I'VE ALWAYS BEEN A DAY DREAMER
By Jul Heiden
When I was a child, I found the monotony of my cushy, comfortable life in the East Coast incredibly boring. As the product of a father who grew up in New York City during the seventies and eighties, my parents were understandably protective of myself and my younger sister during childhood. However, the routine of school -> homework -> swim practice -> home -> repeat was hard for someone like me, and I was often envious of my friends and classmates whose parents let them stay out unsupervised until the streetlights turned on. Because of this, I spent a lot of time at home reading books, losing myself in page after page of fiction and fantasy novels. I was especially fascinated by the characters’ relationships with one another, the small things that made them intrinsically human, even relatable. I would spend hours during school daydreaming about the characters in the novels I was reading. I would always alter the story, though, imagining situations that I felt should have happened instead based on the characters’ personalities and relationships with one another. Eventually, as I aged from a child to a “preteen” I started to create my own original cast of characters with the help of a brand new internet phenomenon: social media. When I was around ten years old I began writing my own stories on Word 2003 on my mother’s beat up, virus-infected Dell computer which began my transition from daydreamer to storyteller.
Throughout my middle school years I would consistently start writing stories without actually finishing them. Something I would write in one novel would inspire me to write another with a whole different cast of characters and an entirely new setting. And onceI got the ball rolling with the second novel my attention would be drawn to something different. By the time I reached eighth grade I had a flash drive full of unfinished stories perpetually inserted into my mother’s laptop.
However, during this time in my life I had began to focus my attention on music. I had been discovered by Jennifer Diamond, a successful opera singer and Juilliard graduate who helped me hone my vocal abilities for the better part of five years. While I continued to daydream, I began to write less and less in order to make time for choir practice, voice lessons, and performances. Opera became my whole life—my identity—I rarely had time for anything else. I was in Midtown five days a week for hours on end after school when I was recruited by the New York City Youth Opera, I would commute to Bergen, New Jersey twice a week to rehearse with the Verismo Opera Company, and I even performed at Carnegie Hall with my high school choir. When it was time to submit college applications, I had all but stopped writing stories in favor of preparing for music school auditions.
When I got accepted into music school I was ecstatic, and my first semester at Boyer College of Music & Dance at Temple University was exactly what I expected it to be. However, as I continued my higher education, I felt like something was off. I didn’t know what it was, but I began to feel miserable. How could I not be happy? I thought to myself. This is everything I ever wanted, the culmination of my blood, sweat, and tears. But it wasn’t. I felt myself withdrawing from my studies, my grades began to drop, I stopped practicing as often. For the next two years I tortured myself in music school, trying to force myself to enjoy singing like I used to. It was useless. In the Summer of 2020, I switched my major to Tourism & Hospitality Management, but after taking one class I realized that it was not for me. In a panic, I turned to my advisor who asked me a question that turned the course of my college career on its head: “Was there anything you used to be passionate about before music?” Yes, yes there was.
It took a lot of digging, but I was eventually able to find the flash drive I used to save all my stories on, buried in a box in my closet that I had not opened since I got to college. As I sat down and read through them, I noticed that the premises of many of my unfinished stories would make great television shows or short films. After several days of research, I officially changed my major to Media Studies and Production and started attending the Klein College of Media and Communication at Temple University.
Which leads me to today: nineteen months, two premiers, and one award later, starting my first day as an intern at JTWO Studios. I don’t know what’s in store for me here, but I’m excited to see where it takes me (and also to hang out with the dogs)!
This project was created as part of the JTWO [INC]ubator Project. A semester long internship program built from the ground up to give young filmmakers, content creators, and all around hungry for a challenge individuals a place to stretch their creative minds while preparing them for the road ahead.