Meet Natalie Izquierdo

We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Natalie Izquierdo a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Natalie, so happy to have you with us today and there is so much we want to ask you about. So many of us go through similar pain points throughout our journeys and so hearing about how others developed certain skills or qualities that we are struggling with can be helpful. Along those lines, we’d love to hear from you about how you developed your ability to take risk?

I think a lot of it comes from my Dad. Growing up my parents were pretty supportive of the things I wanted to do but I definitely got a the “no risk no reward” bug from him. If you never put yourself out there to try something, theres no way you can succeed. So I always tried to put myself out there to try new things when opportunities prevented themselves. It didn’t always work out or wasn’t always for me and often I was nervous about trying new things but I never regretted not putting myself out there for the risk.

Thanks for sharing that. So, before we get any further into our conversation, can you tell our readers a bit about yourself and what you’re working on?

I am currently a Local 600 Camera Assistant but have started moving into Camera Operating. Its been very exciting me to essentially get back to where I started but on a larger scale. When I finished school, I was working at a production Hub in Orlando where I shot my own commercials for local clients but we had to do everything ourselves – shoot, edit, sound, graphics – all of it. I’m glad to have been able to take a step back to move into film, television and larger scale commercials. I’ve had the pleasure of recently working on a lot of documentaries and events as a camera operator but unfortunately due to NDA’s can’t name them this early in the process.

If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?

Looking back 3 areas of knowledge that were most impactful in my career were starting and working as a PA, Production Coordinator and then I went on to be Sigourney Weaver’s Assistant on Avatar: The way of the Water and Avatar 3. Starting as a PA really gives you a better understanding of the industry – you get to interact with all the departments and while the work isn’t difficult you really see how other departments often blame production for things out of their control. You also are able to see when things aren’t working and why onset when things are missing. I stayed that tracked and worked as a Production Coordinator initially and it was a wild show but really helped me grow and see that while I was more then capable in doing all the required skills – It ultimately wasn’t where I wanted to be.

I eventually took a step back to PA-ing and opportunity presented itself to get into scripted features (Avatar 2) and I took it. While I was there I hopped around a lot of different departments during preproduction because I had a lot of useful skills from my past. But ultimately it lead to me meeting Sigourney and us getting along well and she asked for me to be her assistant on the remainder of the shoot. It was one of the best experiences of my life – She gave me an opportunity that ultimately changed my life and career path. She knew I wanted to get into Camera but there was a lot of roadblocks coming up for me. But in being her assistant it was sort of like coordinating her life while we were shooting and onset, I got to know everyone there. And when we finished on principal production on Avatar I had built a relationship with so many people, the allowed me to stay and work as one of the Reference Camera operators. And since then many of those people have helped me move into Camera Assisting and getting into Local 600.

What would you advise – going all in on your strengths or investing on areas where you aren’t as strong to be more well-rounded?

I always think it’s better to have more well rounded skills. While using your strengths and improving on them is also a benefit, I’ve often found I’ve needed skills from earlier in my career before working in camera to improvise when things get more complicated then expected. I’m also a firm believer in learning new things or practicing things you aren’t as good at makes you stronger and helps you learn new things when you really need it, because we wont always be good at things the first time but we will always have new things to learn.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: natalieleft