Dreams of Becoming a Filmmaker: From the Video Store to The Breakroom

Back in 1995, I was a high school senior, and my normal routine involved school, hanging out with friends, church and lots of theater. Toward the end of my school year, I realized that everything was winding down, and I really didn't have anything to do.

So one day I walked into Express TV and Video Rental, the local mom-and-pop video store, and asked Mr. Gordon, the owner, if he needed any help. I figured I loved movies and I needed money so this job would be an awesome fit, plus it wasn't manual labor. So after a five minute interview I was hired. I worked on Monday and Friday nights, and I worked 2pm to 8pm on Saturdays.

I wound up staying there for quite a while and was promoted to manager at his other store located in Seven Lakes, North Carolina. The cool thing about this location was it was smack dab in the middle of a retirement community so nobody came in until after golf or school.

I spent most of my shifts watching movies, playing the arcade games, and sometimes locking up the store to run to the connecting Food Lion to get some snackage. Sometimes I knew I would be bored so I brought my buddy Drake with me just so I could have some human interaction.

One Saturday mornings I usually had to open the store and went through a routine of getting the store ready for the day, getting my food situation in order, and picking the flicks that would entertain me until Rick Verdow, a regular customer and movie buff, would grace the store to pick up what ever he hadn't seen and talk to me for hours. I enjoyed chatting with Rick because he had a vast knowledge of movies and he had a strange resemblance to the character in the horror flick Dr. Giggles.

One particular Saturday we had gotten in some video screener's. These were movies that the film companies sent to showcase upcoming flicks in hopes we would by them for the store. I loved to watch them and most of the time I would pass some to Rick. As I looked through the collection nothing really caught my eye until I picked up this small indie flick called....Clerks.