Today we’d like to introduce you to David A. Flores.
Hi David, it’s an honor to have you on the platform. Thanks for taking the time to share your story with us – to start, maybe you can share some of your backstory with our readers.
I’m an LA-based writer/director/producer with Tucson, AZ roots. Fun fact about me: I’m a former mariachi musician (trumpet player).
I’ve been in LA coming up on 13 years. I moved here for the stereotypical reason of conquering Hollywood as a multi-hyphenate filmmaker.
Haven’t quite conquered Hollywood.
In fact, so much of my 13 years has been just surviving in LA. So. Hard to conquer anything. But, as of 2022, I’ve been making things. Tapping back into a potential and freedom that I hadn’t had since college.
I’m a working class creative, who works a day job and has been fortunate enough to not just survive living in LA, but actually plant roots in LA. I have a family – wife, toddler, and cat – that is all part of my LA story.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way? Looking back, would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
Smooth road? NO. Absolutely not.
But, also, it’s sort of the worst elephant in the room, right? You’re moving to Hollywood, and you want to be a part of that industry? No one ever says it’s easy.
I think the hardest part for me has been the reality of time.
When I first moved to LA at 24, I wasn’t thinking about time. Now, at 36, time is a constant weight in my life. Having a baby only magnifies the concept of time – where literally each week, each day, you’re getting a new version of your child.
Time goes fast. Years go fast.
In short, I have in no way accomplished my dream career goals in the timeline I originally thought.
I, also at 24, thought I’d be Hollywood hot shit within a year.
Cue sad trumpet noise.
The biggest hurdle I realized and had no idea going into was the amount of gatekeeping the industry is. It’s a system that’s built on gatekeepers.
You can’t just write a thing and send your thing to Disney. That brilliant thing you wrote HAS to come from your reps, either an agent or manager.
Cool! So, I’ll get an agent or a manager!
Well, hold on there. No reputable agent or manager will take unsolicited works. Meaning, if you send it, it’s more than likely going straight in the trash. It’s a “we’ll call you if we discover you” thing.
Thus, the rat race begins.
Countless other hopefuls are doing the exact same thing as you, grinding their gears, working, hustling, all trying to get noticed/discovered/validated by outside non-creative gatekeepers so they can pass you onto other sets of non-creative gatekeepers.
All so they can make a Slinkey movie or whatever other corporate IP they’ve gobbled up.
It’s bleak out there.
For what it’s worth, I HAVE been repped. After 8 years, I had finally got the golden ticket of having a manager and getting a taste of having your works be passed around town. I worked with my manager for 4 years before we amicably split in 2023.
What I learned? The short of it is once you make it past the gates…there’s a whole other set of new gates to pass through.
It’s exhausting.
I completely understand why people burn out and leave the industry and LA for different pastures.
And yet, here I am. Still doing the thing.
I continue because I’m not doing this, not for the industry. I thought I was. That was the cause to get me to LA. And don’t me wrong, I would heartily accept the industry’s invitation.
I’m doing this for me. Because I NEED to be creative.
It’s a compulsion. It’s not about money. Or validation.
Recently, I’ve been telling people that I feel like I’m now off-roading. Actively NOT being on the road. Perhaps paving my own road as I go?
I don’t know where this is leading, but it feels right.
Thanks – so, what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
I’m a transmedia writer/director/producer. What is transmedia? It means I work in different mediums. I like to think of it as whatever medium is most realistic for me to actually make. As such, I’ve done projects in film, podcasts, comic books.
I tell character-based stories with a genre twist.
As of writing this, we are just wrapping up the film festival run for our first film, LIKENESS. It’s a sci-fi thriller about a young woman who works with an AI version of her mom to find her missing real mom. I’m proud of this because, well, you never forget your first. While I had done films in high school and college, this was my first film that had more of a professional sheen. Where people actually paid, we had an actual budget. After 10+ years of grinding in LA and doing screenplays only, to be able to make an actual film and have full creative control over it was a true treat.
LIKENESS is now available on the YouTube channel Omeleto. Please definitely check it out!
What sets me apart from others?
Well, I hope honesty and the ability to be reasonable. Two things, sadly, the industry lacks. Do I have a vision that I want to be executed? Absolutely. Do I want my team to work hard to accomplish that? Yup. Is anyone dying from us making some cool art? No.
With every collaborator I’ve worked with, I’ve been honest about our and my limitations. I’ll be the first to admit I DON’T know what I’m talking about, so if you do, teach me. I tell my collaborators that I can’t pay them what they’re worth because it’s just me, and I don’t come from money.
My projects are not studio-backed joints, so if you come on, you’re coming on for the love of the project, first and foremost.
How do you define success?
Admittedly, this is a big work in progress for me.
Up until basically now, I thought success was what I came out to LA for. Being let into to the Hollywood gates. Creating art on a massive scale, where your work can be seen by millions. Getting paid well for your creative work.
I haven’t achieved that. I work a day job and create my projects on my off-hours, on my own time and with my own money.
As I get older, the drive to grind and grind and grind with no returns loses its luster for me. Now, having a family, it really loses its luster.
When our son was born, I knew being creative for me was going to be different.
I knew that I didn’t want to spend a Saturday at a Starbucks, writing the next screenplay for an industry-approved screenwriting competition, overspending a Saturday with my son at the park.
I also knew I didn’t want to hang up on being creative because being creative is a mental health release for me.
Where I’m at now is if I AM to spend a Saturday writing at Starbucks, it’s going to be for a project that is coming directly from me, with the intention of it being made.
Not entered into a contest. Not passed around so a rep can discover me.
Made, as I’m going to make it and release it to the world, not stored in the Documents folder on my laptop.
Perhaps I’m molding my own definition of success.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://davidfloreswrites.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/davidfloreswrites/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/dfloreswrites
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCEy4y4fiznEGP_1-qVE6TYg
Image Credits
Toby Canto
