one day I would find that bridge.

This was also a time that home-video began to get popular with these over-sized video cameras that were quite expensive. Not having the money to buy one myself I signed up for the TV Productions elective at the high school which gave us access to the cameras and editing bays. I used them anytime I could to learn and practice things that I envisioned; it was wonderful to see what I saw in my mind be seen on a tv screen.

I logged many hours on the camera, writing scripts, editing, and adding music to the video footage — this is where "World Next Door" came to life. There was a video contest and the theme was World Next Door; the TV Production class wanted to enter. The concept we came up with was a person inside a video game was trying to entice someone to play it and when the person played it and won. they were sucked into the game and had to get freed by having someone else play and win. This was a year before TRON came out in the theatres, whatever that may mean.

We never finished it, but I did write a song for it that still survives today, in fact it is not just a song but a Novel, Screen play, and a Music Publishing company.

Dateline: circa 1977 - 1979

With music taking up every waking minute of my day, and some sleepless and dream filled nights, there wasn't much time for another hobby or interest to fit in, but when Star Wars came out my interest in movies woke up — one of many things that was waiting to surface.

Star Wars encompassed everything I felt as a boy, everything I wanted to say, everything I I wanted to do — the imagery, the sound, the story, I absorbed the whole thing into my soul — like all boys, I wished I wrote it, I wanted to be Luke Skywalker or Han Solo — I wanted to be in that world, but I knew it was not real, but I had written similar stories, I had far away worlds, I had fantastic adventures; Star Wars just re ignited the fire, waking my past dreams that were started by the classic movies I saw as a child.