I’ve always had a bent toward the movies. When I was around four or five, one of my mom’s cousins, Louie, took us for a drive somewhere. In the back seat I found a couple of flip books about the size of a pack of matches. I recall that one was a “movie” of old time Western star, Hopalong Cassidy. It showed him on his horse.

I asked what it was and mom’s cousin said that if you flipped through the stiff paper pages, it would look like Hopalong was riding his horse. He showed me how to do it and I tried it myself and it worked!

Since that moment I was hooked on movies. I made flip books of my own with little cartoon animations and later, when my parents gave me one of the first generation Super-8 movie cameras for my sixth grade graduation, I started making movies all the time.

Long story short, I ended up having a career in the movie biz as a writer, director, and editor. Nothing you’ve ever heard of but I did direct a couple of feature length movies, and one year I edited the official film for the Tournament of Roses, among scores of other credits.

Speaking of scores, with my love of music and my love of movies, it’s not surprising that my Composer’s Sketchbook has a number of tracks that are intended for movie soundtracks. I never got the chance to actually write a sound track, but this entry here is a short twelve second guitar riff designed as a movie transition from one scene to another.

For what its worth.