We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Luis Tovar a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Luis, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today What’s been the most meaningful project you’ve worked on?
Well, let’s see. Everything I get involved in nowadays has to have strong meaning behind it. Whether it’s my written work, or someone else’s, it has to have a huge impact. For a long time I was creating videos with friends and trying to find my style. One day it hit me. I no longer just wanted to create videos with cool visuals. I wanted to create content that had power and internal movement for the viewer. Emotion has been my goal ever since. One of my latest short films that I wrote and directed, “LAPSE,” is about two photographers from two different eras that meet up in Venice Beach to exchange photos in both digital and print form. The story has so much meaning for me personally, that every time it screens, either at film festivals or private-screenings, it still brings me to tears. Then, when I look around at the audience and see that they’ve had the same reaction, I know they can feel the meaning behind the story too.
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?
It first started at age of 12, messing with my dad’s home video camera, recording family events. At the time it was state of the art tech, to record straight to a VHS tape. Editing wasn’t even in the picture at that time. I didn’t even know what video editing was. So I would grab the camera and create simple record/pause linear stories with my family. It was for all of us to entertain ourselves. Basic amateur storytelling with a beginning, middle, and end. No knowledge of framing, composition, or rules. A couple of years after messing with the whole concept of
creating videos I decided to shoot something using the camera as a POV. Subconsciously, that was the moment that I went from shooting basic video, to giving an internal perspective to an audience. Honestly, I did it unintentionally and I did not like the feeling. I felt like I was exposing my perspective and feelings to the world. My family noticed the shift in how the videos were being made and pointed it out to me. As a Latino family and as my very first audience, it didn’t really go well. But I was too young to understand my own culture and how we sometimes go about giving our opinions to young ones. Instead of giving constructive criticism it was heavily butchered without any
creative suggestions. I took it so personally, I stopped making videos.
Years went by and I didn’t pick up the camera again until college. I got to work with a local TV channel shooting Sports Entertainment and hosting in front of the camera. I also got into visual effects and animation, which eventually got me freelance gigs. I got to work for a gaming company called “WayForward,” creating inverse kinematics and rigging bones to mesh using 3D studio Max. Then the peak of my graphics era was when I became a Graphic Coordinator for Universal Studios. I learned so much from my mentor there, Paul Luna, on how to create visual effects using Cinema 4D and After Effects. It was a short stay, but I got so much out of the experience.
After all this training I finally decided to pursue the ultimate goal, Becoming a Writer and Director. As a mostly self taught screenwriter, and a trained Cinematographer/Director from LAFilm School. It was time to get in the ring.
For the past decade I’ve written, directed and shot music videos, a handful of commercials, a lot of short films and dozens of comedy sketches with my team. We call ourselves Quagmire Filmz. Award winning actors and producers. Daniel O’Reilly, David Holt, Chelsea Teel, and Elena Nardini. Together, we’ve created a nice amount of award winning pieces and continue to do so. The constructive criticism we give each other is for the good of our projects and our continuous growth.
What separates us from the rest is our witty chemistry when it comes to comedy and our capacity for seriousness when it comes to drama. Our clients are always impressed when they see our dedication and collaborative effort.
For you, what’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative?
Rewards come in different shapes and forms. Especially as a creative person. Rewards may be money or awards. Getting an award feels great because your work is recognized, and bringing in money allows the creative process to continue.
But as an artist, different rewards are what make it worthwhile. Us artists care very much about how we can change someone. Most artists are world-changers and we all want a better world. We want to project positive movement inside people. An example of mine, a short film I was hired to direct called “Rewind,” written by Ryan Noggle. It’s about a man watching a 1920’s silent film on his laptop and he interacts with the characters on the screen. At a festival screening, a lady came to thank me for bringing her back to her childhood because those are the films she used to watch. Another time at a festival, that same film won runner-up and an audience member came up to
me after saying, “more of that, please!” I loved how that made me feel.
Whether it’s music or paint, food or design, skateboarding or photography. Whatever talent the artist possesses, they have to expose it to the world. And all those feelings we artists generate with our creation will inspire people in magical ways. That is the biggest reward for the creative.
In your view, what can society to do to best support artists, creatives and a thriving creative ecosystem?
Right now we are going through a very important time with the WGA and SAG strikes. Labor laws in general for many industries have changed drastically in the past 20 years and it has affected many sectors. But our creative sector in cinema is crucial. If we don’t fight for those changes we will starve as artists. And I don’t mean just for the money aspect of unfair wages but as creators. It’s been decades of Comic Book movies from studios. Different remakes of the same stories. Being so saturated makes it hard to find any originality anymore. Those films are predictable. Where is the art in that? I feel the studios for the most part are telling stories that sell and entertain, not stories that matter. I don’t mean to trash talk, but I feel I’m being real.
Don’t even get me started with AI, we already know where that is going if we don’t control it. I think AI could be very beneficial and we can use it to our advantage as creators. But right now we have to re-negotiate contracts on how we are going to use AI. How it will continue to benefit everyone in the creative process. Transparency and justice for the artist when doing business is what we want. We have to show that we have the upper hand in this fight. No fair contract, no artist, no originality.
Motion pictures are the most powerful art we humans have. Visual storytelling has the power to change lives and inspire generations. Humans crave it because we need it to survive. Society needs to come together and give power back to the artist. Indie filmmaking needs to come back strong and I feel this could be the time. These new ways of creation could be great tools for a creative ecosystem, but that means challenging the system and throwing out the old ways.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.quagmirefilmz.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/quagmirefilmz/
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/quagmire-filmz-llc-640143200/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCjrMXCyZRdPKuHW86GF2Lzw
Image Credits
Pablo Tovar, Brooke Taffet, Elena Nardini, Jocelyn Kuan,