Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to David A. Flores. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

David, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Can you open up about a risk you’ve taken – what it was like taking that risk, why you took the risk and how it turned out?

I moved to LA to be a filmmaker. That WAS the risk. I’m the first in my family to leave my hometown. I left a hero. I set out to conquer. David and Goliath shit. Betting all on me. Then, the dust settles and you quickly realize, “I need to pay rent and making a film on my own dime is not gonna do that.”

Cut to nearly 12 years later and I’m finally making the films, doing the thing I moved out here for. Why so long? LA is expensive and I don’t come from money. I’ve had to work day jobs. It took me nearly a decade to just get to a point of not being in pure survival mode.

There’s this romanticized notion of taking a risk. That if you just do it, if you just take the plunge, you WILL net your all of your dreams. I’ve seen a ton of people come and go from LA, perhaps using that mindset. Bet it all on black. Sure, it can happen. That’s why its newsworthy. The everyday slog isn’t click-bait.

I feel taking a risk is a privilege. It’s a step you can take, when you’re finally in a position to TAKE a risk.

The projects I do, I’m not betting my mortgage against it. I’m not drowning my family into credit card debt, so I can make a movie. Will I ever “make it,” according to Hollywood standards? Maybe not. Maybe I am a filmmaker who’s always going to work a day job, to help fund my projects.

But I am making things. And I haven’t left LA yet. That’s a risk in itself.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I’m an LA-based creator with Arizona roots. I’ve produced stories for various mediums: film, podcasts and comic books. I love genre (scifi, horror, fantasy) and my projects tend to lean in that direction. I tell character-based stories, first. I have an eye for diversity and craft heroes that aren’t ever truly heroic.

Some of my earliest memories was writing what we now know as fan fiction. Little 2nd grade booklets on the continuing adventures of Star Wars, Batman, Jurassic Park. Movies were always a safe haven for me, but it wasn’t until a high school media productions class that something clicked and I realized: Oh shit, I can actually MAKE movies?!

That set me on a career path that I’m still chasing to this day, solidly in my mid-thirties, with a wife, toddler son and cat in tow.

I went to film school, but I can’t say it did much for me professionally. My first real “job in the industry” was working in sports. The video production team for my university’s athletics department. That job taught me how to use video production and storytelling for marketing and playing to a rabid fanbase.

In moved to LA in 2011. For 10 years, my off-day job hours consisted of developing and writing the next screenplay.

In 2022, I finally made the shift to writer/director. An opportunity came from Cavalry Media to adapt one of my screenplays as an audio drama.

The result was SHELL, a dystopian thriller about a pregnant runaway teenager, a robot and a dog, living together in a cottage in the woods and becoming an unlikely family. It was released November, 2022 and is currently available wherever you get your podcasts. Search “AudioFlix” and then scroll to episode 2 for SHELL.

That unlocked something. Something that had been dormant, since my time in Arizona, making short films with my friends.

I wanted to see a final product, with my name on it. Not a PDF screenplay in my Documents folder on my laptop.

I had the bug. But, I didn’t know where to go.

When we found out my wife was pregnant, whatever door that was unlocked, blew wide open. Who knew what life with a kid would like, but I knew this: I had to make a film. Now or never.

That film became LIKENESS, which is currently going through the film festival circuit. It’s about a young woman who works with an AI copy of her mom to investigate the sudden disappearance of her real mom. We filmed Summer 2022, a month before our baby’s due date and finished the film during those very sleepless infant months.

I’m so very proud of this film.

It’s a scifi thriller, yes, but at its core, it’s a mother/daughter story that deals with grief, loss and acceptance. Universal themes that I feel anyone who has experienced loss can relate to.

I’m thrilled that we’ve had acceptances for a solid string of notable film festivals, including Oscar-qualifying HollyShorts and LA Shorts as well as genre/indie favs like Chattanooga, Sidewalk and Tacoma Film Festivals.

I’m over the moon that audiences have responded well to the film, especially praising the powerhouse performances by our lead actresses Mary Rose Branick and Virginia Newcomb.

So, naturally, onto the next, right? Our next film is PIT STOP. It’s a dystopian horror about two women – a prisoner and guard – stranded by the side of the road and out of gas. They struggle to understand each other and survive the night.

Making movies is expensive, even the microbudget indie shorts I’ve done. I don’t know what the future holds. I do know that now, having made stuff, I’m more emboldened than ever. To not wait around. To not give the powers that be, the gatekeepers, the money people room to anoint me. To welcome me in the club.

For better or worse, the industry hasn’t welcomed me in, so I create what I want, on my own terms. There is power in that.

How can we best help foster a strong, supportive environment for artists and creatives?

As the current Hollywood strikes are suggesting, there is something inherently broken with the system at large.

If you’re a professional creative and your income source is dependent on the art you make? You don’t have much of a choice. You have to play into the system and follow the trends set forth by the shareholders.

You’re not making art for art. It’s business first. Art second, if at all.

How do we fix this? I don’t know if we can, as a Capitalistic society. The thriving creative ecosystem is a bit of a utopian pipedream.

With that said, art is essential to the human existence. We can’t ever stop making art or valuing it. We somehow have to march on and we will.

What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?

This is still very much a work-in-progress for me, but defining what success is and means. Probably my whole life, success equated money, value, power. To work a job that you love and have passion for, that pays you well.

Since 14ish, success for me was being a filmmaker. A Hollywood filmmaker. Commanding budgets of millions of dollars, working with movie stars, winning Oscars, the whole marketing sell of what Hollywood is for countless people.

I haven’t achieved that level of success. Far from it.

I’m a filmmaker who works a day job, who makes films on weekends.

I don’t have investors blowing up my phone. I self fund or crowdfund my projects.

But, I’m making things. On my own terms. That’s success.

I have a great family. That’s success.

I’ve had to come to a radical acceptance that I may never achieve the Hollywood dream. In fact, I probably won’t. I’ve been in LA now long enough to see that may not be in the cards for me. But, that doesn’t mean I can’t create or be creative.

Not being successful in the Hollywood machine isn’t the end all, be all.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://davidfloreswrites.com/
• Instagram: @davidfloreswrites
• Twitter: @dfloreswrites