Meet Michael Hernandez

Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Michael Hernandez. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Michael, 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?
Thank you so much for having me. I’d say for me it comes down to classic practice. I immerse myself in filmmaking at every opportunity. Whether it is commissioned work, personal projects, or filming or photographing visuals for reference. With each edit, color pass, or idea written down, it reinforces what I know, refines what I don’t, and helps me figure out what I can work on next.

Thanks, so before we move on maybe you can share a bit more about yourself?
I’m a film director and filmmaker, with a primary focus on character-driven, morally challenging stories. After years of directing commissioned works, I am excited to be creating my own feature films that express the themes, culture, and representation that I’m passionate about.

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?
Looking back on what three were most impactful in my journey, I’d say the first was developing and expanding my emotional intelligence. It’s allowed me to move through life and art in a sharpened state of sonder, seeing that every person has a story, a perspective, and truth. That has expanded my ability to understand empathy, validate others, and value character-driven details that have been pivotal in not only my storytelling, but in my personal life as well.

Secondly, understanding different personalities. No two people are alike, and it is neither helpful nor fair to center someone’s identity around a career or stereotype. Understanding what makes each person feel fulfilled, what may be the challenges they individually go through, and what they value has taken much guesswork out of determining relatability. It has allowed me to connect deeper with many different people, cultures, and walks of life that then inspire the human elements in my stories.

Last, perhaps most of all, I believe finding one’s artistic voice is paramount. Though we are in a business, I’m an artist at heart. I’ve found pouring into your artistry attracts like-minded creatives, inspires projects, and allows us to cultivate our best works. Fiscal goals are important, but there are enough opportunities in our ever-growing industry to meet them while honoring each other and having fun.

We’ve all got limited resources, time, energy, focus etc – so if you had to choose between going all in on your strengths or working on areas where you aren’t as strong, what would you choose?
I personally work on both simultaneously. I feel my strength is execution; I’ve had high success working with actors to achieve strong performances and equal success with crew to collectively achieve excellence in the visuals captured on camera. With each project, I challenge myself to raise the bar higher on how I can best communicate needs, push my creativity and storytelling, find solutions for the curveballs, and execute with the team so we are all set up for success.

Being naturally inclined towards logic, my creative inspiration and development always needs to be exercised with twice as much diligence. Immersion, listening, learning, and remembering to stay grounded and open have been of great benefit to my craft. The strengths and weaknesses go hand in hand like any fully developed character.

A recent example of this: I created an anthology of three short films, the Moments trilogy. The goal was to challenge my creativity and tackle three distinctly different stories that aligned with my artistic passions. We shot all three back-to-back, with three different casts and crews. It was a fantastic experience to blend everyone’s artistic and technical strengths with different perspectives and workflow styles. We all learned a lot, reinforced or reimagined what we knew going in, and fostered many connections the teams involved still use today.

Contact Info:

Image Credits
Creative Duet Media, LLC.

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