We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Alex Caruso. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Alex below.
Alex, we’re so excited for our community to get to know you and learn from your journey and the wisdom you’ve acquired over time. Let’s kick things off with a discussion on self-confidence and self-esteem. How did you develop yours?
It’s always a challenge for me to develop confidence and self-esteem, however, I could say that the more you practice and do your work over and over, the more confidence you will gain. Self-esteem I think is the same as building confidence, you have to gain it through years of experience. In addition, I could say that working with people who understand you and have confidence in yourself is something that could help to gain self-esteem.
Let’s take a small detour – maybe you can share a bit about yourself before we dive back into some of the other questions we had for you?
My name is Alex Caruso, I was born in a very small town in Sicily back in 2003. In 2020 I decided that I wanted to pursue my passion and make it into a career, filmmaking is that passion. I have directed two horror short films The Shadow (2022) and The Whistler (2023). Both of them have been successful. I had the chance to have the second movie in the theater, and with a big surprise, the theater room was full of people. The Shadow won an Award in San Francisco, and The Whistler won an Award at the Hollywood Golden Age for ‘best narrative short’. Directing and writing horror is a lot of fun. Playing with tension and jump-scares is the most exciting part of making movies. As well as being creative is exciting too, I think that it keeps my mind fresh.
If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?
Regarding the three areas, I think that drawing helped a lot. I like drawing and putting my vision on paper. I am not the best drawer you do not have to be a good drawer, as long as you can put your ideas down, that’s what matters. The second thing I think is being curious. You have to be curious in the filmmaking business, this will help you dive into the script and think “What makes me curious about it, and makes me want to make this movie”, and “What are the things that you can explore within the script”. Those are usually the questions that I ask myself when it comes to filmmaking. Last, but not least, learn as much as you can. Be willing to spend nights and mornings learning and listening to professional people in the industry, and take notes. Being willing to do films for free sometimes, opening yourself to people will help to find more jobs and friends who will be willing to work with you.
Before we go, any advice you can share with people who are feeling overwhelmed?
In filmmaking, this happens a lot. Especially to me in every movie, I have always the same reaction. I show up on set excited to do this, and right away we face challenges that we need to figure out in the easiest and fastest time possible, this is the main challenge, therefore I would say it’s very easy to get overwhelmed. My strategy is usually I talk to somebody, either my assistant or my director of photography, they usually calm me down and bring me on the right path, ready to work.
Contact Info:
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ale__19/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCUt0QhjC5ScyDzaYsVnHKDQ
Image Credits
Jeremy Perdok/graphxbyjp
