Conversations with Samuel Rojas

Today we’d like to introduce you to Samuel Rojas.

Hi Samuel, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstory. 
I guess you can say I just fell into it. Growing up, I would’ve never considered myself a creative person, but after high school, I started making videos with my GoPro because of the influence of my friends, who were either photographers, videographers, and generally creative people. I became obsessed with making videos not too long after making my first few. So eventually I saved all my money and bought myself a Canon DSLR, an upgrade from my GoPro 4 for sure. I grew up around cars, mostly Hot Rods and Off-roading since that’s all my dad would take me to growing up. That interest in cars is still with me today, and when I started making videos, it was mostly car events and making videos of my friend’s cars. After I got the DSLR, I wanted a gimbal to help my videos be more stable, but I couldn’t afford one since I spent all my money on the camera, so I improvised. I ended up building my own PVC gimbal from Home Depot and it worked. It definitely got a lot of people’s attention and even got the attention of my now friend Carlos. Carlos, at the time, worked for Super Street Magazine, and we talked about my homemade gimbal. He even made a little post about me on his personal page. From there I was able to get more jobs within the automotive space, and I owe Carlos a lot for giving me a shot when I was first starting. 

I then met Sam Du, who was the editor-in-chief at Super Street magazine. He saw my work on Instagram and asked me to help him out with some videos for the magazine. I owe Sam a lot as well, as he gave me my real first foot in the door where I started working for a major publication, not to mention all the other opportunities it brought to me. It wasn’t much money at the time, unfortunately, but seeing some money come in for doing something that I loved and started as a hobby really motivated me to keep pushing forward. At this time, I was essentially working 3 jobs: I had my day job at Costco, full-time student at school, and taking as much video work as I could on the side so I could start to be a freelancer full-time, and I was able to do that not long after working with Super Street. 

During the pandemic, it was a weird time for everyone, even for me. However, towards the end of 2020, work really took off for me. My friend Jay introduced me to a production agency called Tangent Vector, which creates videos for brands like Porsche, NBC, and Top Gear. Again, this reminder: I’m still in school at this point, but classes are almost fully remote, so I worked full-time as a freelancer while still in school. It was honestly really rough at times, where I would be on the road after a full day of filming and then some back to my hotel room and start studying for my exams or preparing presentations. But for me, it was all worth it; being able to get paid to make content for brands I looked up to growing up was worth the struggle of not sleeping most nights of the week. Working with the agency also allowed me to have even more opportunities where I would begin to work with even more agencies and brands such as Hearst, Lexus, and Audi to name a few. 

Where I am today is solely because of the people and friends I’ve made over the past years. Being a “yes man” definitely didn’t hurt. I can’t imagine myself doing anything else, and I’m happy I’ve been able to find that for myself; I’m happy I was able to bet on myself to keep working even though the money sometimes would never come. But it was when things were dry is when I knew that wasn’t what kept me moving, it was just the excitement of creating something that wasn’t there before. I do it for the sake of the art, and I can’t imagine ever putting the camera down again. 

I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
The road I’ve been on has been far from smooth, about as smooth as any street in Silver Lake. 

When I first started taking my video career seriously, I was a full-time university student, working my day job and working as much as I could on filming videos to make it a full-time gig. Around age 21, I was able to become freelance making videos, even though I wasn’t making much money at all it was still worth it for me. The biggest struggle I faced was the school, work, and life balance, and life took the back seat a lot of the time. The sacrifices I made to say no to my friends, saying no to family events, the amount of sleep lost, and, at the beginning, the lack of support from my family was something that weighed heavy on me. But it was something that brought me joy, so I obsessed over my craft to make it the best I could with what I had at the time. The financial and mental struggle is something I still struggle with today, but spending literally all the money I had to buy my first full-camera setup was one of the scariest and most exciting things I’ve done. I was buying into the idea that this is what I want to do, and I’m not exactly where I want to be yet in my career, but looking in the rear-view mirror, I can say I’ve gotten pretty far for someone who started making videos just as a hobby. 

Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
The majority of my work specializes in automotive content creation for multiple mediums, such as social media, streaming, and documentary films. I’ve been fortunate to work with brands such as Ferrari, Porsche, and Top Gear and worked for TV series on NBC and MotorTrend. I have recently been getting more directing roles, which I’m very excited about, but the majority of my roles on sets have been Director of Photography, Camera Operator, Photographer, as well as some producing. What I’m most proud of is a really hard question, but something I would say I am most proud of is managing a full-time university schedule while maintaining my business relationships to keep my career going. There have been times when I’m in class on the other side of the country, doing a Zoom presentation, while in the middle of my lunch break on a job, or sometimes in the middle of the job. I’m very thankful I work with the people I do that were able to give me some flexibility while on sets. 

We’d be interested to hear your thoughts on luck and what role, if any, you feel it’s played for you.
Luck is when opportunity meets preparation, and luck has played a massive role in my career. I am horrible at marketing myself, but the reason I’m able to stay so busy is because of my friends I’ve met through work and word-of-mouth. The number of people I have met by chance who have given me opportunities to work for brands I’ve dreamed of and travel to bucket-list places is something I’ll always be grateful for. I wouldn’t be able to keep doing what I love without the friends I’ve made over the years and the generosity of my peers. 

Contact Info:

• Website: samxrojas.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/samxrojas?igsh=YTQwZjQ0NmI0OA%3D%3D&utm_source=qr

Image Credits
Povi Pullinen
Renz Dimaandal
Brandon Lim
Alexis Cuevas