Meet Marcus Recasner | Filmmaker & Photographer

We had the good fortune of connecting with Marcus Recasner and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Marcus, let’s start by talking about what inspires you?
Watching and listening to others inspires my creativity as a filmmaker and photographer. My father told me early on I could learn a lot more from listening with my ears than my mouth. When I turned twenty-one I went to a lot bars and would observe other people. Additionally I would meet people through film and photography work who caught my attention and I would want to learn more about them as a person. Whether I’m listening to music in a mall or watching or passing by someone on the street, I always try to be aware of my surroundings.

Let’s talk shop? Tell us more about your career, what can you share with our community?
My main objective is to create a story through the camera or through my screenplays. Having been doing this for ten years, I’ve grown as an individual along with my art. I want to be more compelling and purposeful with my narrative work. There has to be a reason for me to write a screenplay because most of my writing reflects my current state of life and myself personally. When my grandfather died, it was the first time I had someone close to me pass away. I found solace in writing a brief screenplay on a character dealing with similar situations and ways on how to cope with his emotions. Cinema has taught me a lot about life and how we as people try to relate with the characters we see on the screen. I want to the world to know me as someone who put thought into their work with reason. I want people to look at my art and deconstruct the layers to find a part of themselves in some way.

Let’s say your best friend was visiting the area and you wanted to show them the best time ever. Where would you take them? Give us a little itinerary – say it was a week long trip, where would you eat, drink, visit, hang out, etc.
The first thing I would do is show take them to the North Park area to eat at Rudford’s on El Cajon Boulevard. Open for twenty fours, you can get just about anything at any time of the day. If it’s 8:00pm on a Tuesday night and you want breakfast, you’ll get it. From there I’d take them to Mission Beach and just walk along the coast. In my opinion, you can’t not come to San Diego and get some sand in between your toes. Depending on the films released in theatres I’d take them to watch a movie. Though this sounds basic, I’d go to an AMC Theatre with recliner seats and bar to really make the vibe more laid back. One of the items on the agenda would be to take them to Balboa Park. There’s some much to look at the view is really breathtaking. Also depending on the day, we might even be lucky to catch a live show at the Organ Pavilion.

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?
There’s a lot of people in my corner and too many to count who have attributed to my current state of success. My immediate family first and foremost consisting of my parents Glenn and Lucy and my siblings Vanessa, Nicolas, and Christopher. My parents instilled in me and my siblings about how family is everything and how vital it is to watch out for one another. I owe just about everything these five individuals. As my father says “In the end, family is all we have at the end of the day.”

My cousin Ahren is someone who I really owe a lot of my grow to as he helped me land paid work creating lyric videos for artists for the last seven years. A few of them were also some big name YouTubers. We both work in similar fields of work so we constantly push each other creatively to do more. Seeing as how we also share the same birthday too, I can never not have him in the back of my mind.

Learning from my godfather Gabe has helped me tremendously, not only as filmmaker but in life. I can assure he’s like my second father as he’s been present my entire life. He constantly made sure I watched good cinema to help me understand what makes a great film and how to craft a strong narrative. He is a major film buff and grew up watching classic films upon their release. Whether he’d have me watch Rocky, An Officer and A Gentleman, or Forrest Gump, I was never short on what to watch next.

Not forgetting where and how this all started, my high school teacher Mr. Skocko was the spark for me learning more about my craft. I took his digital arts class my junior year and at the end of year I decided to become a filmmaker. I enrolled in his class again my senior year and learned how to use Adobe After Effects and Adobe Premiere. Eventually he asked me if I had plans on how to grow as a filmmaker and I told him I didn’t know where to begin. He suggested I go to community college and start networking. I had no aspirations on going to college and I thank him for guidance early on.

Through my internship at Media Arts Center San Diego, I was given some amazing opportunities to develop my skills and meet people working in the industry. I had the chance to film and edit promotional videos and photography for events they held around the city. One of the major functions be the San Diego Latino Film Festival. I also was able to work there in the summers as a teaching assistant, as well as work with their video production team on large corporate projects.

Lastly and currently, Hector and Mel, the owners of EQ Studios in San Diego have helped me a lot of in the last year. I started out renting out their spaces for photoshoots and eventually out of know where they asked if I wanted to work them and be a part of their team. This has lead to me having so many amazing opportunities this past year alone such as getting production assistant work on large commercial sets and using the spaces to constantly create and practice my photography. Working here with them has been great and I consider EQ Studios my current home away from home for creativity.

Website: https://marcusrecasner.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/marcusrecasner/

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCYCx8ziYBUFqLEW-mu1pvnw

Image Credits
Davids Hubbs, Odie Miller and Tariq Johnson