Have a great idea, or dream that keeps you up at night? Here’s your sign (or episode) to start with the first small step. We sit with videoagrapher and photographer Richard Colachagua, founder of Sixth Sense Visuals. He has also helped to film the brand image for celebrities such as Jessie Woo and Jacquees. Together we talk about overcoming the fear of just starting, and avoiding the need to compare your results with others. In the first steps, its best to focus on the early lessons that you can grow from. If you’re just getting started in your creative journey, set expectations that you will make a certain amount of makes. Allow yourself the space to make those mistakes, without judgement. As Richard learned, “Don’t forget to make your crappy movies”.
Richard Colachagua and more of his work can be found at https://sixthsensevisuals.com.
Mentioned in the show:
Amora Brown:
Okay, good. I'm talking about, are you good and I'm not even ready.
Richard Colachagua:
It's fine. All right, let me just hit record over here. All right. I'm good to go whenever you are.
Amora Brown:
Okay. My friend *laugher*
Amora Brown:
It literally took us what, 30 minutes to get all this set up, because this is the first time that I'm using Zencaster along with Zoom, and I'm hoping to use the audio from Zencaster with the image from Zoom. So that's going to be kind of fun to see how all this works out, but thank you so much for joining me, Richard. I really appreciate you. I know you are almost a director. I'm about to just say it because it's going to be true. In the next couple of years.
Richard Colachagua:
Getting there. Getting There.
Amora Brown:
Cause right now you're a photographer, but you're, you're working your way towards film and directing and so forth. Cool, everybody. This is Richard Colachagua. So thank you so much for having us on. Wait, having- thanks for coming on my show.
Richard Colachagua:
No problem.
Amora Brown:
Okay, so to get started, I kind of wanted to talk a little bit about how you got started in photography and what made you want to get into directing
Richard Colachagua:
That is- I guess I'll start from when I, when I was a kid. So, I'm from the Bronx, New York and growing up, we just had like an infatuation with movies in the house. Like we had a bunch of VHS tapes growing up, you know, me and my dad we'd watch all the movies together. You know, I very vividly remember, you know, watching Toy Story, The Nightmare Before Christmas. We had Pokemon on VHS and then there was a movie theater, like 15 minutes away walking distance from us. I spent a lot of time there as a child, like going to the movies with my dad going to movies with friends and then my aunt. She didn't have any kids, so, but I have two sisters. So she would take us to the movies and new Rochelle. So it was like I spent a lot of time going back and forth between that movie theatre, and that movie theatre
Richard Colachagua:
Just watching whatever was coming on. Because it's like, if there was nothing to do that day or nothing planned, it was always, "Oh", you know, "it's just go see what's playing today". So that's where that interest started. So that never really like stuck with me or made me I wasn't really thinking about that until like later on in life. Like maybe like the two I'd say like maybe two years ago where I was like, okay, "this is where like, this started at". Yeah. So well I got into photography. I always had like- kind of like an interested in high school. Like I finally on Instagram, I was like, "all right, this is mad. Cool". Like people were taking photos and stuff like that. And I was like, really getting big into like fashion at the time.
Richard Colachagua:
So like, you know, I would take pictures of my clothes and stuff like that. Or I'll try to take cool pictures of my friends wearing no clothes. The interest has never got past that. Until January, 2015, it was a rough point. It was probably like one of my, definitely my level was point. I had no job. I was a college dropout. No relationship anymore, I broke with my girlfriend. And it was just like, "what am I going to do?" And my parents and everybody else was kind of like, like, "Yeah bro, like, what are you gonna do?" Cause like, they looked at me like the golden boy, you know what I mean? Like I'm the only boy, I'm the first one going on the first one going like college college. So I just like to come back it was like "Damn bro. I feel like, I feel like" you know, "I ruined it. I ruined it for everybody". You know what
Amora Brown:
I mean? But
Richard Colachagua:
Thankfully, like I still had an interest in photography, so I had some money left, at least. So I bought a camera and that really like helped me pick my life back up. Cause it gave me like a sense of purpose. It's ironic. I went, I remember, I went back a few years ago and I looked at the date I bought the camera and it was January 6th. And like for some reason, like coincidentally is, you know, it's ironic or what you call it, the universe, like that same time I bought the camera, you know, I was like, "okay, I have this camera. I can make a new identity". So I need some new name. Like everyone on Instagram, they had like these like aliases to them, like "seventh dimensions", "Elise slopes", "13th witness", or they all had names and like weird things. Okay. So I need to come up with something for myself. So I came up with "Sixth Sense" someone already had it. I think it was like some girl in Europe. So I messaged her on Instagram and I kind of explained to her why I wanted this, why I wanted her name. And then she was all for it. She, she changed it and she was like, you know, "take it immediatel". Yeah. And it's funny now because now people reach out to me and they try to buy my Instagram name from me.
Amora Brown:
Wow. How much are they offering?
Richard Colachagua:
No, no money. Little money.
Amora Brown:
Oh, so they're trying to get it for free, free. I would've been like, "yeah, totally. $1 million. It's yours". Somebody else gives me an offer, 1.2 says "that the discount plan". *laughter*
Richard Colachagua:
Yeah. Someone tried to offer me, like four months of their rent money. I'm like, "bro, I'm not going to take your rent money from you".
Amora Brown:
Oh no, not the rent money. No, I didn't mean like that. I'm just like, I mean, I don't know. That's crazy. I'm sorry. You mentioned that you got the Sony A6 300 or what? That's what we talked about off camera, right?
Richard Colachagua:
Yeah. Oh, I got a, I got a first, I had like this point and shoot camera that my sister had in our house or either that I got it from like a friend of mine. I was like, "yo bro, let me borrow this". And then I was like alright, this is not- I realized quickly, okay, this is cool, but it's not going to get me where I want to go. So I had to buy- I bought a Nikon D3200 and then like, that was like a real like DSLR digital camera that like, you know, photographers actually used. It was a beginner camera, so it was perfect for me. Yeah. And then I eventually I grew it you know, I joined the Sony wave, started getting on the alpha series and yeah, I'm just shooting on, on Sonys now.
Amora Brown:
Cool. I just bought me a cannon, so don't get mad at me cause I got something- I'm still learning how to use my Canon though. So I'm using my iPhone and my Mac right now, even though I have, my Cannon sitting are right over there. But what universities you go to?
Richard Colachagua:
First, I went to *inaudible* . That's a college update state here in New York. I ended up leaving, like I said, I dropped out and then I took a semester off kind of just to like get myself back together. And then did two years at Bronx community, got a graphic design degree there. And then I ended at St John's university, got my bachelor's in TV and film with a minor in business. And yeah, here we are. I own my own company, Sixth Sense Visuals. And just, you know, trying to get off the ground.
Amora Brown:
What are some advice you would give to people like that are interested in like are planting the seed in their mind about, you know, maybe starting to get into film or starting to get into directing? Like what is some advice you would give somebody that's starting off?
Richard Colachagua:
Definitely the biggest thing is just to start, you know, you gotta take the first steps and then I would say it's really easy to get discouraged very early on just because, you know, you're probably inspired by some of the best filmmakers, like the Spielbergs and escapes and the Scorsese's you know, the David Fincher's. So, you know, it's, it's very easy to compare yourself to somebody or even just people who are on Instagram who are like real great creators, but you know, they've put in years and years of work, you know, and you're just starting. So you can't let that work be the thing that affects you personally, like "damn my stuff doesn't look as good as theirs", you know, of course, you know, you're just starting and they've had years of experience. They have whole crews that they're working with and stuff like that, you know, you'll get there. Cause they definitely felt that same way probably about themselves in the beginning. Like like buy stuff, doesn't look so good or what are have that. So I think that's like two of the biggest things right there. Overcoming the fear of just starting and then don't let yourself fall into comparisons and like imposter syndrome's and things like that thinking, Oh, you know, I'm not good enough to do this when you really are, you know, he's got a mature into it. That's all it is.
Amora Brown:
For somebody that's like a college student- like when I was in school- and I, and I say college student, because it's gonna apply to work too. Like if you work at a nine to five. Like how do you keep yourself from getting overwhelmed and like putting too much on your plate? Like how do you space everything out in such a way that you're still doing what you need to do, whether that's working and putting food on the table, but at the same time, putting a little bit of work and effort into actually building your own brand, your own company, your own content, like how were you able to balance the two?
Richard Colachagua:
Yeah. I think the most important part is recognizing that like you're at the starting point, so it's okay to make a lot of mistakes. You know what I mean? Like you, you have nothing to lose, so it's okay. If you're making a couple mistakes in the beginning, that's not really going to bite you. And then those are really easy early lessons that you can, that you can learn from. And then I think the second thing is don't try to put too much on your plate. You know what I mean? Don't try to tackle the big things at once. You know, take small gradual steps into what it is you're trying to do, because you want to make sure that you're, that you're learning a lot and you know, not trying to like skip over steps, right?
Amora Brown:
Cause them steps go come back at the end of the day. Like every, every step you take is going to come back and manifest itself, like in a bigger way. So it's like every small step, I guess, to understand that better is like necessary for the entire, the entire group is not so small after all, because it's like, you're going to have to come right back to that same foundation.
Richard Colachagua:
Yeah. Right. Yeah. That's what it is. The foundation you got to master the fundamentals first, before you try and do anything else, your fundamentals are the, are your foundation for what it is that you're doing. It's not a sprint. It's a marathon like Nipsey says, it's not, it's not a sprint, it's a marathon. So, you know, if you're playing this game, you're playing this game of being in the film industry and the right thing. It's a, it's really a marathon. You know, there are people who I've met who have 25, 30 plus years experience, you know, to get to that level. You know, you gotta be okay with wanting to be in it that long. You know, it's not going to be an overnight success here. There can be some people, you know, who get lucky. You know, you have, you have the child prodigies, you know, here and there, but there is still a level of work that needs to get put in to sustain that. Scale is going to triumph over talent at some point. So, you know, it's just about being able to master your skill set and that takes years on practice for this. You know, I've been doing this for six years. I feel like personally, I haven't even scratched the surface yet or what I really want to do. Cause I'm just still building all my skillset.
Amora Brown:
I guess that's really inspirational too, because it's like, like for me starting this podcast, I've been looking at everybody else like, Oh, everybody else's podcast looks good. You know, how can I make this perfect. How can I put it on YouTube and Apple and Instagram and just make it all flow. And it's like, I have to learn. It's okay to make mistakes. It's okay to be bad. There's this guy that I follow on YouTube, Roberto Blake. And he was like, you need to make your first 100 crappy videos. He was like, he was like an after you've made a hundred crappy videos. Like just then you can start, you know, kind of being like, okay, well what are the results for me doing it better and so forth. But I guess like, that's like a really high bar. Cause what it does is it kind of sets the standard of like, okay, I can mess up. Not even, you must have as many times we want to mess up, but it kind of makes it like, okay, I can really mess up as much as I need to mess up so I can kind of learn from it.
Richard Colachagua:
Yep. Yeah. I remember. So then that one of my film teachers told me and my last semester he was like, because I was in school, they called me, they called me Joel, but that was my nickname. He was like, Joel, make sure to make your crappy movies. He's like make your crappy movies, Joel, because he showed us or you showed us a film of a film of a film of someone making a crappy movie. Like it was really about a guy making a crappy movie. So he was like, yeah, he's he was like, you fell asleep a little bit. I'm like, yeah. He's like, yeah. But you know, you understand the point of it. Right. He was like, yeah. You know, make your crappy films. And yeah. So, you know, it's okay if you know what your first stuff is doing is bad.
Amora Brown:
One moment. I'm going to pause this. Okay. Because I'm not convinced that. Okay. I wasn't sure if my thing was recording. I wish there was a way to pause the recording on here too, but I'm not done recording. Okay. Let me just, there's a, so what I'm gonna do for each person that's speaking is I'm going to ask you a question from the previous person that I interviewed, and then I'm gonna have you ask a question for the next person who's about to be interviewed and you don't know who this person is. So let me find that question. I'm going to resume recording. It might be fun to just have, so I'm resuming recording now. So I'm looking in I had it written down, but for some reason it don't seem to be here.
Richard Colachagua:
No problem.
Amora Brown:
Oh, doodles.
Amora Brown:
Anyway let me, let me stop. The recording is stop everything.
Amora Brown:
Okay. So now we're, we're recording on Zencaster and we're recording on a zoom. Sorry. So one of the things that Saskia who's, the previous person that I interviewed on the podcast wanted to ask you as the interview person, after her is what is most important to you? What is most important to you in your life? It could be a person. It could be a concept. It could be a lesson that you learned. What is that for you? I know you said you liked directing, but I'm wondering, is it directing or is it something bigger than directing that directing helps you get to?
Richard Colachagua:
I, I think it's two things. I think they go well together. I think it's peace and purpose. So like I find peace in what I'm able to do and I, and what I'm able to do and what I want to do. And then, you know, this, my, I feel like that's my purpose. I use that as my medium to express what I want and what I want to get out to the world. Right. And, you know, I think it's very important. So one find your purpose and make sure that your purpose is sustaining you peace, because if you're not peace with yourself, then you know, you're, you're not imbalanced with yourself. And then I think, you know, the purpose thing just comes back from, you know, I'm just doing what it is that you actually enjoy doing. Like I tell people all the time, well, not all the time.
Richard Colachagua:
Like, you know, when, when it comes up in conversation like, Oh, you know, like with the topic about jobs and careers or whatever, you know, always say, if you're going to do something, you know, if you're gonna spend eight hours a day working, I would hope that you like working there. You better make sure that you, actually like being there. Cause you know, I've been there before spending eight hours at a place that I hated and you know, yeah. It's not fun at all, you know, and you know, that's just me, you know, there are some people who find great joy and spending eight hours doing something and more power to them. You know, it's just all about finding that fits with your peace and purpose.
Amora Brown:
Thank you. I want to know now from your perspective, what's a question that you want to ask the next person that I interview
Richard Colachagua:
The question to ask the next person. I think it's always interesting to see, like, if you weren't doing what you're doing now or what you currently were in pursuing, what would it be like the second thing? Like what would be the next thing that you'd probably end up wanting to do? So what's your next interests that you feel like could replace what it is that you're currently trying to do? Because let's say, if I wasn't directing, what else would I be doing? So I think I would ask that to the next person.
Amora Brown:
Okay. Well, I have a question for you on top of that. Yeah. With money or without money. So let's say for example, like if I wasn't podcasting, I would love to be a singer. Right? But I would love to be a singer only if that, like, if I didn't have to worry about money. So are you talking about, if somebody didn't have to worry about money or you're talking about just like to pay the bills?
Richard Colachagua:
No. I mean, just like in general. Yeah. Like if I wasn't in this field, I'd probably want to like be in tech honestly. Oh.
Amora Brown:
Come talk to me about that. Cause you know, I used to work in tech and I have a big tech background and all that other good stuff too. I mean, I'm trying to find a way to marry tech and the creative arts together because I think that's really important. So maybe this podcast will answer that question. I'm going to get some more techie people on here as well, too. So we'll be able to get that perspective.
Richard Colachagua:
There you go.
Amora Brown:
Thank you so much for chatting with me today, Richard, I really appreciate you making time out of your day to like share this insight. Where can we find more of your work and how can we keep in touch with you?
Richard Colachagua:
Yeah. my socials you can follow me and the company page on Instagram, it's Sixth Sense, like S I XT H S E E N S E spelled out, no numbers. And then the company pages is Sixth Sense Visuals, you just add "visuals" at the end of Sixth Sense. And then close up like that. And then on Twitter, I'm at "Sixth Sense Vis", Sixth Sense and the V I S. Website SixthSenseVisuals.com. And yeah, that's pretty much it right there. Uin terms of socials. Three big things for the year,starting to work on like more personal stuff for me. Uaside from just like doing like client work,uI'm working on a three part docu series,uthat talks about the incarceration of Latino people,uand the American prison system. So I'm going to sit down with three candidates and they're going to basically tell me their stories, I'm going to ask them with some questions and then just build something from that.
Richard Colachagua:
Second thing I'm working on like this kind of narrative series, like kind of like interview talk, show style about- like, I I'm half Dominican and Peruvian. So, you know, like my culture is very important to me is it has become a real big thing for me over the past couple of years. So, you know, I want to like sit these people down and kind of like red table talk with, Jada Pinkett Smith, and kind of just have like three people sit down and then, you know, have them have a topic for them to discuss through that. They're like in relation to like, like I said Latinos who are LBGTQ, you know, you don't really hear stories about that and like how like that shapes into society. And then like another thing to kind of be like Latinos and mental health.
Richard Colachagua:
So like getting three people in the mental health field to sit down and discuss these things, and like first generation Latinos who are college students. Yeah. So like really building on these topics and like making it a discussion. That's going to be something else that I plan on getting off the ground soon. And then the last thing would be the, probably the biggest thing so far is me and some people actually met off clubhouse. I was in the room talking about how I wanted to kind of like, we were all speaking on ideas and stuff we want to do. I was like, yeah, I want to make like, a Latino version of Wild and Out. And you know, everyone thought it was be like a real funny idea. Yeah. I'm always trying to see, like what's already out there and seeing like, how can I put the spin on this for like, for my culture? So I just literally put in like I literally just put in the copyright yesterday for the idea, like at two in the morning, I'm just trying to across all my, all my P's and Q's and dott all of my "I's" and stuff like that. And yeah. So we're going to have a meeting,usoon coming up about discussing, like what it actually looks like, actually getting that done.
Amora Brown:
That's going to be super dope. I'm looking forward to that. Like, I'm super excited for that.
Richard Colachagua:
Me too.
Amora Brown:
And that's going to be on YouTube or where is that going to be at?
Richard Colachagua:
We haven't decided that yet. You know, it's, it's going to be up for stre-. It's going to be up somewhere to watch, you know we're going to cross that bridge when we get there. And we talk about that, but yeah, for sure. You know, that's going to be something that we're going to be working on for the next couple of months. A show, takes time to prep. We're going to make mistakes in the beginning, but you know, we don't, we don't want to make big mistakes. We don't, we want to minimize as many mistakes as we can, especially since it's going to be, since this is going to be a group of us, we can minimize risks across the board. So, yeah, but definitely stick around for that sometime this year, that's going to be out there in the open.
Amora Brown:
I'm probably going to interview you again, just so I can like follow up on that and then just see like how you kind of built it and whatnot. What do you do for your day job? Or are you just a director? Like for the full-time for your like, not director, but like director and life photographer. Like, are you working on your creative arts full-time or do you have like a day job too?
Richard Colachagua:
No, I don't have a day job. This is the only thing I do, you know, I have my clients that helped me cover my bills and stuff like that. And then really just right now, trying to work on building out what is a team, you know, trying to get two or three more people with a jump on board with the vision and see where it takes us.
Amora Brown:
How do you get clients for your, just like, how do you go about getting clients in general?
Richard Colachagua:
Me, most people come to me based off of referral. So thankfully, you know, I do a good job with somebody and they can recommend me to somebody else. If not, you know, you kind of just got to put yourself out there, you know, whether it be doing free work for somebody and you know, I've done free work and I, I, I would still do free work. You know, if it, if it means that it leads me to an, a bigger opportunity, you know, you got a cold message. People like who you want to work with. And you know, when you, when you do things like that, you know, you got, you got, you gotta come prepared. You can't just say, Hey, I want to work at you. You kinda got, kinda gotta show what it is you can offer. Like what value are you bringing to the table?
Amora Brown:
Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. All right. My friend, thanks for chatting with me. And I really appreciate your time. Like I learned a whole lot. I'm really excited to talk with you again, like to check out the Latino version, Latin X version of Wild and Out. That'd be super dope.
Richard Colachagua:
Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, hopefully, you know, we're gonna, we're gonna try and get that off the board as as, as good as we can.
Amora Brown:
I'll be watching in the back, like, okay. He was telling me to use about, to do this. And here we are. Its dope!
Amora Brown
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