All Episodes

September 3, 2024 • 32 mins
The Admigos talk to Art Strong and Diego Rodriguez about their careers as film makersArt Strong: https://ad2houstonadmigospodcast.transistor.fm/5Diego Rodriguez: https://ad2houstonadmigospodcast.transistor.fm/20
Mark as Played
Transcript

Episode Transcript

Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:13):
Alla Admigos, and welcome to the ad to Houston Admigos podcast,
a podcast for young professionals in the marketing and advertising
industry who are learning to navigate their early careers. I
am Guido Alconi, Presidente of ad to Houston.

Speaker 2 (00:28):
Joint today by my co host, I'm Brittany and I'm
the Club Achievement Chair for aud to Houston.

Speaker 1 (00:34):
And as always, our producer Jacob Dantone. Hello. Today on
our show, we are joined by Art Strong. Art is
the founder of Strong Visuals. He is also a alumni
of the University of Houston, Go Kooks, and he has
worked with friends such as title That's Actually Pretty Cool
at the American cant To Society, Rice University and University

(00:57):
of Houston. Of course. All right, thank you so much
for joining us.

Speaker 3 (00:59):
A man, I'm happy to be here to talk with you, guys.

Speaker 1 (01:02):
I'm happy to have you. It's always, it's always, it's
always a great time whatever we get to hang out
with you. Yes, sir, let's go ahead, get started. If
you just give me a quick introduction of how you're
gonna involved with that two in af and what that
experience has been like.

Speaker 4 (01:16):
Okay, all right, I'll never forget this night. She's actually
in the room with us right now.

Speaker 3 (01:21):
Rose.

Speaker 4 (01:22):
I was at the ADDY Awards, the last ADDIY Awards
that was person for COVID twenty and I saw Rose
and I had been hearing her name through a good
friend of mine, Mike Todd. Oh yeah, And so I
went up to her. I said, hey, you have you're
in an organization. I heard you the person to talk
to I want to join And she got any information
and the rest was history. But then COVID hit and uh,

(01:46):
I didn't get a chance to really get active because
of the pandemic.

Speaker 1 (01:50):
That's so. But I remember that night because I was
there too. But I don't think I got to talk
to you that day. I was busy running audio. It's
funny enough, but I was a yeah place or whatever.

Speaker 3 (02:03):
Yeah, Yeah, it was a great night.

Speaker 4 (02:05):
I I'll never forget, like I said, that night because
Long Run had a huge night.

Speaker 3 (02:10):
Yeah, Gilbert had a huge night.

Speaker 4 (02:13):
So I met Audie Gilbert for the first time that
night and she was so she was open to the
next day. I was in the office talking to her. Wow,
And it's just it was great. From now so I
knew this organization would be cool because it was people
like her in it.

Speaker 3 (02:29):
After talking to Rose and I just knew it was
gonna be amazing.

Speaker 1 (02:32):
What's the type of magic that you can expect from uh?
I too, and AF you're.

Speaker 2 (02:36):
The founder of Strong Visuals, and that's pretty cool, I think. So,
you know, like I think a lot of us young professionals,
like we woul kind of think of like, oh, it'll
be cool to have like my own thing or whatever.
But you know what kind of at what point did
you kind of come to the realization that you wanted
to do that, you wanted to have your own business.

Speaker 4 (02:55):
I've always, if I'm being honest, I've always had an
entrepreneur in my frame. Even when I was in college.
I started online video production business. I won't even say
the name, but I started this company and I was
just the film guy on campus. And twenty sixteen, I said, Hey,

(03:17):
I'm going to take my last name and create a
real production company where film directors come together and create
commercial because I've always been a level commercials. We started
it twenty sixteen, and uh that's how that's how we got.

Speaker 1 (03:32):
In the business, and the rest is history.

Speaker 3 (03:35):
The rest is history.

Speaker 4 (03:35):
Twenty eighteen we converted over to a full service advertising agency.
So that's where we are now with full service advertising
agency where we work with brands and brand strategy and
all kinds of things.

Speaker 3 (03:49):
So creative works.

Speaker 1 (03:50):
That's really cool man. That's uh. I'm very happy for
all your success. Thank you glad that you had so
much fun doing it too, because every time I talk
to you, you're just you're always so energetic and you
always tell me about your your company and it's like
you're having have fun doing it and like it's nice.

Speaker 4 (04:07):
Yeah, that's the dream man having a blast. I mean
when you're doing something that you're passionate about. I mean
we all are creators, right when you're creating a man,
it's nothing.

Speaker 1 (04:17):
Like, hey, you brought me some smoothie today, so that's yeah.

Speaker 4 (04:20):
Yeah, we had to get you know, is a chocolate
shredder from Smovie King.

Speaker 1 (04:24):
So all right, so you know, before we have you here,
we say your questionnaire with some you know, some questions
to try to get to know you better. And one
of the things you told us was that you showed
your first campaign commercial in your mother's living room, right,
so can you tell the audience that story kind of
how it happened and what led to it? Right, and

(04:44):
how did that help you fall in love with the industry?

Speaker 4 (04:48):
Okay, good question. So I've always been in love with
the industry. Even as a key when watching the TV show,
I was more excited about the commercials than the TV show.
And you know, there's so many classic commercials that was
happening when I was a kid in the nineties, and
it was just like, man, I want to do this
one day. Anyways, fast forward, I'm in college. Like I

(05:09):
just mentioned, I'm the film got on campus. So you know,
I built a reputation of being the guy if you
need film work. So I was always just being creative
and just kind of coming up with new ways to
one day get a TV commercial. That was always to go,
I want to get a TV commercial. The idea came
up with one of the football players at you of
h and he had this clothing line going on. So

(05:32):
I was like, oh, wow, man, let me shoot that.
Let me shoot that, and you know, this would be great.
I got some ideas.

Speaker 3 (05:38):
We went go to my mom.

Speaker 4 (05:40):
Living room and the rest of it we threw up
like a green screen on the wall.

Speaker 3 (05:45):
We literally didn't know what we were doing.

Speaker 4 (05:47):
But those memories stuck with me, and I've just been
building since then with the right people and creating this path.

Speaker 2 (05:55):
So yeah, you've kind of like got to get that
started for yourself and everything. I think for a lot
of like our audience with an ad TU being young professionals,
what kind of advice could you maybe give to them
for they want to do the same kind of thing
start thrown agency.

Speaker 4 (06:09):
Yeah, my advice is always if you believe in and
just do it, you'll figure out the.

Speaker 3 (06:13):
Rest along the way. That's what I did.

Speaker 4 (06:16):
I didn't know how much going to owning and creating
an advertising agency. I didn't I have, I had no clue,
But I'm figuring it out as I go. You know,
as long as this is truly my advice everybody, as
long as you're progressing, progressing within what you're doing, you're
doing the right thing. Now when you start becoming worse

(06:39):
than what you are, then maybe you need to go
find something else. But if you're scaling up and going up, hey,
keep going right.

Speaker 1 (06:48):
Hard work is eighty percent a yeah, of any enterprise
you take right. And I hear one someone said that
people want to hear people want to see the glory,
you know, just toy And I think that's very much
true because nothing great was built with exactly a lot
of bloods from tears.

Speaker 4 (07:08):
Yeah, man, it's it's some long nights studio. You're listening
right now. If you want to create something great, just
understand it's gonna be a lot of lonely nights, a
lot of people that's not gonna understand you.

Speaker 3 (07:18):
But just keep going and it's gonna all pay off.
Trust me.

Speaker 1 (07:23):
So you are the well you're the founder of from
Visus and you're also the chief creative officer. So can
you talk a little bit about what that actually entails?
You know, what is it like to run the company?
Will also you know, being part of that creative process
of the things so you do?

Speaker 4 (07:40):
Yeah, yeah, so being the creative officer more so. Now,
so it's my job. I'm I'm literally just the visionary
of the company at this point. Like I said, in
twenty eighteen, we converted over into a full service advertising agency.
So what we did was we brought in a friend
of mine who was a great, great advertising professional and

(08:02):
she now is our creative director. We brought in a
few copywriters. So these guys are literally smarter than me.
So I said, Hey, I'm not going to stand in
you guys way, Hey, go create this magic. And so
my job as the creative officer now is just to
set the atmosphere for them to create. You know, no
one wants to go into a shop and they're not

(08:22):
able to create how they want to create. So I'm
spending time setting the mood, setting an atmosphere, making sure
they have the resources that they need to create, and
then also putting the brand on notice to people we
want to work with.

Speaker 1 (08:36):
Oh yeah, definitely fighting those connections those right right, right right.

Speaker 4 (08:42):
So I'm doing all of the stuff that creators don't
really want to do, but we need to do in
order to become a great advertising agency.

Speaker 2 (08:50):
You know, I'm pretty sure there's been like probably a
lot of challenges over the years on that. One of
the most recent challenges that we've all seen was the
the pandemic and the twenty twenty lockdown. How did your
company make that switch and from video production to full service?

(09:11):
And you're also saying, you know, doing that during the
pandemic and thriving during the economy and everything else that
was going on.

Speaker 4 (09:19):
Man, the pandemic hurt I mean it's literally across the world.
People struggled, so you know, everyone took a hit. But
for us, you know, we kind of took the approach
that the pandemic actually settled to dust. It almost made
the big guys in this industry kind of have to
rethink things. And we were in the motion of being hungry.

(09:41):
We were hungry. We're hungry shot. We want to be
the best. We study the greats, and you know, it
was perfect position for us to feel like the plan
field was even. So, you know, we hit the ground
running with some of the strategies that we have within
the agency, and you know, we implement them and it
just worked out. In the middle of the pandemic, we
actually signed the account Smoothie King and that kind of

(10:03):
carried us.

Speaker 1 (10:04):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (10:04):
Yeah, So we've been doing great work with them, building
with them. They took a chance with us, and yeah, man,
it's just it's just been amazing. I don't know how
we ended up here after the pandemic, but I'm so
thankful that we are. But's it's literally just the testament
of having great people on your team and believing in
what we're doing.

Speaker 1 (10:25):
Yeah, that pandemic, I was gonna say, what's everyone, I
don't even know that it was that it's over. So
it's been rough on everyone.

Speaker 3 (10:36):
It's definitely been rough.

Speaker 4 (10:37):
But you know, the resilient people always find a way
to emerge from all of this tragedy.

Speaker 1 (10:43):
So people in the future listening to this are going
to be like, what pandemic are you?

Speaker 3 (10:49):
Yeah, yeah, I know.

Speaker 4 (10:50):
But the thing is what I would say, you know,
one of the things. And this is just a going
back to the creative officer road that I have. I'm
constantly constantly setting the tone of steady, study, study, study.
We are an advertising agency to what we actually appreciate
what the industry have done in the past, like we
love all of the great work that's come before us
in the great agencies. And you know, I'm always telling

(11:13):
our teams, hey, let's study, let's study. So during this pandemic,
we took a lot of time of studying certain industry,
I mean certain agencies across the nation, across the world
to see what they were doing, what was working. Because
like I said to us, the plan field was even.
So now it was time to say, hey, we're just
as good as them. Now you know, they're at home
just like we're at home, so what can we do

(11:34):
to create to you know, put ourselves on the map.

Speaker 1 (11:38):
Now, that's a great way to look at things, right,
because I definitely think that it's like you said, everything
kind of got even out for everyone right now. You
don't have all the advantages of being a big company,
Like everybody's working from home, so you don't have that
control over them. And you know, I think it was
it was a moment where everybody kind of realized that

(11:59):
all these more shops, they they're doing Josh's great work,
and they've been doing it from home, many of them
for a long time, and they're used to it, and
they know how to adapt faster. Right. There's not as
much red tape as if you go with a big,
you know, church group kind of place right where there's
fifteen different people looking and everything. Yeah, and things to

(12:20):
get a bottle nick.

Speaker 3 (12:21):
Yeah, Richard group. Man, he actually got in a lot
of trouble during that.

Speaker 1 (12:24):
Oh yeah, yeah. That was on top of my feed
on linked teams for about a month.

Speaker 3 (12:30):
Yeah yeah, man, So you get the study. We studied
that and I understood that, Hey, look because the way
we're said, we're we're a family right. So we're my.

Speaker 4 (12:41):
Creative director and copywriters. I'm on the phone with them
just talking about life like period. So we're always sharpening
each other to make sure, hey, don't do this. Hey
no that's not That wasn't good. So I hate that
that happened to you know that the Titan and Richard, Yeah,
you know.

Speaker 3 (13:01):
You got to watch it.

Speaker 1 (13:02):
Yeah, it's you know, and maybe it was also a
generational thing.

Speaker 4 (13:08):
Yeah, I think it was time, I guess for you
to like pass the paton.

Speaker 1 (13:12):
Anyways, Yeah, so you know, we talked a lot about
you know, running the agency, the different things that you do.
Let's talk a little bit about relationship management. Now I am.
I've been a product manager, I've been a brand manager.
Relationship management has been what I've done for a long
time now. So I want to talk about the inner
relationships that happen in an agency. Right, So how would

(13:33):
you recommend a young professional build these relationships with upper management,
especially if you work at a smaller agency where upper
management is just the owner, right, So what can you
do to build out these relationships? I get to know
their superiors and also, you know, build a working relationship

(13:53):
right where they're not necessarily afraid of giving feedback when
they see something, but also not afraid of receiving it.

Speaker 4 (14:01):
Yeah, yeah, no, I think that's always a tough thing
for some someone young understanding this. But I think the
main thing that young people should understand when coming into
these agencies and trying to build those relationships is to
actually take the time to build a relationship.

Speaker 3 (14:18):
You know, we live in.

Speaker 4 (14:19):
A society to where, if I'm being honest, everyone is selfish.
Everybody's out for self agendas. However, sometimes you know it's
not about self, especially when you're working on a project
like for example, when we were working on Smoother King,
I would love to throw some of my ideas out there,
but you know, if it doesn't fit the team and

(14:40):
it's not you know, no one gets the credit around here.
The agency gets the credit, and you know we'll pat
each other on the back and move to the next
But you know, along that process, figure out where you
where your gifts are, and you know it's up to
guys like me who is upper management of it's funny
to say upper management, but you know, like a guy
like me, I to search for that in you. I

(15:01):
need to show me your gifts and if you show
me your gifts, then I know where to place you
within your gifts to where you can't emerge to carve
your role.

Speaker 1 (15:10):
Yeah, I think it goes both ways. Right, you need
to be open as a young professional to to learn,
but they also need to understand that you will are
bringing something that they didn't have before it, right. I
think that can take time.

Speaker 4 (15:24):
I think yeah, especially for a young person. You know,
young person's mind frame is, like I said, we're so
ambitious when we're young. It's almost like, oh, I just graduated,
we get this. Sometimes I just graduated from advertising school
and I'm ready to do this, do this. And then
when you get in the creative room and you know,
we start doing strategy, then you know your small voice

(15:47):
looks a lot smaller to these big people that understands
how this works. So you know, my advice is to
observe first, come in, soak up as much as you can.
I'm huge on studying. Study as much as you can,
and then you can kind of car by your your role.

Speaker 1 (16:09):
So diego. You like I mentioned earlier, you have work
both behind the camera and in front of the camera. Uh,
what have you found? Can you talk a little bit
about what the difference is between those two sides. You
know whether you have more, you know what the freedoms are,
what the processes, and as a free answer at times, right,

(16:31):
how do you? How does that work for you? You
know which one do you like better? And all that to.

Speaker 5 (16:36):
Your question too. I love all those questions. So I
think that.

Speaker 6 (16:39):
The challenging thing about acting that people don't realize.

Speaker 5 (16:42):
Is how much it takes out of you.

Speaker 6 (16:44):
So if you do a really good job, like when
I was doing those commercials to Walmart for that year,
we would film maybe three days out of the month, Gosh.

Speaker 5 (16:51):
Were they exhausting.

Speaker 6 (16:52):
You know, you have to be fully present, you have
to be fully engaged. You have to be willing to
do it, you know, take after take after take, and
you have to bring your a game every time that
the camera roles. And I'm sure this is true theater
as well. It's just when you're on set and you
have so many distractions, you've got a lot of people
who actually don't really care about what you're doing. You've
got the people trying to pull focus, you've got the

(17:13):
guy trying.

Speaker 5 (17:13):
To speak the lighting.

Speaker 6 (17:14):
Obviously they care that you're performing, but they don't really
care about your performance per se.

Speaker 5 (17:19):
They just want to get over, you know, and move
the next thing.

Speaker 6 (17:22):
So that can be draining and exhausting, and it's tough
as a creative person because the director they're probably talking
to the client about certain things, so they may not
give you that feedback.

Speaker 5 (17:32):
Loop that you need.

Speaker 6 (17:32):
So you feel very vulnerable, very exposed, even though it's
your line. May be here's the dominant pizza, but when
you're saying it, you know, fourteen times like that, I
say wrong the first time, am I wow? You know,
you want that feedback. In the commercial space, as an actor,
you don't always get that because there's so much you're moving.
Now there are those directors who are going to give
you that feedback, which is great, but by and large,

(17:55):
when you're on set as an actor in advertising, you're
kind of there.

Speaker 5 (17:59):
Just get the done.

Speaker 6 (18:00):
So that's kind of the tough thing. Now. The nice thing, though,
is that you don't have to worry about putting away
the gear. You do your prep work, you rehearse, maybe
you have you know, an acting coach of somebody to
work with on the ideas. You show up, you do
a great job, and then you leave and you're done.

Speaker 5 (18:13):
And you just sort like, whooh, you know.

Speaker 6 (18:15):
That's that's complete. With filming, I'm about to do a
short film at the end of this year, there's just
so much runway.

Speaker 5 (18:22):
If you're a producer, there's so many weeks.

Speaker 6 (18:24):
Of production, of testing, and then when you're filming you're
not maybe as the actor is exposed, but you're putting
a lot of energy. Stays are long, and then when
you're done, there's the editing for a lot to do.
So it just takes it out of you in a
much bigger way being behind the camera. But then you
can more consistently I would say, make money if you're
behind the camera, because in my world, I will edit

(18:47):
for certain clients, I'll shoot as a cinematographer, I'll direct
that was directing a TV show for a while in Spanish,
or you know, whatever combination they're of. So that's the
nice thing about it. With acting, it's trickier, and the
people who are booking a lot tend to have a
really specific, narrow like niche that they're in. And that's
why my manager was like, hey, you should just focus

(19:08):
on Latin thing, which initially I was against them, going hey,
more than what you know.

Speaker 5 (19:11):
Guy, Well he's searching the paychecks.

Speaker 6 (19:12):
You're going, okay, whatever, I'm looking at that.

Speaker 1 (19:15):
Oh yeah. And that's crazy because I don't think people
realize just how much time goes into filming a thirty
second spot. You know, you just you see it. It's like, oh,
that's thirty seconds. How long could that possibly take to
get together? It's like it's like a four hour shoot. Yeah,
you know, it's please yeah, you know, everything needs to
be perfect for it. So no, that's that's that's amazing.

(19:40):
I can see what you mean. But both sides kind
of varise raining, but it does feel like, yeah.

Speaker 2 (19:45):
It does seem like there's a lot that goes into
both acting and.

Speaker 1 (19:49):
And the recording. And yeah, I think people forget about
the fact that after you record something, you still to
edit it.

Speaker 6 (19:55):
Yeah the camera Yeah, oh yeah, No. Editing is a
huge part of Actually I wind up doing after COVID
because I was directing a lot and then COVID happened,
and then there was a show called Exmani Latino for
comcasts that we were doing for about four years, And yeah,
because of that, a lot of the work that was
on set then became editing. There's so much editing work

(20:18):
right now, and that's a huge part of delivering media
for sure.

Speaker 2 (20:22):
So what advice would you give to someone who's looking
to get into the industry, whether that is as an actor.

Speaker 3 (20:27):
Or a director.

Speaker 6 (20:29):
Internships are really helpful. I think that the key is
getting into the industry through having.

Speaker 5 (20:37):
A certain skill set whatever you are wanting to do.

Speaker 6 (20:40):
So you want to act or you want to direct
or camera, you have to be really good at it.
Now everyone's going to say, well, of course, I'm really
good at it. You have to get feedback from a
lot of people.

Speaker 5 (20:48):
You have to get.

Speaker 6 (20:49):
Feedback from your friends, your family, from people who don't
like you, people who do like you. You need as
much feedback as possible because there's so many people who
want to do it. You want to put yourself in
situations where you can meet the people for doing what
you're doing. So I volunteered a lot at film festivals.
I volunteered at the Denver Film Festival, I volunteer atread
Film Festival. I volunteered at smaller festivals. And they just

(21:09):
help you to meet people and get out of your shell.
If you're an introvert, that helps. If you're an extrovert,
you learn, learn what's going on. So those are those
are key because you do have to build that network.
I guess finally, you have to be willing to really
want it and be honest with yourself because while I'm
very successful at what I do, it's a it's a
huge sacrifice that it takes to do this this kind

(21:30):
of work. It's tough on your family because you're not
around them a lot. It's tough on your relationships because
you're not around them. So it takes a toll. And
I just say that because I think that most people,
most artists know that, but it helps you to.

Speaker 5 (21:44):
Know it's a real thing.

Speaker 6 (21:46):
It's not a it's not a nine of five thing.
And if you want a nine to five thing out
of this, if you can get there, but it's going
to be probably not that for a while.

Speaker 1 (21:55):
Yeah, that makes a lot of sense, Especially as a director.
Sometimes you might be sent on, you know, on location
and right I don't know, another city, another country, and
it's like, well, sorry, honey, I'm gonna miss your birthday. Yeah,
I would take a big toll on your relationship.

Speaker 5 (22:14):
Yeah, I was.

Speaker 6 (22:14):
I was working at Horizon Wireless Commercials in Miami and
when we were being blown out there. I was there
for a month, a month and a half at a
time sometimes and that was hard, you know, it so hard.
It's cool because it's like Miami and working and the
food's also amazing and people are speaking Spanish. But yeah,
I think that's been my experience. Now here's the other
part of it though, too. That's kind of I have

(22:35):
to talk about. There is a class system in America, right,
So if you're from wealth, you don't have to do that.
Like I've seen people.

Speaker 5 (22:44):
Where I'm going, Hey, you're a director, you're younger than me,
this is great, let me see your work.

Speaker 6 (22:48):
And I go and I say, wow, they're not that good.
But they shot it on a really high end camera.
And now does that mean that that the system is
totally broken you can't move up? No, I just think
it's to say that just know where you're you can
go and know that if you're from a working class background,
like like I was, is that, Yeah, it's probably gonna
be a long road. But if you're not, then don't.

(23:08):
If you're also, if you're white, dudes with a camera
probably can level up faster. It's you know, it's broken,
It's fine. When you accept it, you know what I mean.
Like at first, I was really upset about that stuff,
and I was like, well, I mean it shouldn't be
that way, and I'm sure I agree it shouldn't be
that way. At the same time, if you're gonna climb
a mountain, then you just if someone goes, hey, this

(23:29):
is going to be rocky once, you rather know it's
going to be rocky than pretend it's not.

Speaker 1 (23:33):
You know, yeah, I don't want someone to tell me
it is really easy to climb.

Speaker 2 (23:39):
Tell me when you're gonna start going, and then.

Speaker 1 (23:42):
Yeah, yeah, I like to know what I'm getting into.

Speaker 3 (23:44):
Yeah it's too late.

Speaker 1 (23:47):
Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. And then, like
you said, there there are certain parts of our country
and industry that might not be fair for everyone. But
sometimes so you oh you can do is just work
hard and you know, show what you what you got exactly.

Speaker 6 (24:06):
Yeah, people will respond to that. I find that the
fear that a lot of people have is if you
have an established organization, say like a big brand or
an agency, their fear is that they bring you on
you're not a.

Speaker 5 (24:19):
Good culture fit.

Speaker 6 (24:21):
And that's a valid concern, right, And I've come to
realize that there are those reasons why folks hire people
with the same backgrounds. It's because there is that shorthand
that you have. And there have been some projects where,
you know, don't have the shorthand where someone says something
very quick and I'm going, I kind of know what
they mean, but I spoke Spanish at home, so I
don't really know what they mean. I kind of have

(24:41):
the loose idea.

Speaker 5 (24:42):
So then I'll ask for clarification.

Speaker 6 (24:43):
And some people sometimes will get annoyed with me.

Speaker 5 (24:45):
They'll be like, why do you not know?

Speaker 6 (24:46):
Or do I have to explain it to you? You know,
it feels like you're dragging your feet here diego and
I'm going send me, not like.

Speaker 5 (24:55):
Tell me what's going on. So there there is that.

Speaker 6 (24:57):
But then the I think the brilliance that people with
different backgrounds bring to the table is that the work
will be different, it will be unique, it'll be interesting,
and no matter what language the output is, there's a
little bit of variety that I think people can get
out of having people from different backgrounds if you're willing
to meet people in the middle and work with them
rather than go against them.

Speaker 1 (25:18):
Right, Definitely, you've talked a little bit about this how
your friends were very vital for you to find some
of these jobs and projects. Right, So can you all
briefly talk about how networking, how important networking is for
this particular type of job.

Speaker 6 (25:34):
Sure, well, we all know networking is important. I think
anyone who goes to college here is at a million times.

Speaker 1 (25:39):
Oh yeah.

Speaker 6 (25:39):
I think to make it authentic and organic, you want
to find people who you resonate with already, and that
may not be necessarily people who look like it could
be that you have a similar hobby background. On some level,
those things are really important, but I think the key
is not to force it. I think you want to
find authentic relationships, like like you and i Agudo, I
think there's an authentic relationship there, and with Brittany and

(26:03):
some of the other people in ad too. The other
thing is not everyone has to like you, you know,
not everyone has to like you to free to network
with them. You can be like moderately okay with someone
and still be a work acquaintance because there's mutual benefit
to collaborating, right. And you also want to go out
of your comfort zone and just introduce yourself to people

(26:23):
and say.

Speaker 5 (26:23):
What you're up to.

Speaker 6 (26:24):
So, for example, if you're trying to be an art
director or a copywriter or creative director. I think just
letting people know what you want to do is helpful
and share what you're up to. I'm so and so,
I'm up to this thing, and this is where I'm at.
And I think when you're just authentic and clear with people,
most folks are going to be like, well that's interesting.
Tell me more.

Speaker 5 (26:43):
Or they might see your work and.

Speaker 6 (26:44):
Say, hell, gosh, you're not there at all. You need
a lot of work. You might want to look at
these workshops or whatever it is.

Speaker 5 (26:51):
I think people will.

Speaker 6 (26:53):
Genuinely want to help most of the time. But I
think where it doesn't work to network is if you
are like approach it. If I was to go to
someone and say, hey, I'm Diego, I deserve to have
this opportunity, you should give it to me, anyone is
going to be like, well who are you?

Speaker 5 (27:05):
Get out of my face.

Speaker 6 (27:07):
So you have to be willing to have humility and
be humble and say what you want to do, and
then also accept their kind of perspective of you. If
they look at you and they're going, well, you're more
junior than you realize that's a valid bit of feedback.
We may not want to hear it. That's important or
advice versa. Someone says, hey, you're kind of overqualifed. You
should probably try to push more. Oh, this is a

(27:28):
better fit and a lot of I think creative people,
younger people especial when I was in my early twenties,
I had a hard hard time with getting that feedback
because I felt like I could do anything about it.
That's going to realize that there's usually something you can do.

Speaker 2 (27:40):
About it, right, So what can a young director do
to make themselves stand out in the industry?

Speaker 6 (27:47):
Directors need a really clear voice in their work. That's
typically why directors are higher. They have to bring something
that's uniques to the table. At the same time, you
have to film on high end cameras for it to
be worthwhile to a lot of people. Unless the idea
is say it's a maybe Blair Witch project or something
worthy inherent visual device is lower quality, then yeah, sure

(28:09):
you can get away with lower production value. But I
find that a lot of times people want to see a.

Speaker 5 (28:13):
Really clear voice.

Speaker 6 (28:14):
That's if you're just coming at it as out of
the street to be a director. I've gone some directing
opportunities through editing where I know what the client wants,
I can listen to the client in a way that
other people can't and I am sensitive to their needs.
And then you know, they'll say, hey, well you know,
Diego's going a good job. Listen to this client, and
then that's allowed for some directing opportunities to come up

(28:35):
out of that, because a lot of time directing is
just trying to get what the client wants. So I
think having some way of being really I think sensitive
and open to what the clients needs are and then
finding a way to give them voice and still get
what you know is necessary for the piece. It's like
you're marrying two ideas, right, And that's I think that
the biggest thing that would work. And I think a

(28:55):
lot of young directors struggle with integration of a different perspective.
Because if you've got a really clear voice, which most
most people do if they want to direct, they already
have that voice. They may struggle with integrating feedback, like
if someone says others to whatever, still integrating the feedback
and yet making it their own, and that takes time
and effort. I almost would even say, like, taking improv

(29:16):
classes is great because improv is the game of yes,
and you're always saying yes and this, and that just
helps your brain kind of shifted posture around outside feedback.

Speaker 1 (29:28):
Oh that's that's great, man. I actually kind of wish
i'd take an improv when I was younger. It always
looked like fun. Actually took something.

Speaker 6 (29:36):
Never too late.

Speaker 3 (29:37):
We don't think it helps you be on your feet,
helps you. Yeah, you know those challenges.

Speaker 1 (29:42):
All right, So you guys already hear take some improv classes. Yeah, yeah,
And if you're in Houston, let me know and I'll
sign out with you, all right, I guess so. Actually,
I think that's all the things that we have got
other questions that we have for today. This has been
super fun. But before we got do you have anything
that you want to plug any How can people find

(30:03):
you or away? Can people find you?

Speaker 6 (30:04):
Sure?

Speaker 2 (30:05):
Then?

Speaker 6 (30:05):
Yeah, they can find me on Instagram Diego the actor
is my handle, so you.

Speaker 5 (30:08):
Can you can check that out. And I guess I
would just encourage people to join ad too. It's been a.

Speaker 6 (30:14):
Really neat way of organically building lifelong friendships and I
hope to be friends with you all for the rest
of my life. And that's been what's been really neat
about the ads too experiences that it allows you a
way to meet people where they're at. And again, you're
not going to be best friends with everyone, but I
think that the three or four people who you meet
in the different cities, it makes you feel like you
have a big family, and being Latino family so important.

(30:35):
So oh, you definitely encourage people to do that, you know.
And I've got to short film, like I said at
the end of the year that I'm doing that's got
an actor from the show Parkson rec in it.

Speaker 5 (30:45):
I'm excited about that.

Speaker 6 (30:46):
Hopefully that allows me to start leveraging that short film
in to me possibly being a TV writer or director
or be in that world, you know. So that's the
next step for me. It's on the horizon.

Speaker 1 (30:58):
Okay, so you're not able to till say what the
name is yet?

Speaker 6 (31:02):
Oh yeah, Jim o' hair, Jerry.

Speaker 1 (31:04):
Oh yeah, yeah. The movie yeah, yeah, Well the what's
the name of the what's the name of the short film?

Speaker 5 (31:12):
Oh, the short film. Oh, it's called Bumping the Night
or Bitten.

Speaker 6 (31:17):
It's about it's a vampire comedy about a single mom
who has to fight vampires paper.

Speaker 1 (31:24):
Yeah, that's right. So you say it's coming out towards.

Speaker 6 (31:27):
The end of the year, Uh huh, Yeah, we'll be
shooting a little short for that idea.

Speaker 1 (31:31):
Yeah awesome, So you guys keep an eye out for that.
I definitely will be because that's sounds fantastic. You don't
know anything. If you know, if you know anything about
a Latina mom, it's that they are the scarious people.
You never mean you know, they're soup. They're great. Yeah,
if you if you get them, if you get them,

(31:51):
let me tell you could be real scary. Thank you
for joining us today. The Act to Houston amuse podcast
is produced at Radio Lounge. Add to Houston is a
collaborative collective of young communication professionals age three to one
another who are looking to make a difference in the industry.
If you would like to becoming at mego join us
at at the Number two Houston dot com. You can

(32:15):
also follow us on Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn at add
the Number two Houston. Thank you for listening.
Advertise With Us

Popular Podcasts

Stuff You Should Know
Super Bowl LIX Podcasts

Super Bowl LIX Podcasts

Don't miss out on the NFL Podcast Network and iHeartPodcasts' exclusive week of episodes recorded in New Orleans!

24/7 News: The Latest

24/7 News: The Latest

Today’s Latest News In 4 Minutes. Updated Hourly.

Music, radio and podcasts, all free. Listen online or download the iHeart App.

Connect

© 2025 iHeartMedia, Inc.