Austin Petray

People who casually know me refer to me as "the movie guy." While there's certainly a lot more to it than that, the fact remains that a whole lot of who I am is defined by my love for and desire to create motion pictures. Some of my first actual memories are of watching "The Lion King" and "Jurassic Park" on endless loops, recreating scenes from my favorite movies as little skits for my family, and wanting more than anything to be a Jedi knight after watching "Star Wars" for the first time. In middle school and high school I exercised my creativity and love for telling stories through participating in dozens of plays, making home movies, taking audio/video classes in high school, and writing screenplays and short stories in my spare time.
I applied to UT Austin because it is the best film school in Texas and because I know that I want to make movies for the rest of my life. Whether I will do that as a director, screenwriter, actor, or some combination of all three remains to be seen.
Throughout school and college, I've maintained the work ethic my parents instilled in me. I have maintained straight A's, participated in the middle school and high school branches of the National Honor Society, always maintained an active presence in my extracurriculars (including leading roles in theater productions such as "Grease," "Little Shop of Horrors," 'The Diviners," and "Macbeth"), and won several UIL awards for speaking events and One Act Play competitions. In my first semester at UT, I have volunteered on the student produced TSTV show "Down to Film" as an actor in all five episodes of that season and as the co-writer/director of episode 3 and a segment of episode 5.
My goal is to create art that will speak positive messages to a widespread audience, and the medium that calls me to above all is that of cinema. I've done my best throughout my life to achieve that goal, and I'm not stopping now.