My favorite independent filmmaker isn’t a person who can be found as easy as some other independent film directors. He isn’t known nationwide and he doesn’t enter his shorts in a lot of national film festivals. He usually doesn’t do more than one genre and he doesn’t have that big of a following. His name is Lance J. Reha and his production company is called Lake Films. He was born and raised on Staten Island, having lived in the Elm Park/Mariner’s Harbor area his whole life. He’s also my neighbor, which is how I came to know him and fall in love with his short films. He is also to thank for me becoming a Television and Film major.Just like a lot of other filmmakers, both independent and with a big name company, Lance has been making short films with friends since he was a teenager. He used to round up the local kids, including some of my cousins, and film shorts about who killed who and the reason why. It was your typical short story, except for one thing. The plot twists in Lance’s films are more than just twists; they’re a 360 degree turn, and that’s what I enjoy about them. Lance enjoys filming horror films with the occasional dark sense of humor and hint of romance. His films are mostly classified under the horror genre, and he has won many awards in the local film festivals, including the ‘Director’s Chair.’ I like to joke around with him by telling him he has enough chairs to teach his own class.Lance usually doesn’t like to work on one thing at a time. He usually does things in threes. I was fifteen years old when I first started showing an interest in pursuing some sort of career in television and film, so I emailed my neighbor and asked him about his film company. He gave me copies of his shorts, then told me he was working on three more at the same time, (‘Dark Reflections,’ ‘Confessions’ and ‘Night Watch’), which he was able to combine into a feature film called ‘Final Edition.’ That was in 2006. In 2008, he released three more shorts, ‘Eviction,’ ‘Bullet’ and ‘Dylan’s Tree.’ ‘Bullet’ made it to every local film festival and won several awards, including Best Cinematography. It starred Rick Miller and Mark Armstrong, two extremely talented independent film actors who frequently work with Lance (Mark and Rick had roles in ‘Final Edition,’ as well as one of Lance’s newer shorts, ‘Code Name: Ginny,’ which is based off of a novel). In 2009, Lance filmed a short called ‘Nadine,’ which Mark had an appearance in, and he is working on a new short called ‘Between Floors.’ All in all, Lance is a very creative person. He and the rest of his crew, which consists of Actor/Screen Writer Christopher Mancuso, Makeup Artists Pedro Martinez and Tiana Fernandez, and Producer Angela Antonopoulos, as well as his Production Assistant /Boom Operator Sal Santorelli, are a great bunch that always work hard, and I should know, being as to how I’m Lance’s youngest (and newest) Production Assistant. His films always have that extra kick that you didn’t see coming. If you would like to borrow one, just let me know. I can get a hold of any short I listed in the previous paragraph. 
