Roy Robles

So, Dark Room was my first short film I ever did and that was ever involved in. I envisioned a man losing everything he had and I wanted to portray every emotion he felt in those moments. In the film it's dark and full of suspense. You think what's this guy going to do next? The way it plays out I feel like I really hit the nail on the head with what I wanted it to be and then some.

Honestly for this short I had no script or anything to go off of. Everything was playing in my head and I would direct Chris on what I wanted and he killed it every scene. Same goes with Matt and the cinematography portion of the film, I would tell him what I wanted and he made it happen every time.

Communication was key. I would voice what I wanted and it'd get done. But Chris my actor would throw out suggestions and so would Matt. For me that was huge it being my first project to have other creative minds around who helped put this great little film together.

Time was our biggest factor. Our schedules were all over the place and hardly ever were we able to film, but in the end we rode it out we got the footage and till this day I love it for what it is.

It's hard to do that honestly haha but I'm beyond proud of the whole short and how it turned out. Just the way I envisioned everything in my head to it unfolding on screen perfectly is just such a beautiful thing, it makes me feel amazing watching it over and over again. To think we could have just quit when it got hard, but we got it. Now here we are.

I wouldn't change a thing about the making of the film. I would though plan out a schedule ahead of time for film dates. I do that now on my other films and it works out beautifully. So scheduling, yeah that's about it. I learned more than what anyone could have taught me in a classroom making this film and that was by doing. By actually shooting a film and learning as we went on together. Constantly learning till this day and that comes from receiving feedback.

Besides Dark Room, I just finished up a short film called Thaumaturgy and I must say it came out beautifully. From when I first wrote the synopsis for it and got a positive reaction to it. I wrote out the script and got it out to my actors and they loved it. We got together twice and we filmed and it was almost effortless. We nailed it and I cannot wait to get it in the festival circuit it's going to big things.

Be open minded. Take all the advice you can get no matter if it's good or bad you will get something out of it. Don't let your head get big with success. Relish in success yes, celebrate your wins yes, but never think you're better than everyone. Stay open minded and work well with others.

Pulling them aside and just relaying the message to them. Advising them more of this and less of this. Just being easy to talk to and being honest. Sometimes an actor doesn't feel a scene they just did so you have to let them know how great they did.

So me and my sound designer and music man met on a film fan page and we both had a dream of making films. Me directing and writing and he wanted to score films. So we've been working together ever since. We live in different states so there are lots of phone calls and video calls. But in the end we have no issues because of distance. We've grown really close to one another and I'll never work with anyone else for film scoring.

I didn't necessarily have a lot feedback until I entered into film festivals. I mean taking the advice given it's ultimately led to the creation of other films. But in the end I always took feedback positively and ran with it. So again stay open minded, it's going to help you in the long run no doubt.