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

Guillermo, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. When did you first know you wanted to pursue a creative/artistic path professionally?

It all started when I was a little kid. I’m talking about a toddler. Then, I was asked what I wanted to be when I grew up, just like people do with toddlers, expecting them to take that decision since then. I used to say that I wanted to be a policeman!

Yeah, I know, but then I only knew the occupations from preschool shows! Plus, I thought that I would get to catch the bad guys. Shootouts, explosions, and pursuits! All the deal! But then reality struck and made me realize that it wasn’t going to be like that, and if it did, maybe I wouldn’t live to tell the story.

Then, for a longer time, I decided I would be an astronaut. In my childhood, I was obsessed with everything space: rockets, planets, stars, aliens, laser guns, jedis… (chuckles). Then reality came again and showed me how, in reality, it was more about math and science than fighting Darth Vader and flying the Millennium Falcon.

Then I had a very brief period when I was interested in archeology or paleontology, but very soon I learned I wouldn’t be resurrecting dinosaurs from a mosquito, nor would I be discovering a secret tomb in the Amazon and sorting ancient traps.

One day, I noticed how all of these ideas came from the same place: movies.

So I figured that a way to live through all of these adventures would be through filmmaking, so I investigated, and reality struck again. Filmmaking would still not let me shoot guns and outrun explosions, fly spaceships and use the force, or anything like that; it is in reality a path of a lot of stress and heavy duty work. But you know what? Reality did not disappoint this time!

Guillermo, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

As a filmmaker, my first approach to cinema was, of course, movies. Watching movies and liking them; watching reviews and creating my own criteria of what I like and why I like them. As I said before, I discovered my love for film at a very young age, so I always knew I wanted to study cinema. When the time to start university came, I had to make the decision of whether I wanted to start my cinema path right away or study something else before, and I actually chose the latter.

Communication is a common career path for several aspiring filmmakers, as it gets you closer to the camera and media production world than anything else, but my biggest takeaway from studying that in college was definitely the theoretical classes: social studies, communication theories, psychology, antropology, and more. Those classes gave me more useful tools for my path as a filmmaker, and I think my appreciation for them actually makes me a differentiator among other filmmakers who went straight into filmmaking.

My approach to any form of art is very analytical and empathetic, with a big emphasis on the why of things. I like to find a reason to tell a story, explain why characters are motivated, and a big emphasis on action and consequences. This approach is very helpful in the roles I usually get in filmmaking: writer, director, script supervisor, and editor, for which I have the most overall experience. I love anything that gets me closer to storytelling in film, as I’m a true admirer of filmmaking and my filmmaking fellows, and that also makes me a great communicator. I’m a firm believer that any problem in the world can be fixed with proper communication, and that also allows me to be a good 1st AD. I believe that a good set with a good flow is one that is communicated in everyone’s work.

I love stories, and I care about their integrity, as they are an important part of the person who wrote them.
Guarding the story and making sure they are well told what the director wants to say. That’s my mission in filmmaking—not just making a career, but making it a medium to tell stories.

Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?

In the past few months, I have had to relearn how important my passion is for my journey.
I had a bad experience back in a set in Mexico. It was a student film where I was helping some less experienced people. Since they were from a communication degree, they were not really into film except for the director, and because of that, her team was not of good help. I started helping the director so much that I ended up stepping on the producer’s decisions. The director was very glad I did, but that led me to a huge confrontation with the producer and with another friend that was on the team.

It made me learn the lesson of “not doing anything without being told to.”
That same lesson backfired on me when I ended up doing less in a job under the impression of “not stepping over others’s responsibilities,” which led me to hide my own passion for that same project.

Later, it made me reflect on that and realize how showing my passion is not a defect; doing too much is not bad. Doing stuff without communicating was my mistake back then, not doing them. In reality, my passion is my biggest strength, and I should really show it; there’s no shame in doing it, and if my values and intentions are in the right place (which they always are), there should not be any risk either.

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

This is a good question. Of course, any artist would like to be appreciated, either by the masses or monetarily. The broke artist is a cliché, but ironically, I do think that society appreciates creatives a lot!

Society puts creative people on a pedestal; they enjoy creativity, they love it and consume it, and they base their personalities around it, whether it is a music band or a specific movie franchise; and in my experience, when dealing with non-creative clients, they are usually genuinely impressed by creative work. Non-creatives love creatives!
Ironically, what we often perceive as creative misappreciation from society, often comes from creatives not appreciating other creatives. Creatives in power are the ones who decide the rates for others; creatives are usually more critical of creatives work, and usually creatives’s first haters of their work are themselves.

Regardless, this is pretty much innevitable, as being critical is part of the creative process itself; it is that thing that makes it possible to improve each time, and when you start working with other people, you want people to match your same critical standards, and when you start paying people, that standard becomes higher and more demanding. So being critical is something necessary, but we shouldn’t confuse criticism with a lack of appreciation.

Creatives can still be appreciative of those who are not up to our own standards. Appreciate their work and their process, as in the sphere of art, which enriches our world, and most importantly, appreciate themselves. We have to know the value of our work, learn how to sell it, make non-creatives want to buy it, and make creatives appreciate it.

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