Jesse Cudworth, a 21-year-old filmmaker from Kauai, didn’t make the final cut for the HBO reality series "Project Greenlight," but he’s OK with that. He’s measuring success with a story that would make a Hollywood director jealous.
And it’s his own, too.
The log line of his life goes like this: A young man grows up in a divided family, bounces back and forth between California and Kauai, and drops out of high school. But his love of making movies gives him purpose, and he finds himself back on the Garden Isle as an honor student at Kauai Community College.
"Project Greenlight," whose executive producers are Oscar winners Ben Affleck and Matt Damon, is the part of Cudworth’s tale where an audience would learn he’s on the right path and ask, What’s next?
The HBO series rewards a fledgling director with a vetted script and a team of industry professionals, then follows the process and pressures as the director creates the movie. Thousands of hopeful filmmakers entered three-minute films this summer, and Cudworth was one of 200 finalists who were then required to submit a two-minute, humorous biography. (The winner will be announced Nov. 7.)
Cudworth sees his effort more as validation than elimination.
"I am a filmmaker," he said in a phone call from Kauai. "Being a filmmaker doesn’t mean you work in the industry and make millions of dollars. It means you pick up a camera and make stuff, either with your friends or a client."
Cudworth said he’s felt that way ever since he got his first camera. He was 6 or 7, and his parents were living on Kauai.
"My parents got me this little camera that only shot a minute worth of footage, but I used it every single day," he said. "I made stop-motion pictures, anything I could. I made geckos look epic."
Cudworth was about 11 when his parents split up and he moved to California with his mother. He returned to Kauai about five years later to live with his father and go to high school.
But things didn’t go well that year, and he wound up back in California, only this time he didn’t go back to high school. Instead, he picked up his camera and started making music videos for bands in Sonoma County, where his older brother was a musician.
He wanted more, though, and figured that going back to school would help. He got his GED and caught a flight to Kauai.
"I went through a rough patch and came out the other side," he said. "I realized that I increased the odds of getting into the industry if I practiced and went to school at the same time."
On Kauai he was reunited with Koloa Elementary School teacher Bonnie Bojorquez, who had mentored him when he was a younger. She and her husband, Steven, invited Cudworth to live in their home in the summer of 2013.
"He was sort of a lost boy," Bonnie Bojorquez said. "He struggled and found his way back. It’s a success story. Not too many people get their act together, especially when you’re a kid."
That Cudworth has great film skills is the icing here. Or maybe it’s the fact that he’s entirely self-taught. He learned by watching movies and copying what directors did. It’s like using tracing paper on a famous painting, he said.
"The thing I paid attention to the most, and still do, is what sells the movie," he said. "What exactly is in the movie that people want to see? I watch movies and watch for scenes and analyze the emotional impact."
What comes next in Cudworth’s life isn’t entirely in focus yet. He plans to finish community college and would like to go to a larger university to study writing and take film classes on the side.
But making the first cut of "Project Greenlight" underscored the worth of his recent choices.
"I’m glad to wake up every day and know I am a filmmaker," he said. "I’m at a place where I feel I’m not insecure about my work. I put a lot of faith in myself. If I can make it to the top 200 of an HBO series, I can probably do a lot."
AND that’s a wrap …
Mike Gordon is the Star-Advertiser’s film and television writer. Read his Outtakes Online blog at honolulupulse.com. Reach him at 529-4803 or email mgordon@staradvertiser.com.
