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

Marcus, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. We’d love to go back in time and hear the story of how you came up with the name of your brand?

Branding in the social media age is something you generally want to only do once. Coming up with something that embodies our vision as filmmakers, our staff as a whole, and a name people will be interested to learn more about was a difficult choice but my wife Sabrina and I felt that the Film and Entertainment industry is a jungle and we want to act as the King of the Jungle would. LionsAct Productions is the brand we chose that we felt had an impressionable name befitting our no nonsense attitude about our work. We act as a Lion would act, in every day, meeting, and set we work on. It’s always all business and getting the job done with our best efforts given every time we attach ourselves to a project. LionsAct Productions takes immense pride in our films, commercials, and projects we produce and are competitive in our approach.

Marcus, 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?

My name is Marcus Davila and I’m a second generation American, Navy Veteran who has found a second wind as a Filmmaker living in San Antonio,Tx. After leaving the United States Navy I felt like I had lost the best thing that had happened to me in life and came home to San Antonio to seek a career and start my civilian life. I worked in many different industries from commercial flooring, painting, working in restaurants, selling cars, selling insurance and many more jobs. I never felt I found my niche and stayed longer than I wanted to so I could pay my bills at the time but didn’t feel like I was part of a team I cared about. I bounced around for a few years and was making end meet by being a handyman and doing odd ends and jobs for small pay. Covid hit and closed the small business I did have and I was in a depressive state for a few months. Being unable to go and work at peoples homes and interacting with people to find new clients was something I had done for years and I didn’t know what I was going to do. I met my wife and we both took to each other very quickly and saw each other frequently and would spend time walking through parks that were still open and hiking and I fell in love with her. She was just completing her first year at Los Angeles Film School and I found her studies extremely interesting. Over the next few years as we were sheltered from the world she earned her degree online and taught me all she knew about Film and Cinematography. Covid ended and we began to create short films with friends locally and our network grew quickly. We opened our family business, LionsAct Productions and began to focus on creating content with the intent of making the best we could and reinvesting any profits back into our company to grow larger. 4 years later and my wife and I are both Writer/Directors with multiple short film projects under our belt and completing the post production on my feature film Directorial Debut “The American Coyote.” I have been working on this film with my wife and the cast and crew for almost 2 years and it’s eagerly anticipated locally and internationally. About a year ago an agent from Athens, Greece reached out about representing me and my wife and we agreed to a deal along with International Distribution for our feature films that gave us the leverage to bring in bigger talent. Having an international distribution deal gives our film company the theaters to show our projects at worldwide and has given us the opportunity to share our projects on a scale never before seen for a First time filmmaker who isn’t related to a famous actor or family. We’re a hard working team and we invest every day into making the best content we can for consumption one day with projects that tell stories that are compelling, gritty, and raw. One of the things I’m most proud of is the talent we have trained as first time actors and given other people like me a second chance at bring a part of the Film Industry. We are proud of our Hispanic culture and seek to represent it in a postive light by teaching as many new actors as we can about the industry and preparing them with acting classes for bigger projects one day. LionsAct Production takes great pride in teaching the next generation of filmmakers and actors how to enter the industry by offering free classes at a local public high school by creating films with the students for the school to see. Anti-Drug awareness is something we recently made a film about with local students and actors and the film was regarded as a raw look at what student are going through currently and the film was greatly appreciated by students, parents, teachers, as well as the School Board who was in attendance at the premiere. The biggest compliment given from multiple members was that they loved the message and wanted to be a part of the next film. As a Filmmaker my vision is one I have to share with the public and I am grateful when the message of the project is appreciated.

How did you build your audience on social media?

The power of a handshake is something that’s greatly underestimated. I built my social media by making friends in public from strangers and seeking their social media to support them as well as gaining followers. I am an extrovert and sometimes I’m nervous to talk to strangers but have found that strangers I have met have supported me equally and sometimes more than my own family. People recognize authenticity and if you talk to people in person about your projects you will have a better chance at adding a supporter who will truly support you and your projects. Don’t be afraid to cover the distance between you and someone you don’t know. Take a chance, make a friend, and change your life. You will never know how far you can go if you don’t try and I feel very strongly in investing in personal relationships to help build your social media. Support them in their endeavors and they will do the same for you I have seen in my experience.

What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?

The most rewarding aspect of being a Filmmaker is having people clap at the end of your film. We all have many ideas daily and when a filmmaker chooses one to develop into a film is a lengthy road that you take along with your team and support system. You will rethink every idea after 1000x and will find you have so many alternate paths you can take from making that one idea into a film you won’t know what the best one is until you complete it. The best idea is a completed film that you can look back on as a fond memory and lesson that will help build your next film into a better one. No piece of Art is perfect, and neither is any film and you will learn that as you continue to make films. Once you run those credits though and you hear that first clap trust me it’ll all make sense even if it didn’t make cents. or Dollars. Create Art cause you want to, not for any other reason and you’ll. be happy at the end of the day.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lionsact_productions/profilecard/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/FleetwoodMarcus1
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC1eN5FkwwMAtn_hR-JOloug