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

Hi Vega, what role has risk played in your life or career?

Life is Risk. In my opinion they go hand in hand as one and the same. I’ve always approached my day to day from that perspective and I think it spills into my work heavily. When you start to weigh risk/reward not just against itself but against other risk/rewards you’ll find a new value in the initial decision. For better or worse of course.

Take for example The Burden of Nine Lives, my new film, the risk was the idea of diving into a feature film production with only 8 days to work. The reward is having a movie my team and I can concretely say we made in 8 days. Just looking at the risk reward there isn’t enough immediate payoff for most people to see the value. If you weigh the challenge against other challenges the value starts to evolve. Other filmmakers have done 48 hour challenges for short films and ended up with studio deals, so the reward in theory should be bigger than that. Take chances as often as you can.

In short, or as the cool kids say TL;DR, understand the risk, measure the reward, contrast with other success and failure stories.

And failure stories, I can’t stress that part enough. Learn from mine and others mistakes.

Let’s talk shop? Tell us more about your career, what can you share with our community?

I think the one thing that sets me apart as a creative is my focus on growth through execution. I feel like a lot of artists I see in what would be considered my peer space, are looking to grow and then execute. Everyone is focused on making it big to show you how great they are as opposed to making great things that become the catalyst for success.

I’ve always looked at things through this perspective. I’m not looking to play in the kids pool ever, so I always set my targets high. Sure we are making a movie (or really movies, cause we have multiple lol) with a tiny 50k budget compared to what Hollywood 1-2million that they call Low Budget, but I’m expecting our work to stand alongside them proudly. When you see one of my projects alongside a Netflix or HBO project, you shouldn’t see a difference.

And that’s the second thing that separates me from others. I’m not competing in the indie space. I’m competing in the Professional space. The Hollywood space. Call me a ProAm filmmaker before you call me an indie filmmaker. I’m the self made rookie filmmaker. I don’t want to compete with any filmmakers who are working with budgets under 1million because we should be helping each other. I celebrate everyone making the effort to break the mold and offer my help as well.

And lastly, I’m Dominican as f*ck and everything I do is a spectacle. Whether it’s making a movie in 8 days, getting a deal on my first film release, or having active UFC fighters playing alongside upcoming actors and current music icons, Nobody makes a scene like me.

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?

Honestly, for as much as I love the Dallas Cowboys, I haven’t actually explored the city of Dallas enough to even consider being a tour guide. One thing I will share however, and in no way shape or form is this a plug, but I genuinely checkout this site to see what others are making and try to pop out. I love to explore and adventure and rarely find myself visiting the same place more than a few times, no matter how badly I want to be a regular like on TV.

On second thought, I absolutely adore the Dallas Aquarium and the Perot Museum. I guess those would be my go to spots with a little frozen cocktail as I stroll through the Jellyfish exhibit with its seductive neon glow.

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?

My whole team needs a shout out for all the work we do and the challenges we overcome. When I talk about my team I’m talking about a group of individuals who have the skills to be on any production of any caliber. From my J. Cameron Davenport (DP) and Ingvar Denis (AC1) who make up the camera team to Derrick Myers (Gaff) and Matt Pelrine (Grip) who make the lighting happen to our incredible glam squad made up of Picasso (MUA) and Danny Ortega (Hair) everybody gets it done. When Angel Mercedes (Sound) and Dave Lucas (AD) can record a song before bed and have Caleb DeBouse (Production Drive) playing it in the van on the way to set in the morning, how could I not feel I have the best team?

And that’s before we even add the pressure of everyone wearing multiple hats to push through our intense work schedule. Our sound guy running around doing wardrobe in between takes while our hair stylist flows through the moment to capture behind the scenes content and interviews. Everyone quickly flips hats and makes everything happen.

Even our producers (Alysha M. Wright, Cruzie Cruz, Cosmo Losco, JT Weaver) get involved as often as necessary because we all care more about the work getting done than egos or anything else. Whether it’s making emergency medical rides or finding incredible crew members to join us last minute (Thank you Passion Jackson) everyone steps up to get us out the mud. Show us some love and Check out the trailer for “The Burden of Nine Lives”: https://youtu.be/dPRi7kOG7aw

Website: Whatupvega.com

Instagram: Instagram.com/whatupvega

Other: IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm11751195/

Image Credits
Matt Pelrine Cruzie Cruz Cam Davenport Daniel Ortega Naira Noore

Nominate Someone: ShoutoutDFW is built on recommendations and shoutouts from the community; it’s how we uncover hidden gems, so if you or someone you know deserves recognition please let us know here.