Life & Work with Gabriel Tejeda-Benitez of North Hollywood

Today we’d like to introduce you to Gabriel Tejeda-Benitez.

Hi Gabriel, so excited to have you on the platform. So before we get into questions about your work-life, maybe you can bring our readers up to speed on your story and how you got to where you are today?
My story starts when I was a young kid raised in Des Moines, Iowa. My family would watch movies all the time. My mom and dad would take our family to the discount theater to watch the latest Jackie Chan movie, and they’d take us to Blockbuster to pick out a couple of movies to watch. We’d even go to our nearby library to borrow movies. I still only borrow or buy physical media if they have Special Features.

The ones with the making of documentaries were very special, and I specifically remember X-Men and Jurassic Park. I knew I wanted to make movies around that time because of those special features. I remember seeing the directors explain shots, and actors talking about how exciting it was working on the movie, and I wanted to be a part of that, be the director, be the camera man, the actor…and I haven’t changed my mind since.

Fast forward to being a teenager, I took a VHS video creation class the summer before high school because I wanted to learn how to create videos. I took photography classes all through high school so I could be behind the camera. In my Spanish AP class my senior year, our teacher assigned a 15 minute video as one of our final projects, and I made a short film called Los Asesinos, cast all the guys in my class, wrote it in two days, directed it in two weeks, and when I turned it in, I got an A+ and all but one of the awards we held: best female Spanish speaker actress. I could have swept. My teacher, Señora Benson had me look into Robert Rodriguez because my movie reminded her of him and his film. Robert then became a role model to me.

Post High School, around this time the Canon T2i and the Canon T3i became very popular and democatrized filmmaking in a way no one knew how powerful the impact would be, since we still feel it today. And I got a camera, the Canon t3i and I became a photographer and started making my own short films with old and new friends. I took an acting class at my community college because I read that if you wanted to be a better director, you should take an acting class…but then I fell in love with acting and participated in theater.

During my time in Iowa, I had participated in the 48 Hour Film Projects, Theater productions, I photographed nightclubs, got a full time job doing Photography and Videography, helped my friends with their short films and I was enjoying life. It wasn’t until someone at my full-time job asked me, “what would make you quit your job”? and I answered immediately, “to go follow my dream”. It wasn’t until then that I had been reminded that I haven’t made any big moves towards my dream, my other filmmaking friends had already moved to LA, and I wasn’t really creating anymore. I did something about that because I couldn’t live with myself if I didn’t . I sold my house, got my things ready, and I moved to California at the beginning of 2020…great timing, right?

Cut to present day, I’ve been in LA for 5 years now, I’ve work on hundreds of music videos, commercials, short films, feature films. I’m auditioning for acting roles, I’m a photographer here still, I met my wife, and my dream: I’m living my dream of making movies in LA. I haven’t directed a lot, but I’m still working on that. I haven’t acted in anything big, but I’m working on it. My childhood dream of living in LA and working on movies has been achieved and now that I’m an adult, my dream is to evolve and mature that dream into being a working filmmaker, who makes his living from making movies as an actor, director, doing photography because I love it, and thriving while doing all of that with my wife.

We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
When I moved here in January of 2020, none of us really knew how Covid was going to impact us to much in the coming months. My first week in LA, I PA’d on a low-budget feature film, and I started gripping on music videos and short films and I thought to myself…this is so cool, the momentum is building and I can’t wait to keep it going!

NOPE. Quarantine. 2 weeks at first…another two weeks…another month…and then another. Wow, Like a crash test dummy I hit a wall. we all did. Some folks actually thrived on the quarantine; some of them became TikTok stars. I was not one of those people. I’m the kind of people that need other people, interaction, and social energy sometimes. I didn’t have the mood or energy to do much elese in quarantine except play video games, watch tons of movies, and go on random hikes to get some fresh air. Quarantine exposed some issues I wasn’t aware of with myself either: depression, ADHD (diagnosed much later), and trauma I I’m recently learning to deal with.

The industry changed as much as the world did. and since 2020 nothing was ever going to be the same as before. I was steered off course myself. I arrived in LA to be an actor, filmmaker, and I ended up gripping and gaffing for a long time. And I still do it now because it pays the bills. But I wasn’t doing enough for myself then. It wasn’t until I took an in-person acting class towards the latter half of 2021 that I started to feel like I was taking back my reason and drive for being in LA and going after my dream.

Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
I’m a multifaceted artist. I’m an actor, director, editor, photographer, set lighting tech, and I’m not really specialized in anything quite yet. I’m a jack of all trades and a master of none, but I believe it’s better than being a master of one. I’m valuable in many ways instead of just the one.

There are great filmmakers who have reached the upper echelons of our industry that are multi-talented, multi-skilled, and no one gives them trouble for not being specialized in a single skill’; they’re well-rounded. If anything, they are specialized in being an artist & storytellers.

That’s the kind of artist I am. A well-rounded and multi-skilled artist. I am a good director, because I am a good actor and a good editor, I am a good actor because I know my craft and my impact on the story and the production. every skill I know, supports the other. I see the relationship between the editor and the actor. I see the relationship between the set-lighting tech and the actor. I see the relationship between director and editor.

I see these relationships because I know the jobs on set, because I’ve worked them. And I believe I’m a better artist because of it.

We’d be interested to hear your thoughts on luck and what role, if any, you feel it’s played for you?
If it was bad luck that covid and quarantine happened, and it exposed problems that needed addressed in my life, then it was good that it happened. There were things that needed healing and caring for.

It was good luck that I found my wife, in my acting class, and we have become partners in life and career, because she is so incredibly smart and sees what I don’t, and supports and encourages me in a way I never really knew. And I have someone I can encourage and support when she needs it.

I had bad luck when I wasn’t getting any kind of job in the film industry and I didn’t know what I was going to do to pay rent and even my taxes. The good luck came when I got a job as a Mentor teaching 5th graders…how to create videos from Script to Screen. I wasn’t working as a filmmaker, but I got to teach filmmaking. I didn’t have to get a ‘normal’ job that had nothing to do with movies and tv.

See, bad luck can be good. It doesn’t show itself as good until much later. and the good luck that does show up I am grateful for and appreciate it as much as I can.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://gabetejeda.wixsite.com/gabrieltejeda
• Instagram: @gabrieltejedabenitez | @photosbygabrieltejeda

Image Credits
Photos by Myself, Jose Calderon, Elizabeth Hernandez, & Demian Tejeda