Original interview for VoyageLA
Today we’d like to introduce you to Dilan Garcia Lopez.
Dilan, please share your story with us. How did you get to where you are today?
For most of my upbringing, I have relied on public transit to help get me to school or anywhere else I’d have to be. Often times commuting two hours a day via train with another hour of walking to and from the train or bus station.
I attended middle school and high school in rather affluent neighborhoods of the valley with a student population that reflected that affluence. Being an undocumented immigrant commuting from deep in South Central LA who grew up feeling like a misfit both at home and in school, it was during the 3-hour bridge between those two worlds, having so much time to reflect on my troubled emotions and the world beyond the windows of the METRO buses and trains, that made those formative years exactly that: formative.
During the commutes, I would always take photos of structures I thought had a beautiful architecture to them, down to graffiti pieces that were more prominent the more further south my commute would go.
It was later at the age of 15, around 2013, that with the help of my mom and the funds I raised selling chips and drinks at school out of duffel bag, that I was able to purchase my first bike with the intention of cutting down my walking time from the North Hollywood Red Line Metro Station to my high school. This bike was important because any external success I eventually achieved as well as personal tribulations I overcame, can all be traced to back the purchase of this first bike.
At the time, and ’til this very day, I was very intro social studies, history, and photography. The experiences I had when cycling, both within my commute and rides on the weekends for fun, further supplemented those interests by allowing me to explore more culturally rich neighborhoods in LA and seeing first hand the people that populated those places.
Again, with help from my Mom, money made from selling chips and drinks at school, and also hand-made stenciled t-shirts (a story for a different day) I purchased my first DSLR, a Canon T3, and shortly later, an action camera.
Those two purchases were birthed from wanting to document my surroundings during my day-to-day. I took photos of friends, places, people and filmed with my action camera bike rides and events like the DTLA Art Walk.
For senior year in High School, I was gifted an Apple Macbook Pro. Curious to stitch my video clips together, I dabbled into iMovie. Simultaneously, I made an Instagram account where I routinely posted photos but what I actually felt most passionate about was the video-making process.
It was a thrill that I still feel today, to experience, record, stitch together, and share something. The attraction to the challenge of the video process reminded me of the challenge in cycling. Both were passions on their own but wouldn’t exist in me without each other.
I graduated high school, enrolled in college at LACC with the intent of earning a degree in History and later a teaching credential all while practicing those same two disciplines: getting better at cycling and getting better at making videos.
It was through a weekly Tuesday night cycling event called City Night Shift where I met a filmmaker who noticed my interest in video that brought me onto working as an assistant at the media company he worked at.
From that first gig, I fell in love with the filmmaking process even more. I continued coming back to assist week after week, eventually quitting my day job as a barista to either sink or swim in the world of video.
Luckily it worked out and here I am.
I graduated community college in 2017 then from Cal State LA in 2020 all while working full time at companies like Snapchat, Business Insider and Super Deluxe. And of course, I continued cycling all these years as well.
We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
To the credit of my family and friends who have supported me in whatever way they could’ve growing up, it has been rather smooth as far as external support goes.
The struggles that existed in my youth and continue to exist are internal as I had/have to navigate the tribulations of growing up without a father figure, my families undocumented status, and the feeling of lacking a sense of belonging in my environments.
The Obama administrations implementation of the DACA program was a godsend in terms of addressing the uncertainty of what my life in this country would’ve looked like after I am graduating high school but nonetheless, even more so now under the Trump administration, you can ask any member of the immigrant community and it’s almost certain that you’ll find these feelings of uncertainty and anxiety of the future for us here are in abundance.
As far as my life as a creator goes, I’ve been privileged enough to have solid mentors and a community of people with similar backgrounds as I to turn to whenever I have had questions or concerns but for the most part, it’s been real fun and rewarding thus far.
We’d love to hear more about your work and what you are currently focused on. What else should we know?
So I am much more so fluent in post-production but I have extensive experience and knowledge in camera operating as well. I try to give equal amount of attention to both of those skills so I can be much more of a “Swiss army knife” in terms of video production.
My early experiences as an assistant were fluid therefore, I was able to pick up a lot of knowledge across all departments.
What I’m most known now for are my micro-docs one of which is going to air on KCET towards the end of September.
I’ve always been a huge fan of short-form storytelling through video specifically so you’ll find that most of my work is short in length but always well made. It’s what I am most proud of: to tell more stories in less time but still have a high level of quality.
So, what’s next? Any big plans?
I’m taking this downtime during this pandemic to reflect on what I’ve done up to this point and what it means to continue putting as much effort as I do into my craft.
Addressing the less fun questions such as if my heart is in the right place or if I am making as much of an impact in other’s lives as I hope I’ve been doing are very dense things to address which I feel I have to do now before I can decide what my plans are for the future.
The last few years have been very difficult but very rewarding. I’m exactly where I wanted to be both professionally and athletically. This is the perfect time to sit back and reflect on it all, what it means to me, and where I want to take it from here.
