We recently connected with Michael Prieto and have shared our conversation below.

Michael, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Who is your hero and why? What lessons have you learned from them and how have they influenced your journey?

I don’t want to sound corny or anything, but my hero is my dad. My father worked as a mechanic for Lexus for about 30 years, maybe more. What makes him my hero is his tenacity and willingness to work for free for others. Any friend of mine has car troubles, my dad is there. He never asks them for money or anything in return. It’s funny because he will never mention a payment, but I could tell this person is itching to bring up the topic of payment because they feel he deserves it. If anything, he’ll buy you food while he’s taking a break. It’s that type of selflessness that I wish I could have acquired from him. I try to be like him every day in offering people rides home when they need transportation, or even being a helping hand on film sets. It feels nice to be useful and it feels even better when you don’t need anything in return and are doing it out of the kindness of your heart.

Michael, 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?

I am an independent filmmaker, so I don’t have a traditional business. Most of my real work is doing freelance for other creatives, not really giving much creative input. When I do something for myself, I tell stories that are therapeutic to myself. My proudest work is a film I made called “Yesterday’s Tomorrow”, a film about a wedding photographer interviewed by his ex girlfriend after years of no contact, only to discover she’s getting married. This situation is as much of a rollercoaster of emotions as it sounds like’ The making of that film helped get me through a tough time of feeling lonely and finding hope through other means, such as fabricating my own conclusion with my ex girlfriend. If there is anything I want a potential client to know about me, it’s that my work is a mirror reflection of who I am as a person and not only will it help my client, it’ll also help me in the process.

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

A lesson I had to unlearn is to stop being so stubborn. To me, it always feels like the big creatives get to where they are by trusting their own instincts and nobody else. However, almost all the time that’s not the case, especially in filmmaking. Everyone is as worthy of giving input as the creative head in charge.

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

I think a great piece of advice for maintaining high morale is keeping everyone with a smile on their face. I love to make people laugh and I consider myself a funny person (except when it comes to talking to women I like). Whether it’s by telling each individual a compliment/ remind them that they’re doing a great job, or through one of my spontaneous moments, which typically entails me bringing any given situation back to a family guy reference.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: https://Instagram.com/pichaelprieto
• Twitter: https://x.com/pichaelprieto
• Youtube: https://YouTube.com/@pichaelprieto

Image Credits

Jonathan Recinos
Moises Cortez
Aliyah Hinckly