A smile is something strange

AS TOLD TO BC PIRES

My name is Nigel Williams and I am a videographer.

I was born, raised, grew up and still live in Diego Martin, Cemetery Street. Very close to Diamond Vale, which most people know.

Went to school there, Diego Martin Central.

I was never much of an “outside” child, but I would go up River Estate, nearer the North Coast, by my godfather. Real bush!

I remember falling down a lot of hills, exploring stuff. He would take me and my brother.

I have a bunch of cousins and two siblings I learned a lot from, my sister Samantha Salandy, 31, and my brother Matthew Salandy, 26.

I’m the youngest, at 23.

My mom, Karlene, passed away when I was younger.

My father’s still around, but I can’t remember the last time we spoke.

I try to do everything on my own but, thanks to my sister, my brother and my two friends Roger and Zidane, I am learning that sometimes it’s okay to ask for help.

I’ve seen people change themselves for others and end up unhappy ‘cause they aren’t who
they want to be.

I learned from a long time that people’s opinions don’t matter. (Not to say that I don’t listen to anyone.)

It’s important to change for yourself (not) others, ‘cause it’s your life at the end of it all and, in the grand scheme of it, nothing really matters. Live for you and not others.

I remember seeing someone spell the name, Nigel, my name, with a Y. That’s trying too hard.

I’m not a believer. My family was not very religious.

I do believe there is a higher power. I do feel it.

But I wouldn’t deny that any religion is right or wrong. They’re all belief.

I would accept BC Pires’ proposition that all religions were designed by men to subjugate women. Just from seeing it, the whole hijab thing, because men look at women this way, they feel women should cover up…It’s ridiculous!

It’s really difficult for me when I point out to people that you can actually see it – and they still remain in denial! They are actually looking at women as objects, men get multiple wives, women get hijab! It drives me crazy.

The older I get, the more I question everything.

I liked secondary school ‘cause I had two friends, Zidane Sammy and Roger Nelson, I’m still really close to.

I had asked them to help with one episode of my web series, Something Strange. And then they were, like, “When’s the next shoot?”

I always say they joined themselves to my group. I didn’t realise how much help I needed.

I did CXCs but not CAPE. I went directly into working.

I had started working at this factory when I was around 15, 16, just on Saturdays.

After school, I started working full-time at a call centre. I was also doing Republic Bank’s Next Step programme and the Mentoring with the Masters programme with Wendell Manwarren. There was a stipend involved with both, but at some point, it became overwhelming, two programmes plus work full-time.

So I dropped the job because I really didn’t enjoy that. And focusing on the programmes led to more and more creative work.

Trinidad is definitely not a fair society!

From when I was really young, I always wanted to be an actor. But I didn’t know any acting schools and my parents didn’t have the money to send me anyway. So how can I become an actor if I have no experience, nowhere to go, no connections?

So I thought, “All right. If I can’t be in anyone else’s film, I’ll just make my own.”

So I started making shorts.

I’d be playing every part in my films. And there wasn’t any sound, so I’d have to edit in some audio makeshift.

I was just doing it for my enjoyment. I would create all the characters.

I didn’t know that what I was really doing was preparing to be really good at editing.

Around covid time I started videography more seriously. I’d post short videos online and people would like and review.

Xoe Sazzle hired me to work on her live show. She was the first person to actually make me feel like a professional videographer and not just a boy making videos with his phone camera.

After Everything A-Z with Xoe, I felt like I could’ve done video for others. And then she suggested me to someone who needed a videographer and, from there, doors just kept on opening. Videography kind of fell into my lap.

I owe my friend Alicia Viarruel and 3canal a lot! Not just life lessons, creating in general.

I still make videos where I act, like Something Strange. I’d say my best work would be a tie between Something Strange and my stop-motion Nobody Knows.

Something Strange was meant to be season two of a sketch series I did called Let’s Make It Dramatic. No story, just taking the most random-est things that we don’t have an explanation for and making it dramatic.

One episode, the Five-Second Rule, I filmed a guy eating Crix and, while it’s falling in slow-motion, he’s trying to race to get to it and the five-second countdown starts…Not much story, but funny.

For the second season, I wanted to do a film on sleep paralysis, make it into a psychological thriller, kinda scary.

But when I did the first episode I thought, “Nah! This looks really good! I can’t just make this some random skit!”

With how good that first episode came out, I thought I had to create a story as great. Around then is when I changed the name and the direction I was going and that’s how Something Strange was born.

I made three episodes, each one about five-to-four minutes, the longest close to six minutes.

The best thing about making Something Strange was that my friends became part of what we call Wolf Pack Heroes now.

I didn’t plan on having a group. Working and forming a closer friendship with them was the best.

The bad part was the amount of changes I had to make just to ensure it happened.

It wasn’t funded and I couldn’t pay people. I did a lot of things myself, wrote, directed, edited, starred in it, shot some parts.

There’s a lot of unkind people in this world. And I don’t want to be one of them.

The message of my video Smile was, you don’t know what everybody else might be going through. So be kind. That’s all I wanted to say.

People need to understand that everything is just made up. Everything we believe in, everything we do, everything we think is holy or good or bad is just made up.

Someone saw this and interpreted it this way and then everyone else accepted it and it became “Truth.”

But everything is still made up. Everything is an opinion.

When I see people scared to do this or that because they’re worried about what other people will think, especially in art, I think, “You’re not creating something because you like it but because you think somebody else is going to like it if you do it that way.”

It’s so much more important to create something for yourself and that you love it.

People will follow, people will find it, if you love it. Better to have a group of people who love the work you do the same way you love doing it.

To be a Trini is to be a blend of cultures. You can’t help but get exposed to and become part of many different cultures just by being in Trinidad.

To me, Trinidad and Tobago means home. There’s no place like home, even though it’s bad now in the sense of people and crime and potholes.

Read the full version of this feature on Friday evening at www.BCPires.com