Undergraduate / "All I know is that I wanted to get closer and closer to films." - Common App #4 [2]

I'm new on this forum, I'm not a good writer and I have trouble writing these personal common app essays. I would appreciate if someone could read my essay and tell me if there is any kind of problem.

Describe a character in fiction, a historical figure, or a creative work (as in art, music, science, etc.) that has had an influence on you, and explain that influence.

I can't remember at what point in my life I started a love affair with movies. All I know is that I wanted to get closer and closer to films. The first step involved seeing a lot of films; secondly, I began to note the name of the director. In the third stage I saw the same films over and over again and began making choices as to what I would have done, if I had been the director. At that period of my life, movies acted on me like a drag.

There are many directors in the world of cinema that influence me, however, there is only one that I hold dear in my heart and that's Paul Thomas Anderson. He is quite well known all over hipster nation and he is most famous for his 2007 masterpiece "There will be Blood". He has written and directed five films so far. I am not here to discuss his films, but the man behind them who has deeply influenced and inspired me.

Paul T. Anderson is one of the first self-taught filmmakers, which is another way of saying that he was a movie nerd, much like directors Quentin Tarantino and Steven Soderbergh, who learned their craft by viewing thousands of films instead of paying exorbitant amounts of money for film school. Anderson learned his craftsmanship by watching films by filmmakers he liked, reading books, and watching films accompanied with audio commentaries. Because, let's face it, film writing and directing cannot be taught, only learned, and each man has to learn it thought his own system of self-education.

So how exactly does Paul T. Anderson influence me? It is quite self-evident that my passion and obsession about filmmaking is mutual between me and Anderson. All the information one needs to learn about filmmaking is out there and all you need to do is to simply get it and absorb it and Anderson is living proof. His success as a filmmaker, who struggled at his early age and gambled his money, is truly a great inspiration for me. All things considered, however, I believe attending film school will provide me with a lot of opportunities to explore my creative tendencies in an environment where I can feel comfortable and connect with similar-minded people.