We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Luis Martinez. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Luis below.

Luis, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today We’d love to go back in time and hear the story of how you came up with the name of your brand?

For us 2AMBurrito Productions started out as a joke. Before we even started making movies our group of friends would all get together to out to a bar or club or get together for poker night and on most occasions those evenings would end up at a taco shop around 2AM. The 2AM Burrito became a running joke so when it came time to name our production company we went with it. It also evokes a time, place and vibe that is uniquely San Diego. In New York you get a slice of pizza in the south you go to Waffle House but in SD at 2AM you get a burrito.

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 was making movies in my head since I was very young. Imagining scenes that would become the basis for full stories I would tell later. Even though my life took many turns over the years my love for film and story telling stayed with me thru being a film school dropout to having a full career in sales and marketing.

After re settling in San Diego I met my writing partner and co owner of 2AMBurrito Brian and we bonded over our love of cinema and consistently talked about making a movie. The problem was that we were both working 70plus hours a week at corporate jobs that we had no passion for. He took the dive first quit his job and I soon after went from a 70 hour a week job to a 25 hour a week job so we could cast and produce an indie script Brian had written called Five Plus.

We were both now broke but at least spending more of our time doing what we loved and while having to maintain a day job is sadly the reality for a lot of creatives it did jump start 2AMBurrito into a production company that has made 2 SAG ULB (ultra low budget) feature films as well as a dozen short films that have been in many film festivals around the world.

2AMBurrito productions has also produced corporate videos as well as smaller wedding and party videos as well as producing multiple podcasts and shorter form content but our main focus remains to tell interesting original and diverse stories and to prove that original IPs are possible to produce in this re hashed re packaged and rebooted era of film.

For you, what’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative?

The 2 most rewarding aspects of filmmaking for me are Day 1 Take 1 and seeing your film with an audience.

The first is because of the lead up and work that it takes to write edit cast and produce a movie and how that first day on set and that first take is a reward for being able to get to that moment. Of course there is much work to do to get to the finish line but as far as cool moments in my creative life that I should stop and cherish more the first shot of every film is a good one.

The second is watching an hearing an audience react to something that your wrote directed edited or even acted in. Hearing them laugh at a joke gasp at a dramatic moment or even react to something differently than you had envisioned is the final reward of a long creative process.
Actually can I change my order?

Do you have any insights you can share related to maintaining high team morale?

I guess I can dive into my previous life as someone who managed and trained over 10k as a contact center manager.

The mistakes I made early on where in doubting decisions I knew I had to make but would try to talk myself out of. Whether its giving an underperforming worker multiple chances or not realizing when to cut the cord its very hard to make hire fire choices early on. You will make mistakes but should learn from them. But make no mistake that giving an employee too many chances will affect team morale because your team is definitely paying attention to how you handle bad apples and will maintain respect and work hard for you if they see you as decisive and able to live with hard decisions.

My advice is to figure out what your managerial style is and what suits you best. For me it was consensus gathering and then go with it and don’t second guess yourself but also be humble enough to recognize when you have made mistakes.

I didn’t realize it at the time but when I was managing and training 10k I was actually helping myself become a better director in the long run because I was learning how to deal with various personality types as well as getting practice in figuring out peoples personalities and ways to motivate them. You can learn skills that will help you later on in life in every job you have even if they are not in the same field of work.

Contact Info:

• Website: 2amburrito.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bigchiefburrito/, @socaltatttomainstreet
• Facebook: facebook.com/2amburrito, @socaltatttomainstreet
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/BigChiefBurrito
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/2amburrito
• Other: You can catch my podcast Mi Gente Show anywhere you get your audio or at https://migenteshow.podbean.com/

Image Credits
Amanda San Martin, Kenneth Jenkins, San Diego Latino Film Festival