Meet Omar Salas Zamora of The Arbor Company in South Los Angeles

Today we’d like to introduce you to Omar Salas Zamora.

Omar, before we jump into specific questions about your work, why don’t you give us some details about you and your story.
I grew up in a small dusty “Last Picture Show”-like town in the Central Valley of California known for its poisonous air and bakeries that refuse business to same-sex couples. I was the youngest of four children and a decade younger than my closest brother which I think created a logic in my head that I was an only child since I was so far apart from my siblings. I was the son of working-class parents so I was alone a lot and was responsible for managing my own time. I started trying to decipher the mechanics of movies very young. I would open videotapes and figure out where the scenes I didn’t like in movies were and physically cut them out and tape the movie back together (if you don’t do this right, you’ll fuck up your VCR).

I played with my father’s video camera and started to understand in-camera editing tricks. I would start figuring out how to edit from VCR to VCR and do my own voiceovers for the characters. I was completely fascinated by the creation of a movie. In high school, every Friday, I would pull my projector into my backyard and program a double or triple feature for my friends from my DVD collection, I would play “The Last House On The Left” with “I Spit On Your Grave,” “Orgazmo” with “Smiley Face,” “Chasing Amy” with “Polyester,” “Hard Eight” with “Buffalo ’66,” “Kids” with “The Rules Of Attraction,” “Hot Rod” with “Airplane,” “The Basketball Diaries” with “Drugstore Cowboy,” “Over The Edge” with “The Outsiders,” “Braindead” with “The Evil Dead,” “The Toxic Avenger” with “Return Of The Killer Tomatoes.” I went out of my way to play outrageous or shocking movies and loved to sit in the back and just watch the reactions. I started to make shorts and eventually created a YouTube web series.

This wasn’t a Vlog-like thing. I would write it, we would rehearse it, we should shoot it and edit it. They were movies. There was a rhythm and a sense of cohesiveness that I was reaching for that I didn’t see anyone else around me trying to do. After high school, I moved to Los Angeles with the pretense of college but going to school wasn’t as important to me as being in the city. If I lived in Los Angeles and if I made just enough money to be able to go to the cinema, I knew I would be happy. I was right. In the first couple of years, I worked on some micro-budget features which worked more as education than anything else. Finding these collaborators are have been my key for pushing forward into the particular kind of art I’m interested in creating, particularly Calvin Picou, who has acted as a kind of muse for me creatively but been a partner in legitimizing The Arbor Company.

Similarly, Andrew Folsom has been a key component in laying the groundwork for Arbor with me in 2006. Meeting these right people motivated me to take myself more seriously as a director instead of a guy that makes movies. Eventually, my progression and technique as a director naturally evolved into something more mature. In 2017, I completed a feature called “Happy Birthday Duncan,” a somewhat romantic, somewhat comedy starring Kelli Anderson and Calvin Picou. That movie was the culmination of the DIY attitude I had on the previous projects. A black and white movie where the cinematographer didn’t read the script and was built on a kind of looseness that I thought was like John Cassavetes meets Kevin Smith. The sound post-production process was hell but it is now ready and waiting to be accepted into festivals. Since then, I have been working incredibly hard on what I feel is a huge step in my career: “Hollow Bedrooms.”

The movie’s IMDB synopsis is as follows: “On a bleak Tuesday night in Los Angeles, stories of love, shame, addiction, and fear interweave.” “Hollow Bedrooms” stars a huge cast of incredible actors like Franziska Schissler, Austin Bosley, Zachary Kemper, Jade Edmondson, Anton Antionadis, Noah Toth, AJ Knight, Baker Powell, Calvin Picou, McKenzie Eckels, and the list goes on and on. This production took almost two years to complete filming and I’m really happy to be taking my time to edit this behemoth of a movie for the last several months. I see it coming together day after day. I have never been more in love with something that I’ve made. The actors have all given wonderful, raw performances and I’m so excited for everyone to see their work. In the near future, I will be directing a feature in the Pacific Northwest called “Eyes On Joanne,” a horror movie, starring the incredibly talented Nina Kova. There are not many details to reveal about that project yet but I hope that it would make De Palma proud.

Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
The obstacle for anyone involved in independent filmmaking is always going to be money. When I arrived in Los Angeles, I met every producer I could, regardless of their experience. I just wanted my scripts read, I wanted reassurance. These conversations continued in circles. I started working as hard as I could to finance my own work. I would have a day job, a night job and fill the time in between with odd jobs (editing, web design and such). Eventually, after six months of doing this, I would be able to take two weeks off and make a completely self-financed movie that I had complete control over. I would suggest this process for any young director wanting to concentrate on their craft.

In my opinion, using your own money will make you think twice about every project. In general, I have met a lot of young actors, directors, and writers that simply aren’t attracted to movies, which I find insane. When I’m shooting my movies, I can’t sleep at night. I have to edit that day’s footage because I’m so excited to show the actors the next day. I want that level of obsession for everyone else around me. If you don’t walk into a restaurant and try to assess where a dolly could fit, if you don’t listen to a song and mentally place it over a romantic scene, if you don’t stare across the table at someone you admire and figure out how light would best accentuate their features, I don’t know what you have to contribute.

We’d love to hear more about your work.
The long term goal for The Arbor Company was to create this work environment that encourages creativity above all else. I wish that I had more guidance when I was younger and had more people around me that I could even show my movies to. I hope that once I get to a place where I could more comfortably make my movies, I can aid other young directors and their unique visions. I would like to work in multiple genres but particularly would like to focus more on queer storytelling, which has always been very important to me. Directors like Gus Van Sant, Todd Haynes, and Andrew Haigh are huge influences to me and I feel their push for interesting, innovative and complicated characters that happened to be queer is missing from the landscape. I believe there’s an audience out there that doesn’t want to see the same AIDS drama or coming out a story over and over.

What has been the proudest moment of your career so far?
I have been lucky enough to have a fairly smooth ride so far in my career but on the third day of shooting Hollow Bedrooms, I walked onto the set, a bar location in Culver City, and saw every position figured out perfectly. My cinematographer, his assistant, my assistant, the AD’s, the background actors – everyone was doing their job and it was the first time in my career up to that point that I was able to sit down with the actors and give them 100% of my attention before a shoot.

Beyond that, it was the biggest scene I had done until then as well so I was nervous walking in. I had grown used to making sure everyone had eaten or if the batteries were charged or if the actors costumes were okay that I had never been allowed this sigh of relief before. It was definitely an internal triumph that nobody else would have noticed but remembering that moment is a great way for me to mentally prepare myself for the next big step. I think I’m ready for it.

Contact Info:

• Email: omarsalaszamora@gmail.com
• BUSINESS NAME: The Arbor Company
  WHAT PART OF LA: South Los Angeles
  PRICING: Directing / Contact for rate
  PRICING: Writing / Contact for rate
• Website thearborcompany.com
• Facebook: omarsalaszamora
• Instagram: omarsalaszamora, thearborcompany

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