Meet Alex Garcia

Today we’d like to introduce you to Alex Garcia.

Alex, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
I had a film production program in high school, which initially was a class that I didn’t take interest in whatsoever. For the first year and a half, I wasn’t necessarily sure of what part of filmmaking that I had interest in and it took me a while but the moment I was assigned “camera man” for a project, I became infatuated by the idea of creating imagery in films. From there I started focusing on doing things that related to the camera department by any means possible.

I learned from mainly attempting to DP on as many productions as possible, both inside and outside of the classroom. As I was learning in high school, I developed a network of people who would have me DP on projects of theirs. The more I stuck with this initial network, the more often I would get called from them to DP a project since I would be the first person that came to mind.

Since I had been working with either a director or producer from high school and they figured I was good for my word, they referred me to someone else who had gotten my info which led to different and sometimes larger projects that stemmed from those original few connections, which most I still work with and keep in contact with to this day.

The simple referral from those guys has been really integral to my growth in the industry as a DP. I’m still not quite where I aspire to be at just yet but one day I will be there.

Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
I wish it was a smooth road. I feel like there were a few things that were put against me especially when I was starting out and learning the basics of cinematography and the filmmaking process as a whole.

In the film class I had taken in high school, for about the first year and a half I didn’t really think of myself heading in the direction of a career in filmmaking. At the time I didn’t have any ambitions in my life and I sort of just went with things as they came and hoped I’d figure out what I was to do with myself at some point.

My grades were pretty bad during my sophomore year and I had multiple teachers doubt that I would get anywhere since I didn’t have much ambition in the filmmaking courses and didn’t do much better in any of my other classes. This resulted in me falling into a mindset of constant self-doubt and lack of confidence in my ability to excel in anything.

Once I had a sparked interest in cinematography, I began to perceive through my own mentality. I began to see a future for myself and I made an effort to turn everything around and made essentially a night and day difference. My grades were solid, I had started properly pursuing a DP career, and got accepted to a cal-state school.

Freelance Director of Photography – what should we know? What do you guys do best? What sets you apart from the competition?
I’m a Director of Photography, which essentially in a fancy term means that I’m in charge of creating an overall look for a film, commercial, etc. DP work is my main bread and butter but I also do other things pertaining to camera such as camera assisting as well as camera operation. Essentially anything that pertains to the camera I am typically known for having knowledge in. I take pride in my strong work ethic as well as the creative perspective I can bring for any given project.

I feel like what sets me apart from others is my willingness to take risks and try new things without the fear of failure. Failure is a way for me to learn what works and what doesn’t work and I’ve always embraced the idea of it from the very beginning.

Is there a characteristic or quality that you feel is essential to success?
Perseverance for sure. I feel that in my experience as a creative, there are more times than not where the odds feel against me in a lot of different ways and no matter how confident I was with my portfolio or regardless of where I was at during a certain point in my career, I sort of feel stagnate at times and was desperate for any progression in my career as well as taking heaving criticism from peers too personally.

But the thing that sort of pushed me through was staying true to what I wanted to achieve and condensing it into sort-term goals, making it a bit more digestible to persevere through. Like a car sort of just speeding through traffic on the freeway instead of stopping and obsessing over a small inconvenience in the road, I forced myself to push through the odds against me and ignore the negative thoughts of peers and my own to get closer to my long-term goal. The only way out is through. I feel that’s something I’ve kept in mind no matter the given situation. You’ll persevere I promise.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://alexleogarcia.com/
• Email: [email protected]
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/alexleogarcia/

Image Credit:
Ricardo Vazquez (Personal Photo) Andrew Ortiz (BTS Photos)

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