My story starts with a lizard. I leopard gecko named Cheddar to be exact. Hello, my name is Lindsay Austin. I am a queer Filmmaker in Milwaukee Wisconsin and an incoming senior at the University of Wisconsin Milwaukee. I moved to Wisconsin from California in 2019. My family owned an education reptile business called Roaming Reptiles. We were pretty popular in California. We traveled up and down the Western coast from 2012-2019 educating people on native species and why they are so important to our wildlife. You're probably wondering how this all started and how the gecko ties into this. Well in 2005 my mom met my now stepdad, Brandon. He had a thing for geckos and that's also how he won me over. He handed me this baby gecko that looked like cheese one day and I fell in love, hence the name Cheddar. From there, our love of animals just grew. We spent years learning, growing, and rescuing animals. By the year 2012, our family had grown to six human family members and 30 plus reptilian, amphibian, and arachnid family members. But things got hard for us financially. There were a lot of mouths to feed and my mom was the only one with a stable job. In 2019, I graduated high school and my family decided to move to Wisconsin. We had planned and researched and thought that the reptilian community was bigger there. Boy were we wrong. We were so underprepared. The 3-day trip across the country alone lost us 3 animals. The months to follow lost us a few more. Our business wasn't supporting us as we thought. There was also the issue of what I wanted to do with my life. I was always the family's photographer, social media queen, and all things creative. I was great with the kids and I loved the teaching aspect of what we did. I loved making short films with our crazy family. My siblings were all struggling actors, but not by choice. I decided to go to film school. I was terrified. I didn't know anybody. I was experiencing grief from the move, the deaths in the family, and I was missing my world back home. It was also terrifying being gay in a state that isn't as liberal as California. I wasn't sure if I was safe to be my full self. When I transferred to the University of Wisconsin Milwaukee, I found my new Cheddar. I fell in love. I was obsessed with the architecture, the community, the food, and just the way of life. It reminded me of home and I found myself again. Over the past four years, I've made and helped dozens of short films, acted, and been in clubs and dance teams. I've dated and gotten my heart broken. A lot. And I fell in love with teaching. I am now going into my senior year of college. My family has all found their different paths. My parents now own a sports card shop in a small little town an hour away from me. We still have friends in the reptile world. And I have been teaching for the past year. I plan on getting my teaching credential this year and doing freelance work after college. I would love to work for National Geographic someday. But until then, I need to get through college and take it one step at a time. Sincerely, Lindsay Austin

I do believe that how we choose to respond to things, shapes our lives. I've watched loved ones ruin relationships, miss important events, and lose themselves completely, due to poor choices. It's never easy, on any party involved, when someone you know is struggling with addiction. My dad has always been a drinker and he has always had trouble controlling his anger, especially due to his bipolar. I'm not sure at what point it started becoming a problem, maybe it was always a problem and I just didn't see it until I was a bit older( around 13). I do love my dad and he has done some great things, but he has also done some very hurtful and damaging things as well. We know that alcoholism is an illness, and we don't want to blame someone who is sick, but it's always hard to keep those feelings at bay. Your mind is altered when you drink. Alcohol interferes with the brains communication pathways. It affects your balance, memory, speech, and judgement. Because of this, I always made excuses for my dad. I would say "he doesn't know what he's saying or doing right now, he doesn't mean it". It wasn't until I was a little older (16) and started talking to more people, that I realized this wasn't normal. Your dad shouldn't be getting black out drunk every Thursday-Monday. I started to resent my dad. I started to think "if he wanted to get better, he would" or "if you wanted to stop drinking, he would. It's his decision". I knew that it wasn't my fault but I didn't know that maybe it wasn't his fault either. I didn't know what was going on in his head. I think the worst part about living with someone with addiction is that most of the time, they don't think they have a problem. It's even worse when other people around you, other adults, aren't doing anything to help. I think my dad needed help a long time ago. Maybe if someone would've recommended therapy, he would be able to talk about his feelings rather than drink them away. To reiterate, I do think that how we respond to challenges shapes who we are and what our life will be like. But I also think, we as humans are very intelligent, intuitive, and nurturing units. We should be able to be there for those who are in need. We should be able to recognize when someone needs help, especially if it's an illness such as alcoholism.

Hi my name is Lindsay Austin and I want to tell you about how I lost 60 pounds in 2 months. When I was 17 I went through a rough patch in my life surrounding family and school. It started with little things, like "forgetting" to eat until dinner. Then, I took up an interest in track and began running for hours and hours everyday before school, after school, and even on the weekends. I told myself that if I just drank a bunch of water I would feel better. As the weeks passed, everyone praised me for how much weight I had lost and it made me feel great for a while. The mornings were probably the worst. I woke up every morning feeling sluggish and gross. I would hate the way I looked and felt in the morning. Most days I could barely make it out of bed. My body was slowly shutting down but I was too stubborn at the time to do anything about it. I suppose there wasn't a specific reason I wanted to change. It was more like I felt as if something needed to change because I hated the way I was feeling. I wanted to feel beautiful in my own skin but also refreshed and taken care of. I started writing a meal intake journal and scheduling workouts. It helped for a bit while I got myself back together. I struggled with eating three meals a day at first but I learned that it just takes time and I knew it would be worth it in the end.I try to read a bit each day, journal my thoughts, and do things that make me happy. I've held this consistent standard for myself and my body for about 3 years now and I will admit, I do over analyze what I eat and how many steps I take sometimes but I've learned to accept that there will be good days and bad days.

Hi my name is Lindsay Austin and I want to tell you about my first ever film. When I was 8 years old, my dad had this little attachable video cam for this laptop. I was obsessed. I would pretend like I was on iCarly all the time. And when I found out I could pick it up and move it around, I was inspired. And to make things even better, while exploring I found a small pocket recorder. I eventually found a broom stick and duct taped it on there to make a boom mic. I went all around the house pretending like I was some kind of ghost and tried to scare my dad and step dad. The intent was to make a scary movie. It was more like me just giggling in a pantry while my dad dropped granola bars on me. But the point is, that experience made me want to pursue filmmaking. I wanted to capture memories exactly as they were. I recently rewatched the magnificent masterpiece I made and what I really admired is how rare the footage was. I mean as raw as a 8 year old with a cam recorder can make it, right? Flash forward 5 years, I was 13 years old and I got really into film cameras. I loved the fact that you could just snap a picture and not worry about having to edit it right then and there. There was something beautiful about waiting to process that film and seeing that raw photo. There was this one picture I took one summer of my sister dancing in the rain. I had just whipped my camera out, snapped it, and forgot about it. But when I got that photo back, it was beautiful and blurry, and raw. Because that's exactly how I remembered that moment and that's exactly how I want to remember it. Now in 2022, I'm going into my Junior year of film school and I've made 10 short films. But my favorite one was done with 16mm film and a girl I had just met. During filming, we became best friends. We talked for hours and watched as the seasons changed because of how long the filming took. And it was so worth it because even though the film wasn't perfect, it was raw and it was beautiful and that's what art should be.

This is a picture of my 15 year old sister. Ever since we were little, she's struggled with depression and feelings of self doubt. I got the idea when I was about 10 to start doing photoshoots with her. It made her feel beautiful she's become a different person, with so much more confidence. This is the most recent photoshoot we've done and I think you can just feel the confidence flowing out of the picture.

When I was 10, my step dad was given the opportunity to run his own business. He was left a few species of reptiles and nothing else. He had little to no experience running a business or working with the community. By 2017 he was a household name in a Bakersfield, California. He did educational reptile shows for schools, libraries, birthdays, and more. I watched hundreds of people overcome their fears because of him. He gave me the responsibility of capturing the experience through photography and since then, I began to realize just how beautiful people can be when they are in their natural element and my passion for film began. I moved to Wisconsin after high school because my family was struggling in California. We ended up losing our business and most of our animals in the process. I'm going to film school at The University of Wisconsin Milwaukee to learn how to capture certain experiences on film. I want to bring back that joy we see in each others eyes and the feeling of curiosity and inspiration I felt while watching my step dad inspire so many others. I strive to do the same and make him proud, and hopefully someday I'll buy back his business and be his filmographer. Until then, I make short films, take pictures, and enjoy my time I have with my family and friends.

The term artist has inspired such a broad and unique group of talented people. We as a society of artists are constantly trying to create new ways of inspiring people with our work. It has become almost impossible to produce new things that challenge the viewers minds in new and unique ways. My name is Lindsay Austin and I am an aspiring film director and film student at The University of Milwaukee. I chose to put my creative talents into film because you can do so much on screen that allows you in incorporate art inside your own art such as films about paintings, landscapes, people, dancing, emotion, and so much more. I have always been connected to film in a way that I will only fully be able to express with films of my own. My family grew up in a small town in California. I was the second oldest child of seven and in the beginning of my childhood my parents went through a massive dark period in their lives that inevitably drove them apart. Most of my childhood before the age of 8 was spent in daycares and summer camps which would seem like a blast to most chidden, but I was introverted from a young age. When I was 7, I vividly remember sneaking off into a projector room at my old summer camp and discovering an abundance of VHS tapes. Every other day that summer I would sneak off into the projector room and go on adventures with Indiana Jones, Alice in Wonderland, Lolita, and the cast of Little House on the Prairie. When I was 8 years old, my parents re married and I was introduced to new families. My step dad became a huge part of my life and encouraged me to broaden my creativity to the highest limits. He would often play games like "The Floor is Lava" with me or "What are the Bugs talking about today". As I grew up, I began to stress about becoming irrelevant. I wanted so badly to create art that would inspire people to look at the world differently. I wanted to hold onto my child like imagination but still spread messages that made people think. I definitely went through some of my own dark periods through high school coming to the realization that my art is not going to touch everyone in the same way. Art is about realizing that its not meant to "please" everyone. Good art will stick with someone forever whether they thought that piece was good or bad. It's about making people open their minds in a way that essentially only a child can do. That's what I want my work to be. A glimpse into your old mind that allows you to see in a new light now.

When I was two years old, my parents got divorced due to my fathers unstable condition. My father was suspected to have a moderate case of bipolar disorder but he wasn't taking any medication. The years after my parents divorce, my mother began to date again but my father wasn't too thrilled about this. He began to show up at my moms apartment with a baseball bat and angry slurs. At one point, my dad has gotten physical with the man my mom was seeing at the time. Throughout the years, my dad had been in and out of jail due to the misdemeanors at my moms house. My parents had a custody agreement where my mom would keep me the majority of the time and my dad would have me every other weekend. My father grew tired of this arrangement and when I was six years old, he stole me from my mothers car and kidnapped me. This was considered kidnapping due to their custody agreement and this incident had landed my dad back in jail. After a few days though, he was let out again. As my life went on, the unanticipated actions of my dad had affected my school work and my athletics. I had dropped out of dance at the age of ten because I felt embarrassed and my grades were dropping because I would never had the time to due homework with the lack of stabilization in my home life. Even though my dads side of the family wasn't always dependable, my moms was. I was lucky enough to have some sort of support system in my life to depend on. I was reminder that there are people out there that have it worse than me and I have no room to complain. When high school rolled around, I was back in my extracurriculars and my home life had gotten a little better. I changed my mind set on life and remind myself that I need to stay goal oriented, patient, courageous, and positive. Ever since then, I have been so much happier even and I remind the ones around me to stay the same.

My name is Lindsay Austin and I am an aspiring film director and film student at The University of Milwaukee. I chose to put my creative talents into film because you can do so much on screen that allows you in incorporate art inside your own art such as films about paintings, landscapes, people, dancing, emotion, and so much more. I have always been connected to film in a way that I will only fully be able to express with films of my own. My family grew up in a small town in California. I was the second oldest child of seven and in the beginning of my childhood my parents went through a massive dark period in their lives that inevitably drove them apart. Most of my childhood before the age of 8 was spent in daycares and summer camps which would seem like a blast to most chidden, but I was introverted from a young age. When I was 7, I vividly remember sneaking off into a projector room at my old summer camp and discovering an abundance of VHS tapes. Every other day that summer I would sneak off into the projector room and go on adventures with Indiana Jones, Alice in Wonderland, Lolita, and the cast of Little House on the Prairie. When I was 8 years old, my parents re married and I was introduced to new families. My step dad became a huge part of my life and encouraged me to broaden my creativity to the highest limits. He would often play games like "The Floor is Lava" with me or "What are the Bugs talking about today". As I grew up, I began to stress about becoming irrelevant. I wanted so badly to create art that would inspire people to look at the world differently. I wanted to hold onto my child like imagination but still spread messages that made people think. I definitely went through some of my own dark periods through high school coming to the realization that my art is not going to touch everyone in the same way. Art is about realizing that its not meant to "please" everyone. Good art will stick with someone forever whether they thought that piece was good or bad. It's about making people open their minds in a way that essentially only a child can do. That's what I want my work to be. A glimpse into your old mind that allows you to see in a new light now.

The term artist has inspired such a broad and unique group of talented people. We as a society of artists are constantly trying to create new ways of inspiring people with our work. It has become almost impossible to produce new things that challenge the viewers minds in new and unique ways. My name is Lindsay Austin and I am an aspiring film director and film student at The University of Milwaukee. I chose to put my creative talents into film because you can do so much on screen that allows you in incorporate art inside your own art such as films about paintings, landscapes, people, dancing, emotion, and so much more. I have always been connected to film in a way that I will only fully be able to express with films of my own. My family grew up in a small town in California. I was the second oldest child of seven and in the beginning of my childhood my parents went through a massive dark period in their lives that inevitably drove them apart. Most of my childhood before the age of 8 was spent in daycares and summer camps which would seem like a blast to most chidden, but I was introverted from a young age. When I was 7, I vividly remember sneaking off into a projector room at my old summer camp and discovering an abundance of VHS tapes. Every other day that summer I would sneak off into the projector room and go on adventures with Indiana Jones, Alice in Wonderland, Lolita, and the cast of Little House on the Prairie. When I was 8 years old, my parents re married and I was introduced to new families. My step dad became a huge part of my life and encouraged me to broaden my creativity to the highest limits. He would often play games like "The Floor is Lava" with me or "What are the Bugs talking about today". As I grew up, I began to stress about becoming irrelevant. I wanted so badly to create art that would inspire people to look at the world differently. I wanted to hold onto my child like imagination but still spread messages that made people think. I definitely went through some of my own dark periods through high school coming to the realization that my art is not going to touch everyone in the same way. Art is about realizing that its not meant to "please" everyone. Good art will stick with someone forever whether they thought that piece was good or bad. It's about making people open their minds in a way that essentially only a child can do. That's what I want my work to be. A glimpse into your old mind that allows you to see in a new light now. Below I have included my YouTube channel with my short films and a few photos I have taken.

The term artist has inspired such a broad and unique group of talented people. We as a society of artists are constantly trying to create new ways of inspiring people with our work. It has become almost impossible to produce new things that challenge the viewers minds in new and unique ways. My name is Lindsay Austin and I am an aspiring film director and film student at The University of Milwaukee. I chose to put my creative talents into film because you can do so much on screen that allows you in incorporate art inside your own art such as films about paintings, landscapes, people, dancing, emotion, and so much more. I have always been connected to film in a way that I will only fully be able to express with films of my own. My family grew up in a small town in California. I was the second oldest child of seven and in the beginning of my childhood my parents went through a massive dark period in their lives that inevitably drove them apart. Most of my childhood before the age of 8 was spent in daycares and summer camps which would seem like a blast to most chidden, but I was introverted from a young age. When I was 7, I vividly remember sneaking off into a projector room at my old summer camp and discovering an abundance of VHS tapes. Every other day that summer I would sneak off into the projector room and go on adventures with Indiana Jones, Alice in Wonderland, Lolita, and the cast of Little House on the Prairie. When I was 8 years old, my parents re married and I was introduced to new families. My step dad became a huge part of my life and encouraged me to broaden my creativity to the highest limits. He would often play games like "The Floor is Lava" with me or "What are the Bugs talking about today". As I grew up, I began to stress about becoming irrelevant. I wanted so badly to create art that would inspire people to look at the world differently. I wanted to hold onto my child like imagination but still spread messages that made people think. I definitely went through some of my own dark periods through high school coming to the realization that my art is not going to touch everyone in the same way. Art is about realizing that its not meant to "please" everyone. Good art will stick with someone forever whether they thought that piece was good or bad. It's about making people open their minds in a way that essentially only a child can do. That's what I want my work to be. A glimpse into your old mind that allows you to see in a new light now.