A playful film regarding toys, friendship, and adventure inspired Nicholas Shutes to study screenplay writing and embark on his own journey to success. While watching “Toy Story,” a young Shutes sat in front of the television, pausing and rewinding, and jotting down notes on everything he saw and heard from the Pixar film.
A San Francisco State alumnus, Shutes has a drive for success to get closer to his dreams. As a graduation gift to himself, Shutes took a solo trip to Vancouver because he “wanted to be adventurous and see the world.”
“I took a train from Jack London Square through Oregon and Seattle…took a bus to Vancouver and would just walk around in a foreign country roaming the streets at night, hiking up beautiful mountains. It was really beautiful,” he said.
Recently, he signed a contract with Lunaventure Productions to adapt a book,“Dreamer” by Scott Amour. “Dreamer” is about a character named Jack Irvine who is in search of his brother in Thailand. Although “Dreamer” is not a typical genre that Shutes would write a screenplay on, he’s very excited to have signed the contract. Normally, his ideas and writings originate from love.
“My life is an abundance of love,” he said. And by love, he means the natural love that develops from within oneself.
Before signing the contract, Shutes was working on his original screenplay titled “Summer Love,” which is about an “unathletic, chubby 11-year-old Alvin, the world’s youngest love cynic, being sent to a summer sports camp where he must learn how to win a young lady’s heart.”
His original work is still in the developmental process and once he’s finished with the adaptation, he plans to continue to work on it.
For the San Jose Film Festival, he was part of a film project where a team is given a random genre, character, prop, and line to write, shoot, and edit a short film within 48 hours.
The film, “A Pinata Story” was screened at BlueLight Cinemas in Cupertino this past August.
Shutes believes that “time is an illusion” and we shouldn’t wait until graduation to live our dreams. He said he sees himself being happy in five years because he’ll be doing the things he loves.
“It comes from within and I think happiness and love are all that we can ask for of the future,” he said.
Shutes is a believer in dreams and love. He encourages students to just go for what makes them happy.
“To quote an Angels and Airwaves song or paraphrase since I forget the actual quote, ‘everyday I wake up and tell myself a little harmless lie, the world is mine,’” he said. “Basically, you create your own reality consciously. Yea you can live in a world of sh*t and horrible things, but you can find beauty in that. You can be the beauty people find in that.”
*Photo by: Diane Bagaoisan