Viva La Leon!

I used to live in DC in my mid to late 20s. I went there to take a course in video production. At the time it seemed like I was on the right path to better things. Can’t really remember anymore. It was so long ago. I lived with a friend’s girlfriend at the time. She was in graduate school or something. I wasn’t particularly social and I remember her telling me that my chances of meeting people increased exponentially once I ventured outside the apartment and one day she put a personal ad in front of me. It was from an independent film crew looking for more people to fill out their independent film crew. The first time I went out I got lost. Second time I found them. They asked if they could use my Hi8 camera. I said no, but that I’d be the camera guy. We shot a no-budget feature length film that summer, a Slacker-esque approach to the DC riots of ’91 called Ragnarok. It was a total labor of love. I can’t even tell you how much fun we had. It was so much f****** fun! It’s how I met my friends Erik and Glen, who remain my close friends to this day. We called ourselves SVPS Productions (Satan’s Velvet Pant Suit) in the hopes people would ask what it stood for but no one ever did. We entered our film in the Rosebuds, a local film festival. We didn’t win, or place, but it was a rush showing it to strangers. We met another group of filmmakers. They were pretty much just like us. Eerily like us — a bunch of creative nerdy film guys. One of these guys…