How JAWS inspired me to achieve my dream of becoming a filmmaker

It was the early 90’s. I must have been four years old. Express Video Store was still in business offering the deal of a lifetime. 5 movies, 5 nights, for 5 bucks. My parents had long since accepted our trips to the local video store as a weekly ritual. I’d fly out the moving car before they could put the vehicle in park, and beam toward the horror isle. The Terminator, Terminator 2: Judgement Day, The Shining, Buried Alive, John Carpenters: The Thing, and the B-Movie with the neon green dinosaur on the front cover, Carnosaur, were a small handful of the films in rotation. But there was one movie I would rent with unwavering certainty, and that film was JAWS.

At this point, You’re probably wondering, “Where were the parents?! Allowing a 4 year old to watch those movies?!” They were standing right behind me as a toddler holding an armful of R-rated tapes to offer consent to the skeptical video store clerk while my Australian Cattle Dog, Biscuit stole candy bars off the shelf. What a time to be alive… still to this day, I’m amazed that JAWS is rated PG!

It was no surprise to my parents what movie we were going to watch first. I’d pop in the tape. Fast forward through the previews until "Universal Studios" appeared, and then… the chilling sounds of John Williams’ music began…dun, dun…That man eating machine, hunting through the murky waters of the night in search of its next victim taught me 3 things:

I love sharks, I love JAWS, and I want to make movies.

So I got to work. When I turned 7 and 1/4, I wrote my first novel, also called JAWS. Took on two paper routes and saved enough money to buy my first cam-corder by the 4th grade (after dropping my dads down the stairs) and directed my first movie, JAWS, which consisted of 3 kids dancing around my dads tuna boat to Green Day music while fighting a man eating shark that was never seen, not once, before swimming home to safety on a big blue tarpaulin. What a time to be alive…

I’m now 33 years old, and believe it or not, I’m a filmmaker living in LA, run a production company, QUILL FILMS, and I’m still watching JAWS! I don’t know how many screenings, maybe a thousand. Yet still to this day, I’m just as excited to watch it now as when I was a 4 year old kid, glued to the television, waiting for that haunting sound to begin…Dun, Dun…

Words and images by Doug Quill

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