Here is a little third person anecdote.

Houston Sasselli, a Screenwriter, Director, & Director of Photography, is currently pursuing his MFA in Screenwriting for Television at UCLA. He is from Swiss-Italian descent, but neither speaks Swiss or Italian as his Great Grandfather swore off Fascism after immigrating to the United States, opting, instead, for field work in California’s Central Valley.

Growing up on a farm while devouring books and TV during the hot summers, Houston developed a passion for understanding the way that people worked not only through storytelling, but through conversation as he spoke to many farmers from a young age about his aspirations of the books he was writing. With many long days helping his grandparents on the farm (with his grandfather slowly dying from dementia) he developed a tender care for all things old—and for nostalgia. He combined his gift to write with his exploration of psychology, developing a love for existentialism along his Christian Faith.

His first selected research was at John’s Hopkins University in the Richard Macksey Symposium in 2022 for exploring the history of storytelling in how it has shaped humanity today from Cave Drawing to Cinema. He then moved on to the University of California Santa Barbara to study Film and Media Studies in his undergrad (minor in Psychology) where he wrote & directed three short films.

Throughout his years as a writer, Houston has had a foundation to connect Jungian explorations of the psyche with classic structures of mythology. In the new age of storytelling, Houston holds the belief that all stories are built in a collective, that myth and legend are built into the consciousness of every single viewer; and that it is the duty of the creator to save the new age world from its dangers, just like cavemen saved their tribe from the beasts outside through passing on their art work.

In every one of Houston’s projects is psychological subjectivity. All stories revolve around perspective, and whether he is writing or directing, the aim is to get as close into the character’s perspective so that the viewer will feel as deeply in their emotions as them. That’s where resonance comes from. In his research, it has been found that there is a major release of oxytocin in the brain when viewing or reading a story—that is, storytelling is an outlet to alter the chemistry of one’s brain. While there is potential for this to be dangerous in the sense of propaganda, there is also the sense to change society for good: especially in dark times.

Through his writing, he hopes to delve into what makes us human: both the most vile parts and most virtuous. It is to offer a sense of morality, and moral ambiguity, mixed with critique. His inspirations are Fritz Lang, Stanley Kubrick, Federico Fellini, David Fincher, Christopher Nolan, Alfred Hitchcock, Andrei Tarkovsky, Cormac McCarthy, Federick Nietzsche, Charles Bukowski, Ernest Hemingway, and Bob Dylan. With that, he believes that structure can be mended, the medium is the massage, and that the world might be ending and beginning—all at once.

With the long-term goal of directing his first feature at 25 and eventually working his way up to showrunner, Houston’s knows his ambitions cannot be built from talent-alone (if anyone believes he might have any) but from the hard work he developed on the farm. He lives with the purpose, not to create TV shows, movies, or books, but to change the heart of man.

There is no more noble duty than that.