Today we’d like to introduce you to Redamo Rosa.
Redamo, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
I’m a Puerto Rican filmmaker living in Los Angeles. My story for filmmaking really began when I was about 2 or 3. My mom used to buy me the disposable cameras to use because I was too young to shoot her more professional cameras. I developed a good sense of visual storytelling with this format. I found my passion for creating stories when I was five years old. I would literally sit my entire family down and have them watch an elaborate production that included my action figures and me acting out the whole story, which included a soundtrack I would hum myself. Unbeknownst to me, these stories would actually have a Three Act Structure of some sort, with strong characters and betrayal, stunts and thrilling moments. I remember going to Blockbuster Video and staying there for hours and hours on end. My mom would always dread going fully knowing it would take up the whole day, she would always try and explain to me that I couldn’t rent the whole store.
I really got into filmmaking when I was given a laptop for my birthday with iMovie on it in the third grade. I started realizing that people like me could actually make movies, like the ones I would watch at Blockbuster. I didn’t have a camera then so I would record using my Macbook’s facecam. Soon I would buy a small digital flip camera and every weekend I would film little shorts with my friends. Stories would range from zombie mockumentaries to a killer octopus from outer space, I would write after school and shoot every weekend. After filming my house would always be turned inside out like a tornado going through a small town – but it was amazing, every experience making these shorts was so fun. My tastes began to manifest after watching James Wan’s Insidious, I never experienced a movie that made me feel that scared – I genuinely couldn’t sleep for weeks – I kept thinking about it – I had to make a movie like this so I did. I made a short film called The Jacket, heavily inspired by James Wan horror movies, The Jacket was about a haunted jacket – simple enough – it got me a best screenplay from NGF film fest and it was a crowd favorite at my school’s Cinema Scare Night festival. Now I run a production company: Wrenfield Productions on YouTube. We are small but ambitious, last year we got nominated for a Latin Grammy – Best Long Form Video for an animated piece entitled “Tu Lado Oscuro”.
We have recently started a podcast in the town of Wrenfield, California called Wrenfield Radio, an down to earth podcast inspired by David Lynch’s Twin Peaks about filmmaking, world news and life. We speak with up and coming artists and veterans in the film industry and feature short films during the show’s intermission. We make content constantly from web-series to music videos to short films. Having a production company has allowed me to learn a lot about collaboration and leadership. My goals currently are to finish my first feature film and venture into the world of game design. I have always been fascinated with directing a narrative based video game and now I have a story that I want to explore in that medium. I love storytelling, it is a medium that allows me to learn from many art forms. I’m truly blessed that I am able to do what I love.
Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
Nothing’s a smooth journey. Some obstacles along the way, like most young filmmakers, money was and is a major issue. As a kid, you don’t actually realize how much money movies need to have backing them in order to be produced. I also had a hard time in the beginning finding people my age who were as passionate or rather “crazy” about film as I was. I was that kid who would be fully writing a short film in the middle of a Math test like I would finish the test early just to work on the movie. I was lucky enough to later go to the Cinematic Arts Department at the Los Angeles County High-School for the Arts. This experience really helped my collaboration skills, I got a chance to work with really talented filmmakers everyday.
Please tell us about Wrenfield Productions.
Wrenfield Productions is our film and media production company specializing in short films, music videos, and documentaries. We are growing in size, adding collaborators in the fields of production design, video game design and art forms such as stop motion and 2D animation. We plan to start production on our first feature film in the coming year. The age of online content is here and Wrenfield strives to become a hub for a new genre of content. We recently started our new podcast entitled Wrenfield Radio, heavily inspired by the works of David Lynch and horror films of the seventies and eighties. In every episode, we have a brief intermission that showcases new and innovative short films from a wide array of genres. Things are difficult due to COVID-19 but we will all prevail. Podcasts can no longer have guests in the studio so we have resorted to zoom or video calls for interviews. Sets have also been limited to six crew members or less but we are still producing content. Our dream is to one day have our own sound-stages and a studio spaces. We dream big!
If you had to go back in time and start over, would you have done anything differently?
Honestly, I’m a firm believer in “everything happens for a reason”. Who knows, if I went back and changed things -maybe I wouldn’t have gotten this opportunity to speak with you all on Voyage LA. Life is a funny thing, we can live in this realm of regret everyday thinking – wishing we can start over, or we can accept the things we can’t change and focus on the things we can. If some time traveler with frizzy white hair came up to me and offered me the chance to go back in time, I would have to decline the offer. I know my mistakes, I know I should have probably cared a little more about school, maybe traveled some more but honestly, I can’t say I really wouldn’t go back and change that. I like the way things are turning out and I’m very happy. I try hard not live with regret, all that stuff is in the past, it’s all about now.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCYao1ItqT7gLxeYoktmtw6g
- Phone: 3232440238
- Email: [email protected]
- Instagram: @redamorosa
- Twitter: @therealredamo
Image Credit:
Portraits of Redamo Rosa by Angela Alvarado, On set stills by Ian Herz
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