Joseph Villapaz(I)

As a child, Joseph Villapaz was surrounded by various forms of art. His father was a successful medical illustrationist for the State of New York. His mother wasn't an artist, but was a Registered Nurse for the City of New York. After seeing his father's impressive portfolio, Joseph was inspired to follow in his footsteps by learning how to draw. However, grade school art lessons were limited in depth, and therefore, Joseph's skills were fundamental at best. He also started to develop an interest in writing short science fiction stories.

Between 7th and 8th grades, Joseph became attracted to another art form, music. This was a pivotal point in Joseph's life because he was not just interested in listening to and dancing to music, but mixing and remixing it. This was the late 1970's, an era when mixing skills were evolving beyond the typical "fade out the current song and fade in the next". This was the time of complex mixing, blending, scratching, and cutting, skills that had to be mastered in order to become a successful deejay. The concepts were roughly similar to those in art so Joseph easily understood them.

From 1977 to the mid 1980's, Joseph did some traveling as a deejay doing small gigs. Also during this time, he developed painting, sculpting, drafting, and other artistic skills throughout high school. He also learned art history, theories and techniques.

In 1982, Joseph formally began studying martial arts, the first of which was Shotokan Karate. After a couple of years, he began studying Five Animals Shaolin Kung Fu for a few years. In early 1993, Joseph started studying Northern Eagle Claw Kung Fu which he continues to study with some informal training of Seven-Star Praying Mantis Kung Fu.

Though Joseph deejayed for about a decade, gigs were few and far between. The constant cost to update his music library and equipment were frustrating because it exceeded his income. By the end of the 1980's, a heavy rain flooded his apartment destroying all his equipment, permanently ending his deejaying career. He continued to take a few other art courses like office design while in college, but majored in computer science.

In the early 1990's, Joseph met some people whose personalities he felt would make interesting characters in a novel. In a few years, Joseph began writing a rough draft based on events with these individuals. He had others read it and received favorable reviews. This inspired him to continue, however, somewhere toward the end of the 1990's the desire to complete the novel was lost. Also during this decade, Joseph took an interest in modeling and acting. Though these endeavors weren't profitable, the experience would prove beneficial in years to come.

By the time the new century had begun, Joseph had already mastered computer skills, earning many awards. This would prove critical because computing technology allowed him to regain his interest in music plus get involved in video. Joseph decided to develop his new passion and take video production classes.

Joseph took some video production classes at a public access station and produced a handful of documentaries on different martial arts which aired on local cable channels. This stepping stone paved the way to transform his unfinished novel into a feature film. The first attempt began as early as 2007, but due to many limiting factors, the project was temporarily put on hold. In the meantime, Joseph began a long campaign of competing in dozens of martial arts tournaments along the East Coast, winning several medals and trophies while having the events filmed for analysis later.

The film project started up again in 2010 and officially titled, Love Eterne. The script has been registered with the Writer's Guild of America and copyrighted with the Library of Congress. Joseph has taken on the role of director, producer, writer, cinematographer, editor, and various others. After several years, the culmination of art, music and performance, is making Joseph's vision become a reality.