Contact: armandoluisalvarez at gmail dot com!
Follow me live at YouTube.com/iamisandisnt or Twitch.tv/iamisandisnt
My name is Armando Luis Alvarez. I produce independent film, mini documentaries, promo videos, music videos, and now video-games too.
I started my career as apprentice to Academy member Thomas Allen Harris (“Through a Lens Darkly: Black Photographers and the Emergence of a People”), who I continued to work for on “Digital Diaspora Family Reunion” and “Family Pictures USA” until 2016.
I’ve also worked as 1st assistant director and post-production coordinator on the prize-winning and bitcoin-financed art-house full-length film “Aimy in a Cage” (featured on the Wall Street Journal and The WTF Podcast with Marc Maron) with the notorious Crispin Glover, Paz de la Huerta, Disney’s Allisyn Ashley Arm and Academy-nominee Terry Moore.
After that I wrote, filmed, directed and produced my full-length debut film “Engrams” throughout the East Coast USA, Greece, Macedonia, Romania, Poland, Belgium and the Netherlands in September of 2015 with local cast and crew.
I signed with Global Genesis Group (www.globalgenesisgroup.com) as IP Manager for “Engrams” and they distributed the film internationally on Amazon Prime – available in The U.S., U.K., Japan, Germany, Italy, France, Spain and India.
My photography has been published in color on the front page of The Calgary Herald and my film work has been screened in the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art and the Chicago Museum of American Art, in addition to several film festivals including Sundance, Berlin, Corinth, Nafplio, San Antonio, Kansas City, New Hope, Alexandria, Boston Underground, New Filmmakers NY, Santa Barbara and of course New Jersey International Film Festival.
IMDB me: www.imdb.me/armandoluisalvarez
Since June 2016 I have been teaching myself Unreal Engine and 3D modeling in Blender, in addition to MakeHuman and World Machine. I now have skills in Unreal Engine 5, physics vehicles, weight painting, animating, blueprint programming, debugging, C++ integration, animation blueprints/graphs, montages/blend-spaces/etc, multiplayer networking with Steam, complex inventory systems, save/load systems, haggling/bartering systems, procedural content tools, physically-based-rendering, technical art, material graphs, niagara and cascade particle effects systems, in-engine audio synchronized to accurate metronome, dynamic and static lighting, RTX settings for realtime rendering, basically you name it, I’ve worked with it in my efforts to produce a multiplayer RPG by myself, which I chronicle on www.YouTube.com/iamisandisnt.
Featured Work
Unreal Engine
Interactive Audio/Visual Storytelling
Apeiron RPG Refactor and Optimization for GDC 2024
June 20, 2024
Physics-Based Horse-Drawn Carriage
March 24, 2024
This thing deserves its own post. Not only is it self-braking when nearing cliffs and certain flagged “unmovable objects,”…
Production Coordinator at Netflix Games
September 20, 2023
Contract work under NDA for a canceled Netflix project.
Due to the NDA there’s not much that can be shared…
Team Lead at 5th Cell
June 20, 2023
Cross-platform Blueprint Programming in Unreal Engine. Working with both core systems and user-facing polish. Managed a team of 10…
Freelance UI Work
October 18, 2022
Over the course of my freelance work, I had the opportunity to implement much fancier graphics for User Interface…
Escape the Backrooms
August 11, 2022
The game has over 69k reviews and rests comfortably at Very Positive, both in Recent and All Reviews.
Film
Feature Films, Short Films and Documentaries
The Injustice of Providence (Short Film)
June 13, 2019
Short film based on the works of Franz Kafka, filmed in Greece at the Corinth and Nafplion Film Festivals,…
“Engrams” at San Antonio Film Festival
August 10, 2017
“Engrams” had its world premiere at the San Antonio Film Festival in August, 2017. In addition to screening at…
Engrams, a Full-Length Film Set in NYC, Eastern and Western Europe – Writer/Director/Producer/Cinematographer/Editor
April 8, 2016
Engrams is an independent full-length narrative film about a man who believes he can cure depression by triggering happy…
Aimy in a Cage, the Bitcoin-Funded Full-Length SAG Film – Assistant Director/Post-Production Coordinator
December 7, 2015
For two years I worked as assistant director and post-production coordinator for the feature length indie film Aimy in a…
Inertia, a Short Film Based on Franz Kafka’s Before the Law – Co-Producer/Cinematographer
June 1, 2015
During a walk in the woods, a man stumbles upon a gate blocked by a guard who refuses to…
Abeyance, a Zero-Budget Magical Realism Short Film – Director/Cinematographer and Co-Producer/Co-Writer
May 1, 2015
I couldn’t be prouder to have made my stake in the world of film with such an avant-garde piece…
Music Videos
Live Music and Music Videos
Virtual Sampler/Drum Machine
August 6, 2022
I was hired to fix a skipping virtual music sampler/drum machine, which was not looping “in time” with itself….
When Epic announced the Quartz Clock for Unreal Engine, I knew that Trent Reznor’s vision was now a possible…
As soon as Quartz Clock went in to Unreal Engine, I knew I had to use it. Creating procedural…
“Wonder Why” by Scarlet Sails
November 1, 2016
Filmed at dawn on the Neil Gaiman compound where Bob Dylan recorded “Bringing it All Back Home,” I filmed…
“Eli” Live by Bosnian Rainbows – Editor/Cinematographer/Effects
December 26, 2015
Many thanks to the band and crew for putting on a great show and being so welcoming. Special thanks…
I made this video entirely by myself as a short teaser for Original Text’s first EP. Filmed in Rutgers…
News Journalism
Traditional and Digital News Journalism and Album Reviews
GDC 2018 Live Interviews
March 21, 2018
I attended GDC twice, and one of those times I endeavored to record some live, off-the-cuff interviews with any…
Kayrock Screenprinting Fosters Artist Growth
May 26, 2015
Brooklyn-based Kayrock Screenprinting has multiple programs aimed at producing silkscreen prints, paper prints and books of art; however, the…
Tory Van Wey Draws From Stream of Consciousness
March 9, 2015
Tory Van Wey pulls organic material from her daily life through a stream of consciousness process that lays mechanical…
Dustin Yellin’s “Psychogeographies” – Layers of Art Encased in Glass
February 16, 2015
These fifteen 3,000-pound works of art on display in the New York City Ballet’s David H. Koch Theater at…
Bodega Satellite’s 3D EP
January 27, 2015
With great experience comes great passion, which can make for great music. Such is the case for the New…
Owl John Takes Flight
September 11, 2014
What happens when the routine, the lights, the sing-alongs all become too much for the pop artist? When Glasgow…
Photography
From Performance to Portrait and Everything In Between
Chelsea Wolfe Bares Her Bright Storm Down Upon Brooklyn
September 10, 2015
After spending a week with little-to-no sleep in Portland, OR for the world premier of Aimy in a Cage,…
Moscow Ballet’s Great Russian Nutcracker, Part 3
June 5, 2015
More beautiful selects emerging from the thousands of photos I took on tour with Moscow Ballet last Winter.
Bo Ningen Opening for TV on the Radio
May 26, 2015
Incredible opening act took me by surprise as I was shooting photos for Verbicide Magazine. Not to be reckoned…
Jazz From the Streets of New Brunswick
April 25, 2015
I got the chance to shoot in this dimly lit bar in the back streets of New Brunswick’s downtown….
American Alien with Jamie Paige Van Beveren
February 13, 2015
Enlisted the service of makeup artist Marlene Rosenberg, utilizing my new white vinyl backdrop and some blue lighting gels….
Moscow Ballet’s Great Russian Nutcracker Part 2
January 8, 2015
After a week of R&R it’s good to say that I’ve wrapped up a successful two months with the…
Promotional
Commercial, Promotional Work and Web Series
Nazranaa Indian Bridal Store – Cinematographer/Co-Producer
December 25, 2015
Variety is the spice of life!
DDFR: Skidmore College in Upstate New York – Cinematographer
March 26, 2015
Another liberating experience traveling the road, this time with my good friends and teammates at Chimpanzee Productions’ Digital Diaspora…
Chuggington Live! – Cinematographer
January 30, 2015
Commercial shot by myself. Hired by a tour manager I met on tour over the winter. Very fun to…
Bodega Satelite EPK – Editor/Cinematographer
October 12, 2013
This hilarious (I think) EPK shows off the awesome talent and warm personalities of Bodega Satelite as a submission…
Strategic MMA – Gym Promo – Cinematographer
June 24, 2013
Shot this footage for a Mixed Martial Arts gym promo edited by Brian Lederman.
Featuring performances by a vibrant array of bands and visual artists, I filmed this live event hosted by emtheories.com…