TONY KING
FILMMAKER, EDITOR

Admittedly, I have never been extremely proud of this film, but that is mainly me being critical on myself. "Not Just Milk" has done more for the beginning phase of my filmmaking career than any other one of my films. This was my first ever attempt at making a short film, I was 16 and about to graduate high school in a few months. I even released it to the world on my 17th birthday because I had finally made something more than just a YouTube video. In truth, I didn't really know much about filmmaking back then, all I knew how to do was edit cool graphics in Adobe After Effects and edit in Adobe Premiere Pro. I didn't have a script or a shot list, I just had a list of ideas in my Notes App on my phone, but from there I went out after school every day for weeks, set up my phone on a tripod and shot this film almost entirely by myself. I reached out to professors at the University of Mississippi who gave me loads of great feedback to help me reshoot some scenes and improve the structure of my film. To say the first cut of my film was different from the final product is an extreme understatement. This is where I learned of the Film Production Major that was about to be introduced in a year. It would start in my second year of college and from my conversations with the professors, I committed to joining their brand new program. This was the first film I went to a film festival with, and although I didn't win, it was a great experience that I was able to share with some close friends. The effort I put into creating this film was enough to convince my parents that I was going to take filmmaking seriously. All in all, whether I like this film or not, it has done a lot for me, so I am still proud to share it.