A Personal Collage Essay

(This essay was originally submitted with this artwork.)

My name is Gabriel Rhenals.

I am a filmmaker. I consider myself a filmmaker of the new digital video age where anything thought can be filmed (digitally shot) by anyone. Filmmaking is an extension of my natural need to communicate ideas and perceptions. It is a vital artform and tool in a day where totalitarian ideals (patriotism) are seeping into a seemingly democratic society.

Some of my most favorite contemporary filmmakers are Martin Scorsese, George Lucas, Peter Weir and Richard Linklater. Currently, my films are primarily concerned with the enduring conflict between society and the natural state of man. It's a heavy subject and seems more relevant than ever considering that each of us are a citizen of the most expansive empire that the world's ever known (U.S.).

I am very fond of music, specifically orchestral, non-vocal music. There are some pieces that have truly shaped my thoughts and actions. My favorite composers come from the Romantic era and are Bartok, Tchaikovsky, Beethoven, Mendelssohn, Saint-Saens and Schubert. Music also plays a large role in my filmmaking and is an inspiration to many of my to-be-produced screenplays.

Politically, I see the world ruled in the hands of too few people; an oligarchy that is naturally limited. Due to this limitation, the world's developed population seems to have given up on invaluable things like human rights and labor discipline; thus, leaving the developed world a crying, helpless baby. My favorite theme in the post-modern age reflects this; a poignant theme that describes the control of media as the control of minds. This is essentially the most important issue in the world today.

World opinion has been thrust irretrievably, I think, in a direction of decadent materialism and empty sentimentality. The oligarchy has created, through our blind acceptance, a system of life which holds us to vulnerable bonds such as marriage and family. This system keeps us from understanding universally good ideals such as brotherhood and equality between all people.

We, as middle-classers, are too dependent on one another and, by the means of mainstream media, are too slow to identify the rest of humanity as equal if they're seen as not having similar possessions or a proper religion.

In conclusion, ideas and tools of a very pluralistic and collective quality form my very being.