Contact: rachel@pacsatpost.com


Rachel Wager-Smith -Assistant Editor

Some say television rots your brain, but I've never believed that. Pop culture in general has constantly been nothing but a good influence on my life. That may seem paradoxical to some, as the influence of pop culture on the youth of a population often leads to images such as children casting spells on each other after reading Harry Potter, or that kid who bit his classmates because of Twilight (Funny how those are both wildly popular book series, yeah?) but, regardless, that's how my story goes.

I'm gonna have to give an example here, aren't I? Alright.

When I was ten, I was absolutely in love with the TV show The X-Files. I was convinced that I, too, was going to be an FBI agent...and a doctor...and a scientist...and that this conviction had absolutely nothing to do with Agent Scully. Ah, to be young, impressionable, and in denial about it. But the show was a (perhaps surprisingly) positive influence on my life. I relished the time spent in class dedicated to science and I spent most of my free time at home in the backyard observing things like rolly-pollies and ants and climbing trees to get a closer look at the budding leaves and the sap that oozed from the bark. I was trying to wrap my head around exactly how it all worked - trying to find the logical explanation, if you will.

There were other shows that similarly caught my interest - like when I wanted to be a detective because of my love of Scooby-Doo or my stint as a wannabe spunky reporter during the Lois and Clark run. (Yes, I did specifically want to be spunky.) I could have given any one of these as my example, but I chose The X-Files because, even though I will always carry around a little bit of Velma and a little Lois and a little of all the other myriad of characters I wanted so much to be like as a I kid, something more than simple interest was sparked when I decided to be like Dana Scully. During this time, a passion was born.

It all began when a boy in my class began writing a collection of stories in which all the male fourth-graders were kick-ass S.W.A.T team members, and the girls were the bad guys. I didn't really pay all that much attention to the stories - if anything, I thought it was pretty cool that girls were the bad guys for once - but that all changed when I found out that he had made my character literally shoot herself in the foot. In an act of retaliation, I began to write my own book describing what, at the time, seemed a most foreseeable future: my life as an FBI agent. All the girls in the class were brilliant agents, while the boys formed a group of dimwitted criminals who called them selves The Bomb Gang. But what began as a simple act of grade-school revenge quickly transformed itself into a life-long passion. Throughout all my other young loves - the Egyptology love after seeing The Mummy, for example, or my love of forensic science during the beginnings of the CSI hype - I still knew I would someday tell stories for a living. And then, right after my sixteenth birthday, something interesting happened.

I was watching the special features of Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds and as they were explaining all of the practical special effects employed in the '60s a sudden revelation occurred: God, that looks like fun! I knew from that moment on that I wanted to work in film. Every aspect of it fascinated me (and still does, in point of fact) but I began my exploration of the art in the most reasonable place - screenwriting - and my passion for writing grew ten-fold. To start with a simple idea floating around in your head and eventually see it literally come to life is just...well, awesome. But I never really thought much beyond writing for the screen until my sister got married. As a wedding gift, I edited together a wedding video from various clips and pictures guests at the wedding had provided for me. It was then that I realized editing wasn't all that different from writing - it's just using pictures and sound to tell the story rather then written words. And I had so much fun with this new form of story telling that I began an internship that I was lucky enough to get here at PACSAT. By the time the semester was over I was a full time employee, living out the future I saw for myself ten years ago - not fighting sci-fi crime as a brilliant FBI agent with an incredibly hot partner, of course, but making a living telling stories and I couldn't be happier about that!