Many people have no idea that some of the most creative, and impactful filmmakers who make magic on the big screen started off as writers and critics who made magic on paper. Averi Caldwell, a 22-year-old graduate student at the University of Georgia, plans to contribute to this unique career pipeline.
Ever since the eighth grade, Caldwell has held an interest in Journalism, overall finding a “love for [her]self after journalism.”
Caldwell has had a successful early career in writing and journalism, with her experience writing for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and InfUSion Magazine. Over the years, though, Caldwell has discovered an interest in a different kind of storytelling.
With a love for movies and long stories, she said she has found an “appreciation for visual journalism and the ways that good writing impacts the way that things are taken in visually,” and now aspires to be a documentary filmmaker.
While the two career choices of being a journalist and a filmmaker may seem drastically different, the two are connected. Many successful filmmakers started out as writers and journalists.
Peter Bogdanovich, director of ‘70s box office hits such as “The Last Picture” and “Paper Moon” is a riveting example. Bogdanovich started off as a film critic and writer for Film Culture and Esquire magazines. Years later, he moved on to creating films due to a deep passion for translating his creativity onto the big screen, leading him into an entire new world of accomplishments.
Caldwell shares this same passion, and explains her sudden appeal to moving on to visual journalism by claiming that “documentary filmmaking is a great way to get audiences closer to the story and subjects”.
Ever since her professor in her first video class introduced her to the world of filmmaking, she feels more inspired by the audience of an everyday film viewer rather than the audience of a typical New York Times reader.
“It’s easier to put a quote to a face and feel a human connection,” Caldwell says.
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