We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Zack Larez a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Zack, 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.
When you create for a living, you gotta learn to stop asking for permission to create. Nobody came along and said, “Zack, you are now an actor. Zack, you are now a script supervisor. Zack, you are now a storyboard artist.” I’m not going to wait for somebody tell me I’m a director or producer. I’m just going to do it. I am the thing because I do the thing. The identity of Mexican-American includes my description because I am Mexican-American. If somebody told me I couldn’t call myself Mexican unless I spoke Spanish, it wouldn’t affect me one bit. I tell my niece and nephew, that are a mix of Mexican, Black and White, or “Blaxican” as some call it, that they shouldn’t feel like they have to think or behave one way or another. I tell them that Blaxican is whatever they are, however that is. Don’t give people power over you because they will abuse it. Sure, honor authority but always question authority because corruption does exist. Beyond that, don’t give people the privilege to define anything about you. It’s not their right. I don’t do it to other people and I don’t allow it to be done to me.
You can expect people to make assumptions about you and for a lot of those assumptions to be wrong. Recently, I hung out with some co-workers at a restaurant and asked the waitress (server) if she was getting off soon. A coworker assumed I was hitting on her. I asked him if he’d ever worked in a restaurant. He answered No. I told him that I was asking because if she’s getting off her shift soon, I wanted to make sure to close out my check so that she would get the tip and not whoever took our table over from her. People assume I’m trying to take their picture but there’s a greater than fifty-fifty chance I just want them to get out of the shot.
Street photography taught me a lot about confidence and not being paralyzed by peoples’ assumptions. People see you walking down the street with a camera and think you’re up to something. You notice them making sidelong glances at you or hard-staring. I began to feel really self-conscious, almost as if I was doing something wrong. People told me I was doing something wrong with their looks of dismay or disapproval. What kind of assumptions are they making about me? If I weren’t Hispanic or if I were a little white girl instead of a big brown guy in his 40’s, would they make the same assumptions? They don’t know what I’m up to. At what point are their attitudes ageist, racist or sexist? Anyway, I decided that I actually was up to something and that something was my photography. And if I’m in public and obeying the law and not looking to harm anyone, that’s my right. Photography has helped me understand when I’m asking for something from somebody and when somebody is trying to take from me – when I’m potentially infringing on other people’s rights and when somebody is infringing on mine. I believe it’s important that we have this freedom.Some of the best, most important photos in history were taken in public. I’ll take a photo because I want to take a photo. I don’t have to check with anyone. Street photography teaches you to take the photo the moment something strikes you as interesting. It could be literally anything. Two colors next to eachother, a flash of light, a person stepping off a curb. If you spend even a second trying to justify to yourself why you want the photo, the moment is gone. Photography in general can embolden you because you learn that, if you believe that there is a photo worth taking, you know you have to put yourself in the right spot to take it. You have to see the photo in your mind and imagine how it will look and then you will know where you need to be to get it. There’s no wishing it into existence. You see it and your will and action brings it into existence. You move your feet. You lean in. You stick to the sidelines or you stand front and center. Of course you use your judgment and ask permission if something about it seems delicate or you avoid precarious situations altogether. But there are a lot of perfectly good reasons to take pictures in public and nobody has a right to tell you otherwise. If you told me I had to double check with that b*tch or assh*le on your street that nobody likes or who won’t shut up in comments sections online before I made any kind of art or took any kind of photo, I’d hardly be able to do anything and whatever I did make or take would probably suck. I think that’s what’s killing art and American cinema these days. Suffocating it. Paralyzing it. Watering it down. Making a dull paste of it. No wonder AI can spit out mystery meat and people seem willing to eat it or at least won’t object to being force-fed it in place of real, nutritious art meat. Nobody’s allowed to eat meat. The Far Left wants to cancel and destroy any ability for the Right to stay employed and the Far Right wants to cancel and destroy any ability for the Left to stay employed and congratulations, at the time that I’m writing this, relatively speaking, nobody is employed. This country is becoming so divided and negative and fearful that it’s so hard to be an artist or to invest in art, not when art and artists are continually under attack. It’s easier to let machines make the art while you work the job you hate and consume the machine art in evenings until the day a machine takes your job. You have to have the strength to say No, I’m going to make art and I’m going to survive and I’m going to prosper and I’m going to make what I want to make out of this life because it’s my only one and my voice is important because this is my once chance to speak.
This kind of confidence is what you have to develop if you want to make art. If you don’t, everything you make won’t be yours, it’ll be a shi*ty version of it, as if it had to get past a committee of a billion people, all yammering and disagreeing until there are only a few options left that really aren’t any worthy options at all.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying you should be entitled or arrogant. Nobody likes that. But really, when it comes to your art, you should be entitled. Who is more entitled to your art than you? I heard somewhere that an artist should be arrogant in their careers but not in their personal lives. Or maybe I heard that about acting. You gotta defend your art without being defensive. You don’t have to justify it. You made it because it looked cool or felt cool or you thought you’d try to say this with it or that with it. You can try to spell this out to people or you can simply choose not to try. You made it because you wanted to make it so you made it and it’s made. Beginning, middle, end, all controlled by you. Embracing this gives you confidence. You know more about your art than anyone alive.
Also, you’re unique. I’m not saying that in some kind of cheery, cozzy come hug me participation trophy way. I mean it in a very literal sense. The combination of your experiences, of your knowledge, your talents, your physical traits, your background, the accumulation of your thoughts in your idle time, even your hormone levels – there isn’t anyone with the exact same combination and arrangement as you. So how can you expect other people to think exactly like you or approve of everything you approve of? Everyone is literally different. So you can gain confidence in knowing that just because somebody doesn’t see something the way you do – it doesn’t make you “wrong” automatically. And you know that you’re right but that the other person is actually right as well according to their knowledge. You can try to figure out what made them come to a different conclusion. Or, if they’re being a d*ck or a b*tch, just leave them alone and go somewhere else. You will waste far too much time and energy trying to reason with a rock. You’ll waste your breath on somebody who doesn’t want to listen and fail to notice the person that’s leaning in closer. You can’t allow the right woman into your life until you stop chasing the wrong women. Or men. Or they-them’s.
Another way to gain confidence is to, of course become good at something. Or gain a lot of knowledge in something. And have this confirmed by others. You do a good job at what people pay you for so more people want to hire you and are willing to pay you more. You know a lot about something and tend to use good judgment, so more people come around asking for your opinion. This will build your confidence. There is plenty of false-confidence that exists. People are sure of something they know or sure that they’re good at something when really they’re not, objectively speaking. People will confidently tell you to your face something that isn’t true. They may know it’s a lie or they may not. But they seem confident about it. This is what a “conperson” or “con artist” is, by the way – a person who builds up your confidence to take advantage of you. Or who seems so confident in something that is very untrue. Learning things for yourself builds your confidence. Applying what you know builds your confidence. Making mistakes and learning from them builds it. Getting knocked down and getting back up, losing but coming from behind to win – all of this builds your confidence. Skateboarders move with such confidence because they’ve fallen down on solid concrete and endured so much pain in order to skateboard and they always got back up. They paid for it with blood and bruises and cracked bones. You can’t scare a person like that, even with physical pain. Same with boxers and fighters. Scars make a person seem tougher. They’ve battled, been hurt, and survived. They endure. What are the odds that you can defeat them?
You’ll notice by now that I’ve mentioned a lot about confidence and not a lot about self-esteem. Self-esteem is much simpler in my opinion. Self-esteem needs to be divorced from just about everything there is. It has to endure unphased through good and bad, victories and defeats, praise and criticism. You are worthy of love and of good things just because you are. It can’t be conditional. It can never be “you ate all of your peas, so you’re a good boy”. You were a good boy before you finished your peas. You’re a good boy if you DON’T finish your peas. You might say, “Well a bad boy would be a boy who disobeyed his parents”. But “bad” is what the boy did, not what the boy is. What if the parents told the boy to do something “bad” and he refused? Is he a bad boy for not obeying? What if the parents told him to believe something that he didn’t believe, is he a bad boy? Anyway, the point of all of this is that your self-worth, your self-esteem cannot be based on anything outside of yourself because it is all far too subjective.
Now, naturally things will happen that build your self-esteem whether you intend them to or not. You get a raise because of good performance. The boy you like asks for your number. Your grandmother tells you how handsome you are. Your teacher says you’re her best pupil. These things will build your self-esteem automatically. What you have to watch out for is anything that threatens to rob you of self-esteem. Low self-esteem is one of the most dangerous afflictions a person can have. All sorts of problems come out of low self-esteem. And they only snowball. You date people who abuse you because you don’t feel you deserve better, you try hard drugs because people say you’re not cool if you don’t and you believe them, you don’t stand up for yourself to bullies because you know you’re weak, you drink too much to forget yourself because you hate yourself. If you find yourself in this state, I’d suggest you watch your self-talk. What you think to yourself about yourself. Sometimes you actually say it aloud. You gotta catch yourself and replace your negative self-talk with positive things. The last thing I’ll say here about self-esteem is that sometimes things are working against you that you don’t realize. Medical conditions for example. You may have ADHD or undiagnosed autism or sleep apnea or a thyroid problem, etc.. You have to identify and address these conditions if you have them or they will continually undermine your self-esteem. You’ll try hard to accomplish things but always fall short or struggle and you have no choice but to think it’s just your inability. Sometimes it’s hard because you’re always tired and you’re always tired because you stop breathing in your sleep. Sometimes you can’t think straight and it’s not because you’re dumb, it’s just that the neurotransmitters required to physically “think” are scarce. Modern medicine and modern science are your friends.
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?
Right now I’m primarily known as a storyboard artist for commercials and esports although I am working increasingly on movies. I just gained entry into the Art Directors Guild in Hollywood. For those who don’t know, all of the workers associated with making a movie or a commercial have their own unions based on what they do. Most similar positions are bunched together under one union or another. Anything visual art and design-related pretty much falls under the Art Directors Guild, including physical things like film sets and stages. It’s awesome because anything that’s in front of the camera and isn’t the actor or on the actor- it’s probably art department and handled by the Guild. Getting into this Guild isn’t easy and it means that I’ll now be able to work on pretty much any movie or commercial there is without fuss. It also means I’ll be able to move in circles and attend events previously off-limits to me. Really, it means there should be no doors closed to me in my storyboarding career and if there are, I get to ask, “Why?” and beat on them without being told to go away. It also means that I get to have more effect on the state of my profession at the highest levels. This will of course have an impact on the profession as a whole. It’s not just me, obviously, that affects this industry. In fact, I am very proactive in getting all other working storyboard artists to communicate with each other so that we can affect the present and future state of our craft, together. Lately, this has meant monitoring and forming responses to AI generated images. It’s also meant taking stances and forming expectations on matters of contracts and pay negotiations. But to turn the discussion back to myself – I draw storyboards for a living and take photos in between to stay inspired.
My hobby of photography is on the verge of becoming a second money-making venture as I’ve done a few paid shoots and have plans to monetize my work. I do street photography, portraits, events, editorial-type shoots, behind-the-scenes (BTS), and some boudoir. I’m looking to break into headshot and corporate headshot photography. I can tell you that a day spent taking photos or editing photos is about a quarter of the work that storyboarding is, so I always welcome the opportunity to take a break and pop some photos off. Plus it gets me out of the house, meeting people, seeing new sights and better appreciating old ones. I happen to take a lot of photos to do with the filmmaking and comicbook industry on the art side. A lot of the artists are my peers, so I take a lot of photos that people may not be able or even think to take. I want to elevate the station of artist in society, specifically storyboard artists. Me, being an actor and working in advertising – I know that’s all about visibility! So I snap, snap snap. I think it’s important to document all of this. A photo seems trivial now but in 30 years, it’s literally history. History is made every day. Too many people have been profiting off of artists for too long, I think artists need to reclaim their recognition and receive the proper rewards for their work.
When I’m not drawing or shooting photos I’m likely streaming art or video games on something like Twitch or YouTube or developing plans to make my own content and establish revenue streams that don’t depend on other people to hire me. I’ll likely be launching a Patreon soon to keep a baseline income coming and put out work directly to people who like my brand of art. I am also coming back around to writing some feature scripts and formulating some business plans. I’m moving toward directing and will be shooting my own short films soon. People will be able to follow along and contribute via my Patreon. I’ll get Voyage to add the link here once it’s up.
In other random news, I believe a movie that I storyboarded, LAST NIGHT ON EARTH, starring Leven Rambin (THE HUNGER GAMES) is set to release this year or at least get some trailers released. A movie that I boarded is shooting right now and I’m set to begin work on another movie soon. I’m releasing my first photo collection to my Patreon subscribers this year and I’m pretty set on shooting my first short film, or two or three by year’s end as director.
There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?
I’d say three important qualities and skills are Adaptability, Persistence and Imagination.
Persistence and Adaptability seem to be counter to one another but they can be bedfellows. First of all, every time I got fired from a job, my life improved. When I got fired from my first job at a bagel shop, I got to try retail at a shoe store. I got fired there and got to try serving at restaurants. Then I got fired from one bad restaurant fit after another. Truth is, I was never a very good server, but every time I got fired I managed to work at a better restaurant where I at least made better money. I got stuck in a cycle of trying to survive on tips in LA and then got fired yet again but instead of applying at restaurants, I learned a crew position and started working on set, making more money while also learning how to make movies. I was instantly far better at being a script supervisor than I ever was at being a server. It may seem like ‘resilience’ is the term at this point, but we’ll stick with adaptability. If I was stuck in my ways and determined to make money as a server, I wouldn’t have started working on film sets. Working on all sorts of jobs as a script supervisor forced me to be ready for anything and adapt. You can’t make a whole production conform and fit into your way of doing things. You have to adapt to it. When I take on a new client as a storyboard artist and the director asks me how I like to work, I tell them that I consider it part of my job to adapt to how they like to work. Then, I give them suggestions, because any answer is often the same as no answer. My acting career had stalled out after being in LA for a couple years and I switched to film crewing. If I was stubborn and insisted on only being an actor, I probably wouldn’t be living in LA anymore. But it is Persistence that kept me here, in town, looking for any way to keep going, some way to utilize my talents and growing skills in new and better ways that people valued more.
Once you embark on a new course in life or try to improve at anything, it will take persistence. You’re going to be bad at first and you have to accept that. If you were able to get good at it in a single day, it’s probably not that impressive of a skill nor will you be able to get paid much for it, most likely. So, anything that takes a long time to get good at will pay off the most eventually. The rewards may not come until well down the road. But you gotta travel the road. There are a few shortcuts here and there, but for all intents and purposes, you should accept that there are no shortcuts. AI may seem like a shortcut, but it’s like a self-driving car that doesn’t need you. People will have a growing difficulty trying to get paid decently when they’re the least important part of the process. Somebody might think, “Well, as long as I’m getting paid to input the destination ‘with my unique prompting skills’, I’ll have a job while others don’t”. Eventually that’ll get replaced, too. AI can prompt AI. Hell, AI can now prompt humans. AI can project manage. But I’m not gonna go off on that tangent here. I’ll just say that, with real meat art, the artist is the most important contributor to creation and their hand is on the wheel for every mile. No mystery meat. It’s cut out of the side of our minds and souls and smoked in the years of our experience on this earth.
Lastly, you’ve got to have imagination. You have to be able to see it. It’s gotta seem almost real to you. That’s how you make it happen. If you can’t picture it, are you really making something happen out of intention or are you just kinda winding up with one thing after another? That’s why storyboarding is so important and why I think directors should celebrate their use of storyboards instead of trying to hide it. A storyboard shows a specific vision and a plan to be executed. Without it, the director tries to explain their vision to dozens of people repeatedly and then has to settle for what they get. A storyboard shows it clearly and then other people use their unique skills to make it happen, or build upon it or suggest ways to make it “better” but then go execute a vision. This requires imagination. Imagination can also give you hope and motivation. If you don’t like the way something is – if you look around and don’t like what you see, you can imagine something different. Then, having pictured it, you can take steps to achieve it. If you made a mistake or failed, you can imagine what you’d have to do differently to succeed next time. Imagination is grossly undervalued in society. Monied people have been extracting wealth from people with imagination for centuries. The people with imagination need to wake up to their own worth and claim it. Imagination also helps you consider things from others’ perspectives and learn from others’ mistakes. I’m not a woman but I can imagine what it’s like to be a woman. A woman isn’t a man, but she can imagine what it’s like. I’m not a Christian or a Muslim or a Jew, but I can imagine. Imagination helps us understand eachother better and sympathize. Imagination is extremely important and critical to the success of civilization. If you’re not convinced, try hard to consider this: everything that exists in our world, made by humans, began as an idea. We are living in a world of ideas made real. The more powerful your imagination, the better your ideas.
Lastly, if you don’t know what stoicism is, I strongly encourage you to look it up. It’s a philosophy that’s given me so much strength and helped me in virtually every aspect of my life. Its four virtues are wisdom, courage, temperance and justice. One of its core teachings is to focus on what you can control and not fret over that which you cannot. Nothing is owed to you so everything is a gift. It’s far too much for me to go into here. Look it up.
How can folks who want to work with you connect?
Here are some of my immediate and long-term goals. Anyone who is able to contribute the material, space, skills, guidance, council or financial backing is very welcome to contact me.
1. Obtain a combination art, photo and video studio.
I will do my storyboarding work here, host client meetings here, paint, host life drawings and do whatever the f*ck I want. The rest of the space serves as my photo studio where I will take photos that inspire me or that I’m paid for. When I begin making my films, this space will also serve as the first production office and creative lab for table readings, writing sessions and test shoots. If you can provide this space at no charge or far-reduced charge or are willing to invest in the company that will subsidize this space, please contact me.
2. Increase Photography Output and Monetization
I want to do more paid shoots with models of all sorts in all types of scenarios and find ways to get them distributed. Posters, calendars, graphic tees, books, etc. My first step is to release them via Patreon but I would like to explore more options. Shoots will include artists, celebrities, working class, models, indigenous peoples from various countries, sci-fi, fantasy, horror. I’ll do art reference shoots for use by artists. I’ll combine my photography with my artwork and use photography as the basis for my comicbooks. Anybody that’d like to be photographed, be they models or non-models, are welcome to contact me to get on a my talent list. Anybody with studio space to use is welcome. Anybody with offers to help me get my work published is welcome. I will sign agreements not to train AI on photos taken of people.
3. Short Film Shoots
I am writing some short film scripts to shoot. I am capable of recording video and audio myself as well as editing, however if anybody would like to get on my crew roster, contact me. Producers or anyone looking to break into producing are especially welcome. I’ll begin with non-union actors, but hope to use SAG talent soon, so both are welcome to reach out. I plan to heavily incorporate my storyboards and the previsualization process to create pieces of cinematic art that really explore what is possible with visual narrative when you understand how to make each piece, exploiting and distorting convention. With such heavy use of storyboards, budgets should be able to remain as low as possible. Equipment rental houses that can provide deals are welcome to get in touch.
4. Art in Cinema Docuseries
I find no better use of my free time than to document other artists and the state of art in Hollywood. If you are a figure in the art world and will allow me to come photograph and interview you for posterity, please contact me. I like to photograph and film artists in their workspaces and personal spaces. This material will be released on my Patreon and on YouTube.
5. Patreon Backers and Publishing
Much of the above efforts will rely on a continual income made possible only by Patreon supporters, private investors and sponsors and passive income from published works. So if you can help me put together books for market, if you’re a publisher yourself or if you can give me advice in these matters, please help me. Otherwise, if you would like to support me directly as Patron on Patreon, please follow the links in this article.
6. Legal and Accounting
Entertainment attorneys, copyright specialists and accountants, I’d like your information.
7. Working Storyboard Artists
If you are an observably working storyboard artist in commercials, music videos, video games or cinema, I’d like you to get in touch with me because I’d like to help you stay connected with one another.
If you don’t mind, I’d like to take a moment to state a message to the art, entertainment and business world. Art and artists have come under attack. The value that artists have contributed to society and the profits which they have generated for investors, having long been taken for granted or exploited, is now being stolen or mishandled to an extent previously unseen. I’m confident that, given enough time, it will become clear to businesspeople that they stand to make greater profits when investing in and working with artists and creators rather than attempting to circumvent or displace them. Where once paying artists competitive rates or allowing them to share in the profits of what they have created for you may have not made good business-sense, the disregard for them as sources of the product that you sell will prove to be even worse for business. Invest in people, not algorithms. Create entertainment, not sedative. Invest less and take less risk up front in exchange for sharing profits with the people that make your product. Companies and investors that figure this out will reap the rewards. Thank you.
Contact Info:
- Website: Zacklarez.com
- Instagram: zacklarez
- Facebook: ZackLarez
- Linkedin: Zack Larez
- Twitter: ZackLarez
- Youtube: ZackLarez
- Other: Patreon Pending
