We were lucky to catch up with Christian Chico recently and have shared our conversation below.

Christian, appreciate you joining us today. How did you learn to do what you do? Knowing what you know now, what could you have done to speed up your learning process? What skills do you think were most essential? What obstacles stood in the way of learning more?

I owe all my learning experience to all the people that I watched/read about and worked with through countless of projects. I have learned vastly from my film professors, watching online video tutorials, reading forum posts from other grips, and my fellow peers that I worked with on set!

Knowing what I know now, if I were to go back in time and speed up my learning process, I would have immediately began working in the film industry right out of high school as soon as I turned 18. In doing so, I would have more time to explore other department roles and have on-set experience as soon as possible. However, with that said, I would not take back my past – without everything that I have been through I would not be where I am at now, and I am very grateful for everyone that I have met and took the time and patience to teach me.

Some skills that I believe are most essential as a grip are: to be punctual/early on set, willingness to learn and be open minded, and fun to work with! If you are at work early, ready to learn, and great to work with – then you can pretty much tackle anything in the world! I was taught that you can teach anyone the hard/technical skills of how to grip, but it is up to the individual if they want to.

The only obstacle that stood in the way of learning more was… myself. There are many learning opportunities that I could have taken but were missed due to me not wanting to go, taking too long and being late, or not being responsible. Even to this day I am constantly working on improving myself in order to learn the best I can.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

Hello everyone! My name is Christian Chico and I am freelance film production grip! As far as I can remember, my journey in filmmaking began when my parents wanted me to transfer their Mini DV Tapes to DVD when I was around 10 years-old. We had whole boxes full of Mini DV Tapes filled with recorded family memories such as graduation, birthday, vacation trips, tournaments, and many events. Upon watching them, they carried warm feelings and recorded video history that would not be possible through any other means. This pushed me to use our family camcorder (and later on I got a Flip Video camera) to record random videos such as family events and funny skits with my brother, cousin, and family.

During this time, Machinima, an online entertainment network, began to release videos on Youtube with video game animations and gameplay commentaries. During this influx, I began to record video game footage from games such as Halo 3, Crackdown, Red Dead Redemption 2, Gears of War 3, and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 and create skits and gameplay commentaries.

Fast forward in time, I enter college and wanted to become an electrical engineer by studying physics. I was not creating videos as much as before and instead focused on studying physics. Well… about a year and a half in, I ended up doing really bad in physics and my g.p.a. was near academic probation. I had to do something… fast! My really close friend, Mr. William, asked me if I wanted to try out a film class. I took that class, got a really high grade, and felt instantly drawn to it. Ever since then, I changed my major path from physics to film and graduated in film!

After I graduated in 2018, I got a full-time day job (to help pay for my student loans) and began to apply for film jobs. I first went through Craigslist and Facebook groups, and I was able to work as an unpaid production assistant on several films (as well as dabbled a bit into 2nd AC’ing)! On set I learned so much such as the names and lingo for items, and the many different positions that make up a crew. Wanting to work more on set, I realized that I need more time out of my schedule. While working at my day job, my co-worker Ate Nida told me: “Don’t grow up in here.” Inspired by those words (as well as all my co-workers telling me to go for my passion), I ended up leaving my day job and going full time in film.

While being a production assistant on a 2021 UCLA student film set, cinematographer, Jackie Fang, was looking for additional G&E (grip and electrics) and pointed at me, saying “Do you want to be in our G&E team?” The line producer gave me permission to become a G&E crew member and I soon began my journey into the lighting department! I learned so much – from setting up a c-stand, to building a large 12×12 frame.

From that point on, I began to work more and more as G&E on sets and ended up really liking the grip-side of lighting. Afterwards, I focused on being a grip and expanding my knowledge on the different types of rags, gels, and diffusion; how to rig camera onto cars; operating dolly grip, laying and leveling track; and operating cranes. As of now, I specialize in dolly gripping and am working towards entering the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees (IATSE) Local 80 grip union via West Los Angeles College as a candidate for the Hollywood CPR program.

As a grip, the thing that makes it a lot of fun is the ability to problem solve with the equipment and conditions given. “How do I get a light rigged 20 feet in the air with the equipment we have safely?” would be an example that makes it challenging yet exciting! Many people relate gripping to “playing with adult LEGOS” – which I share the same sentiment. Additionally, a large part of gripping involves camera movement via dollies and I really enjoy helping execute that movement. For those who do not know, a dolly is a device that is essentially a cart with wheels where camera and camera operator rides on – the dolly grip is one who operates the dolly via pushing or pulling, basically driving the dolly. Depending on the move and situation, the dolly grip may lay tracks for the dolly to ride on to accurately traverse a set path.

Other than that, that is pretty much a short summary of my history in filming as a grip – there are so many more details and countless people that I have learned from that I would like to mention, but that would make this summary endless! I am open to work on a range of projects – may it be small or big – as long as I am working with amazing people, that is what I value the most!

What can society do to ensure an environment that’s helpful to artists and creatives?

In my opinion, society can best support artists, creatives, and a thriving creative ecosystem by experiencing their pieces and talking about them. When I say experiencing, for example, it may be: watching a filmmaker’s movie, going to a painter’s gallery, watching a dancer’s performance, reading an author’s book, or participating in an organized artist performance. After the experience comes sharing – talk about it and have discourse. That is the fun in art – it is highly subjective and people have different translations and feelings based on their experience, and talking about it amongst others is as important as experiencing it.

Another way society can support is by donating money to back artists in their creations! This helps artist get the resources they need to create their pieces which is extremely helpful. I have seen artists have amazing ideas and work really hard and long to raise money for their projects – donating money will increase the speed of the process of raising money and also shows support for the artist from the donator.

Is there a particular goal or mission driving your creative journey?

My main goal or mission that drives my creative journey is to have fun with others in translating a story into film! It is exciting to see the development of a story from an idea thought up by somebody or a group of people into a screenplay, storyboard, shot list, filming during production, and editing in post-production – there are so much more levels and layers to this process! Not only that, but the amount of people you meet and work with is amazing – everyone specializes in something that contributes to the film and we all are collectively working towards the same goal: making the film! To me, that is exciting and what makes me passionate about film.

Another thing that pushes me is learning from others – a motto I like to go by is: “Somebody always knows something that I do not know!” No matter how experienced one is, there is always something new to learn and that is exciting/pushes me in my filmmaking journey!

Contact Info:

• Website: https://christianchico.wordpress.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/christian_ch1co
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@gamerchico1
• Other: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm10740339

Image Credits

Andrew Thomas Thrash, Dexter Fletcher, Trina Pham, Keith Nixon Jr., Lina Kraftsoff, Matthew Magnus, Navik Nanubhai, Sarah Joy Smith, Ian Salmon, Ben Winter