My Name Is: Geoff Velando - #lakewoodnews

About me

I am a Colorado native being born and raised here my entire life. I went to Lakewood High School and attended several different colleges around the Denver area until I finally realized and settled upon film as a career path.

I started at Colorado Film School for two years and then transferred to the University of Colorado-Denver's Film and Television program to finish up with a BFA degree in film and a minor in photography. Colorado, to me, is and always will be my home state.

On filmmaking

I didn't know what I wanted to do for the longest time until after my first year of college. It was then that I realized growing up that I had always had a particular interest in watching movies and went out on a limb to make the decision that making movies is what I want to do for the rest of my life.

Even before that epiphany, I always had been interested in "the arts." Drawing and playing guitar was amongst those interests. Not only that, but at an even younger age I had an elaborate imagination actually coming up with several types of stories and writing them.

The Meth Project

I was actually in class at UCD for my Thesis Production course and saw the link that one of our professors put up on our "Film Group Page" on Facebook.

Although everybody was quite tired by the end of the school year, I was able to hash out a script, get some good crew on board and planning was sorted out. We actually didn't get to planning until right after graduation.

I don't think any of us expected to get this far, but we entered a commercial mainly because we just love to do film.

Preventing future users

The Meth Project does a lot of important work because meth, amongst other drugs, is very harmful and has the potential to not only hurt users, but destroy their lives and those around them.

Emphasizing on the impact it can have on one's life is the message I am trying to convey with my commercial, within making that decision to try meth for the first time. The theme being "life or meth," it all lies within that initial decision what direction one's life will take at that point.

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from Lakewood Sentinel - Latest Stories http://lakewoodsentinel.com/stories/My-Name-Is-Geoff-Valando,235028