G-Podcast

I sat down to talk with Isis Avalos who is an amazing dancer, performer and teacher. We recorded outdoors in front of a couple of very Chicano, very indigenous murals outside of La Etrella Mini Market in East Denton, Texas. She currently lives in LA and so when I found out she would be at UNT for a couple day teaching some dance classes at her alma mater, I decided to reach out and both record this podcast and a short video portrait of her. We talked about her start in dance, growing up undocumented, colorism in the Mexican community and how she embraced being a “morena" through her indigenous lineage; which also influences the way she moves.

She takes it upon herself to spread her knowledge of history and culture as a performer and teacher of dance - so that her ancestor's contributions (to dance and the world in general) may be acknowledged and never forgotten as they most commonly are.

On this episode I sat down to talk with Bryan Perez, a long time friend of mine who I grew up skateboarding with. We recorded outdoors at an open lot of land in our Fort Worth neighborhood that was once home to a DIY skatepark that skaters from out hood and visitors from all over the DFW area used to inhabit. We reminisced about our past times in skateboarding, we talked about our experiences with depression, anxiety, Bryan opened up about his battle with cancer last year, we discussed our parents lives after immigrating to the US, raising us to adulthood and we explored the questions of what’s next for them and what’s next for us?

On this episode I sat down to talk filmmaking with Cinematographer Parker Foster. We talked about his start in filmmaking, moving from Dallas to Chicago, dropping out of film school to pursue his career as a  full time music video cinematographer, making his next move to LA and coming back to Dallas for a week to shoot a short film.

I think any young or aspiring filmmaker will get a lot out of this one because - despite coming from different backgrounds and taking different paths in our filmmaking journey (with or without film school) both Parker and I continue to move forward with our careers successfully.

I sat down with hip hop artist Alsace Carcione to talk about the process of completing her new album titled “New Normal”. It is set to be released on April 20th, along with a music video I had the pleasure of directing and she’ll be having her album release show that same evening at Club Dada in Deep Ellum.

In our conversation, she shared her thoughts and experiences on finding her ‘New Normal’ after losing her Mother and Grandmother, becoming more vulnerable in her music, being honest and real as a person, we discuss the music video we created for her song “Born Legend”, her experience as a female in Hip-Hop and the importance of artists supporting one another alike.

I invited Lance De Los Santos and Gabriel Duran to talk filmmaking and their Festival De Cine Latino America (FDCLA) - which is a Latino film festival taking place February 23rd through February 25th at the University of North Texas in Denton.

In our talk, we discussed Latino representation, bringing actors like Jesse Borrego from films like Blood in Blood Out (1993) and Fame (1980) to be recognized at the festival, using the festival as a platform for Latin American filmmakers to screen their work in the US, celebrating culture, having a writing master class with Edui Tijerina who wrote Cantinflas (2014), bringing a Cantinflas tribute act out to perform and using this festival as a networking opportunity for student filmmakers to connect and get inspired.

Please check out FDCLA.org for more information and follow them on Facebook.

In this episode I share what I know now that I wish I knew as a young skateboarder. I talk about alternatives to becoming a pro skater that still allow us to continue being a part of skateboarding as we get older. I share the story of how I became a sponsored skater and how others could do the same. Ultimately, I'm talking directly to the lil homies who wish they could skateboard forever but think that it's only possible if they become a professional skateboarder.

In this episode, I talk about making the best out of the college experience and what I did to minimize my experience with post-college syndrome, which could be summarized with feeling lost, misguided, unfulfilled and clueless about what the next step in your life is after you graduate.

I talk about appreciating the social aspect of school over the textbook formality, socializing with people alike and polar opposite, the importance of networking, how I ensured I would have work after graduation, practical advice on how to reach out for work and how I was able to hire myself when no one would.

I hope that this will help future and current students in school make the best of their experience and further prepare themselves to graduate and continue moving forward. Of course, I was film major so this applies more specifically to film students but I believe every student can  get something out of this.

In this segment I talk about the social expectancies of graduating high school, going to college, work, love, having children, marriage, skateboarding and masculinity. All of which have sat in my mind at one time or another but I've learned that they only matter if I decide they do, not because of social and societal pressures. I jump around all of these topics through my initial story ("words of wisdom") I share about the first time I consciously thought about going to college and what I did to ensure I was going to go.

The ultimate goal of this segment was to talk to the younger me or the current young, Chicano, skater kid in high school, in the hood who’s trying to navigate through the social pressures of life as a young boy trying to find himself or figure out what the next step is. And let them know, that it’s gonna be alright but don’t let outside pressures determine the course of your life. Listen to my stories, my failures, my small tastes success and learn from them, because I was like you. I am like you.

Another thing to note, this segment was an experiment. I recorded this on the road because sometimes I get so busy and driving becomes downtime for me to listen to podcast, new music, make phone calls and what not. So I decided to use the drive as an opportunity to record a podcast. Also, this segment was more of a rant. So be prepared, because I wasn't. 

I will also say that the audio is questionable. But I'm going to look into finding a better method of capturing cleaner audio on the next one.

I sit down and talk with Amanda Reyes, a filmmaker and actress originally from Denton, Texas. She shares her experiences growing up as a 2nd generation Chicana, moving to California and New York to pursue her dreams of becoming an actress and director, how she uses her films to share stories about her personal experiences coming from an inmate family and we get behind the scenes info on how she nailed one of her first big director's role on a TV pilot which encompasses several values she tries to maintain to stay true to herself as a Woman and POC.