After 24 hours spent on the road, a 22 year-old Graphic Design Major from Channelview, Texas took the stage at the Brightside Film Fest in Jersey City, New Jersey, to talk about a short film he made that had been nominated for an award.

It was late, the temperature outside was in the 30s, and his film was only one of six others that were also nominated for the same “Best Concept” award, yet Christian Gonzalez ended the night in a warm bed and with a new trophy to take back home.

A recipient of the San Jacinto Community College’s “Promise Program,” Gonzalez earned his Associate’s in Art & Design before starting at UHCL as a Graphic Design Major also minoring in Film Production in Spring of 2025.

Prior to San Jac, he attended Heights High School in HISD and first learned how to edit and produce videos through the AV programs offered there, going so far as to be chosen to serve as his teacher’s TA for his Senior year before having his high school experience cut short at the tail-end of his Junior year by the onset of the Covid-19 Pandemic.

Now serving as the TA for UHCL Professor Michael Brims’ Video Production and Narrative Film Production courses, Gonzalez uses the experience he’s gained over the years to help students newer to filming with the more technical aspects of the craft: checking equipment, formatting video files, and assessing camera settings, to name a few.

Ensuring proper care of the equipment is all the more important when taking into consideration their industry-standard quality, especially in regards to the Netflix-approved status of the two main Sony FX6 cameras in use during the film production classes, which typically retail at around $7,000 for the camera body alone.

Before becoming Brims’ TA, Gonzalez was himself enrolled in Video Production as a new student, going on to take Narrative Film Production the following semester in Fall of 2025, where he then proceeded to create what would become his award-winning film, “Pest Control.”

“Jurassic Park was, is, probably my greatest filmmaking inspiration,” said Gonzalez. “Just because of how incredibly Stephen Spielberg puts together this beautiful portrait of blending together the dinosaur and more modern worlds.”

Though he credits his high school experience with initially introducing him to the more formal and fundamental aspects of filmmaking, Gonzalez was still making “films” long before his teens.

The actors in these films? Stuffed animals.

“Making that kind of portrait was something I wanted to do myself, and so I would use my phone to record small little films and create my own stories,” Gonzalez said.

“You know how in elementary you have that one project where you write down or draw what you want to be when you grow up? Mine was being a filmmaker.”

This desire to tell stories through film persisted all throughout his childhood, driving him to seek out and consume the other available film DVDs and VHS Tapes in his family’s home.

“We even had the, like, terrible Disney animated sequels, and I’d watch those,” Gonzalez said. “Because, even as bad as they were, they were still inspiring to see as completed stories.”

One of Gonzalez’s most recent endeavors into producing another completed story is a video series he and Tyler Huffman, another film production student, are co-creating under the title “Pigeonholed.”

Both Gonzalez and Huffman can also be found present at the periodic meetings for the eponymous UHCL Storytellers, which Professor Brims now also recently began serving as the faculty advisor for.

Historically specializing in end-of-semester stage productions put together and performed by UHCL Students, with “The Rocket Science of Neighbors” and “By Reason of Insanity” being their two most recent, the Storytellers are shifting towards showcasing their productions sooner in future semesters so as to not compete for students’ time during finals.

Their upcoming Fall 2026 show, “Dakota Gray,” a Y2K-era reimagining of Oscar Wilde’s “The Picture of Dorian Gray” is currently set to play for two nights, November 13 and 14.

While the show’s open casting call held on April 15 has already passed, Assistant Director for the show and current Narrative Film Production student, Eden Wilkinson, did encourage anyone interested in assisting the production and familiar with set design to reach out.

Whether on screen or on the stage, these are just a few of the UHCL students actively engaging in one of humanity’s oldest traditions, telling stories.

To get in contact with Christian Gonzalez, he can be reached by email at [email protected].

To learn more about or get in contact with the UHCL Storytellers, you can visit their Instagram page.