Light at the end of the Tunnel

Hello my name is Joe Schenkenberg and have a self-designed major in Cinema Studies. A lot of people ask me isn't that the same as Film Studies, but it really isn't. Film Studies deal with more the theory of meanings in certain film. Sure, it can cover some aspects of the total production of a film, but Cinema Studies deals with the entire production of a film. Pre-production, production, and post-production all come into play in my major. I am more interested in making films than understanding the meaning. Not to say that films shouldn't have a meaning, but that is just one aspect of Cinema.
I am 6th year senior that has slowly creeped to the finish line, but the race is almost over. I began my college career at Lees-McRae College in Banner Elk, where I recieved a golf schlorship. I started out as a buisness major then changed to a Communications major. My love for creating films really developed when my parents got a new Mac with editing software and I couldn't stop doing it. Within the Comm major I had access to video equipment, but the classes for overall video production was not abundent at Lees-McRae. So I decided to transfer to Appalachian just down the road which wasn't a hard transition. I was still a Comm major, where the classes at APP provided a better enviroment to learn about audio and video. The classes I took here in the Broadcasting Dept. where very helpful and allowed me to understand the basics of audio, lighting, and video. The only problem was these classes revolved too much around tv and radio, which are two things I loathe. So after a couple of semesters of taking classes like Writing for Electronic Media and Broadcast Media Production I decided to leave the Comm department and continue to take classes that I felt would help me in becoming Cinematically well-rounded. The IDS major was a perfect fit. I now have the abiltiy to take classes in the theatre department, english department, and whichever other department I feel might be best for my self-designed major of Cinema Studies. This will be my 3rd semester as a IDS major, and it will hopefully be my last as well.
Over the summer I produced a 17 minute film that I thought would change the world. I wrote, directed, and produced this film. It was called Sunset Riders. For two months all I did was eat, sleep, and drink this film. It was the only thing I ever thought about and I worked harder than I have ever worked on this project than anything else in my life. Sadly enought when the film was finished it got mixed reviews. At first I was pretty satisified with my film (Sunset Riders), but as time grew I found it more and more repulsive to watch. Why did this film fail and what could I have done better? That is what my senior project will focus on, where I plan to shoot another film this summer that will be very similiar to the production aspects of Sunset Riders. This time I hope to right the wrongs that I made in Sunset Riders and I am going to show you how I am going to achieve this in my senior project and make a truely great film that will live up to all my expectations.