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I’ve spent most of my life building worlds with other people. For me, creativity has never been a solitary act, it’s a shared space where imagination expands through collaboration. Since second grade, my main creative outlet has been developing an expansive fictional universe called Morph Team. What began as a simple game on our backyard trampoline has evolved over eight years into a multi-media world-building project shaped by the ideas of my siblings and closest friends. Working with them taught me that the strongest stories come from collective vision, not individual effort.

As Morph Team matured, so did the themes I wanted to explore. I became fascinated by the concept of time; how it behaves scientifically, how people experience it differently, and how narrative structure can bend it without breaking logic. Two of my favorite films, About Time and Interstellar, both use time as an emotional force rather than just a plot device. In my own writing, I’m drawn to closed-loop time travel mechanics, where every action taken in the past has already happened. This deterministic approach eliminates loopholes and creates opportunities for meaningful setups and callbacks. It has become a defining principle of Morph Team, where events unfold non-linearly but remain anchored to a single, unchangeable timeline.

Over the past few years, I’ve worked to turn my storytelling ideas into real films. I co-created Deja Vue, a 16-minute short about a girl whose touch erases her from others’ memories. My sister wrote the script, and I directed and handled cinematography. The film won the 1st Place Audience Choice Award at the Liftoff Global Film Festival, which gave me the confidence to pursue larger projects. I’m now directing Twice the Profit, a 40-minute mystery series about twin private investigators pretending to be one person. Alongside these projects, I’ve been building a Minecraft cinematic superhero universe on my YouTube channel, creating small adventures for my friends and editing them into interconnected short films. Each project has taught me something new about directing, editing, and the importance of working with people who bring different strengths to the table, but I still have a long way to go.

My long-term goal is to bring Morph Team to life as an animated series. To do that, I need to grow far beyond what I can learn on my own. I see college not as a requirement, but as a workshop. A place to refine my directing and storytelling skills, study under people who understand the craft at a professional level, and meet collaborators who are just as passionate about creating as I am. UT’s film program offers the environment, mentorship, and community I need to take the next step toward the purpose I’ve been building toward for years.