After graduating high school, I had no idea what I was going to do. My father suggested I go to a state college, Old Dominion University, since my brother was there and he had the family typewriter.

For some reason, I declared my major as Psychology and instantly began flunking the first required course, Statistics. One night, coming home from class, I passed a bunch of students hanging out in front of a building. I said, “What’s going on?”

A girl said, “We’ve started a Film Society. You want to join?”

I said, “What’s a Film Society?”

I joined after she told me. The film they were showing that night was one I’d never heard of; “La Strada” by Federico Fellini. I can distinctly recall the sensation of having my mind officially blown.

The Society went on to show “Rashoman,” “The Seventh Seal,” “Viridiana,” “Breathless,” “The 400 Blows,” “Woman In The Dunes,” “The Bicycle Thief,” and “Closely Watched Trains.” I went to every screening and felt the same explosion.

Old Dominion did not have a film school. But I changed my major to Creative Writing and began reading Shakespeare, Faulkner, Joyce, and Kafka, meanwhile taking a lot of photographs with my brother’s camera.

I went to the campus library and looked up film schools. There was one in NYC that caught my eye: New York University Graduate Film School. I submitted a portfolio of my photographs and four short stories.

To my great astonishment, I got accepted. One could say going to Old Dominion University to use the family typewriter changed my life.