Meet Andrés Mejía Plazas

We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Andrés Mejía Plazas a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Andrés, so great to have you with us and we want to jump right into a really important question. In recent years, it’s become so clear that we’re living through a time where so many folks are lacking self-confidence and self-esteem. So, we’d love to hear about your journey and how you developed your self-confidence and self-esteem.

For me it was definitely the music I listen to. Most of my confidence comes from a sense of belonging and I’ve found that music is that place where I find belonging. Even when writing and creating characters and a world for my films, my first thought is “what music is playing here” because that is how things starts to feel multi-dimensional and real to me. And it’s perfect for me to have that tool because as a non-musician I don’t have to worry about creating a piece that resonates with me: someone else has already written it and made me feel seen. I express myself through film, so to have another art-form that allows me to sit back and let it be my vessel of decompression is something so comforting. My favorite artist is Mariah Carey en even though we come from very different backgrounds, the feelings she expresses made me relate to a bunch of her songs. Shout-out out to Outside from the Butterfly album.

Great, so let’s take a few minutes and cover your story. What should folks know about you and what you do?

I am a film writer, director and producer and currently working in post-production of two short films. It takes a lot of patience to make a film, it’s not just something you write and then hold auditions and ta-dah you grab a camera and piece it together. It actually takes a village even to make a short film, so whenever I get asked when my projects will be seen I always have to tell people to wait just a little more, and especially when the film is in post-production is when people think I’ve given up on the project since they can’t see my progress. Yet here I am still working on them until they feel just right. The goal is to get them into film festivals, so that’s where I suggest people to on the lookout for, until then all I have is my social media accounts. I am also working on a web talk show for which I am working as head writer, but this is still in development, so stay tuned!

Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?

First is perseverance for sure. There’s so many steps in the process of making a film that I can’t help think how many people quit before they finish the process. Even in film school you could see people falling behind, so the road really narrows down and you can’t let it slow you down because it is completely up to you to keep going –not every industry gives you that opportunity.

Second, I would say is open-mindedness. I too often see people who watch one certain type of film, and having a preference is not wrong at all but there is so much to learn. It’s so important to know the history of cinema, not just so you can brag to your friends at trivia night, or act all snobbish when people ask you for your opinions on a film. Instead, there’s something to learn from every corner of the art-form and even “bad” films teach you something, at least you learn what not to do. Open-mindedness also allows you to collaborate, and prevents you from being stubborn. It’s important for a director to be decisive but listening is equally important.

Lastly, a great skill to have is communication. In order for a team to accomplish the director’s vision, they have to be able to understand what the director is trying to express, and that is totally the director’s job. It’s very hard when you are communicating in your second language, but that’s why it’s important to articulate what you want to get out of the camera-work or the performance. Otherwise it’s like trying to cook a meal when everyone has a different recipe.

As we end our chat, is there a book you can leave people with that’s been meaningful to you and your development?

I would actually say it’s the one I am currently reading, which is Thom Gunn’s “The Man With Night Sweats.” It’s a poetry book, and I can confidently call it very formative to my style without having finished it because it’s so emotionally dense that part of me wants to take forever to finish it. Also, I think it’s also the fact that the other books that lead me to read this feel very formative as well, so this one feels like a culmination of all those that came before it. It’s set around the 1980’s during the rise of the AIDS epidemic, so it was mainly queer books that brought me to it. The way Thom Gunn manages to be make something so soothing and erotic while also taking a very somber and pungent turn is beyond what my mind can comprehend. It has made me look at films with a different eye, because I see how important it is to honor all those that came before us and paved the way for us in a time when all they could do was survive. And stylistically it has also taught be particular feelings that would be fun to explore in a visual medium, such as the idea that the erotic is not inherently sexual.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: @andres.mejiap
• Linkedin: http://linkedin.com/in/andrés-mejía-032a40290
• Twitter: @mejiaplaandres

Image Credits

Liu “Neil” Lingyu