I made Pep Talk when I was back home from film school for winter break in the year 2022. I wrote it in one day, then shot it with my brother two days later after a few screen test. I'm pretty proud of the film overall. I think my concept is very good and my brothers performance is more than stellar. I'd like to remake it one day with some script revisions and a better location. I might even expand upon the idea to make it more emotionally complex. In the mean time I'm content with this.

My brother and I were walking around down town Rockford eating ice cream and talking about life. Somehow the subject started to shift to what are next summer film project should be. By the time we'd both finished our ice cream we'd come up with the main plot of the comedy short film Bros Night.
This is the tightest script I ever managed to put together. It manages to supply the audience with a good set up, fast paced execution, and what I think is a really fun, and somewhat surprising pay off. The fact that my younger brother co-wrote this with me definitely helped. We worked off each other really well, on screen and off.
The real revelation, however, is the performance of my best friend Jon Haagsma! During the production we both knew that this was the last film we'd be doing together for a long time, because at the end of senior year he was going into the Air Force. He gave a hilarious performance, and was rewarded with the 2021 Best Actor Award!

Which One is a non-dialogue short I made for my directing class at Motion Picture Institute. It's a simple story about how the little decision you make can have a greater impact on your life than you might expect. My two leads Mateo and Alivia were a blast to work with, and they did a phenomenal job for me. I think this film contains a lot of really cute moments, and it was fun for me to show that side of myself.  However, being 100% honest, if I were to do this project again I would pick an even simpler story to film. My screenwriting instructor warned me that what I'd written might be too complex and human to be made with absolutely no conversation; but, like a true film student, I decided to just nod along while he spoke and go make my movie. In hindsight, I think my teacher was right. The story comes across through the visuals, sometimes even quite effectively, but it would have been even more effective if I'd just saved it for a dialogue driven project. Even with all that in mind I'm still glad I made the film. I learned so much about the pre-production process. My eyes were open to the fact that a great deal of the important work for a movie is done months before the cameras roll. I also learned a lot about scheduling and making sure that everyone in the cast and crew were available for the days I wanted to shoot. If an actor or crew member wasn't available I got to exercise the problem solving part of my brain.
The important thing for me was that the people in my class really seemed to enjoy it. They said very kind things and provided me with very insightful constructive criticism.  I also passed the assignment, so what more can you ask for?

I made this little documentary as a companion piece to the Lowell Pink Arrow Art Prize Entry. It was a fantastic experience! The best part about it was getting to collaborate with the Lowell High School art teacher, Sarah Ellis. She really had a vision for the project, and I'm glad she recruited me to help bring it to life.

I love about 85% of this movie. Using my three favorite things in the whole world: My bother, my dog, and peanut butter; I was able to write and direct a short film that was funny, well acted, and appropriately weird. Than I kind off stumbled on my last few steps to the finish line. I think I could've come up with a much better ending. But hey, a B+ isn't bad, and the film got my brother Hayden an award for Best Actor at the 2021 Kent County Teen Film Festival. 

In the year 2019 I was going though a Charlie Chaplin phase, and this is what came of it. In all seriousness, I think this is a very sweet movie that earned me a very sweet MVP trophy at the 2020 Kent County Teen Film Festival.

I wrote and directed this film during the summer of 2020 while camping in Canada Creek Ranch. The Covid 19 Pandemic was at it's absolute worst, and I was feeling very weary and uncertain about the future. This movie was my way of expressing that uncertainty. It's a simple coming of age story about two friends who know that they're inevitably going to drift apart. Upon re-watch, I find the script to be pretty mushy and trite; but it worked! I submitted it to the 2021 Kent County Teen Film Festival and received the Award for Best Live Action Short. To this day I feel honored and humbled that the judges and audience received it so warmly; and, despite the fact that some of the sound editing and mixing makes me want to bury myself alive, I'm proud of this film.

I made this film because I wanted people to see that my brother Hayden was starting to become a very talented young actor. He'd recently blown me away with his performance in Lowell High Schools stage production of A Delightful Quarantine, and I wanted others to be as impressed as I was! Today we both agree that this film doesn't represent either of our best work; but it brought us closer together as creators and (more importantly) as brothers.

This was just something I made for fun during my freshman year of high school. I had just started filming on my first ever Canon Camera (the T6) and it's clear that I was far from being a master when it came to things like audio, white balance, shutter speed, and iso. My goal with this film was to make my friends laugh, and I succeeded in that :)

This was the second video project I did with Lowell High Schools' art teacher Sarah Ellis. It's part of a 12-video series in which we interviewed 12 brave women struggling with various forms of cancer.  The stories they told were as real and harrowing as the were powerful and important. Hearing there accounts did more than just make me a better content creator. It helped make me a better person.

I made this short film when I was 13, with my best friend Jon Haagsma in the lead role. I was influenced by a 1960s black-and-white horror classic, The Haunting. This would go on to be the first film I ever submitted to the Kent County Teen Film Festival, where it played as a finalist! I really like some of the shots Middle School Ethan came up with, but I had a lot to learn about writing proactive characters. The lead in this movie takes absolutely no action in the story. Creepy things just seem to happen around him as he stares in perplexed awe and fear. I would quickly come to realize that this did not make for very compelling drama.