Watching Him Work

If you would have asked me when my sons were teenagers which one of them would become a filmmaker one day, hands down I would have said it would have been Matt. That boy was completely obsessed with the television show Dawson's Creek, and he dreamed of being just like Dawson Leery when he grew up ... a young man who wanted to make movies and become famous. But the dreams of youth are often just that ... the dreams of youth. Matt is now Dr. Matt and is a professor of family studies at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Canada. It's Bradley who grew up to be the filmmaker in our family ... it's Bradley who fell in love with making movies when he was young, and it's Bradley who honed his skills in college and now owns and manages his own film production company.

I spent a couple of hours last Saturday morning with Brad, watching him as he did some filming for a video project he's working on. I watched as he meticulously unpacked all of the lights, cameras and tripods he would need to get the shots he wanted. We chatted as Brad went about setting up all of his equipment, and I smiled several times as he checked and rechecked various items, getting everything set just right. As I watched my son go about his work, I thought, "He loves this so much ... this is what Brad was born to do." Born to do ... those are big words ... my son was born to make movies ... it's his calling, his destiny, his place in the world.

As I drove home after taking Brad and one of his friends to breakfast, my mind was filled with a million different thoughts, one crashing on top of another in rapid succession. I thought about how much Brad loved to pretend when he was little ... one day he was a cowboy, the next Spiderman or an astronaut or Dick Tracy. See, even way back then, Brad was making movies in his mind, constantly creating his own storylines as he played. My son has a gift for telling stories through film ... that's what makes him so amazing at what he does ... he can take a story and make it live and breathe and move and speak on the screen. From the first project he did for his video production class back in high school, I knew that Brad's talent was more than just talent ... he has a gift, a true gift.

Thanks for letting me spend the morning with you, bud, and for letting me watch you work. I'm proud of you, Brad, for so many reasons, but most of all for the man you've become. I've known it since I saw your first film, one of these days ... one of these days, son ... I'll be sitting on the front row at the Academy Awards, crying like a crazy woman when the presenter says, "And the Oscar for best director goes to Brad Johnson."