Today we’d like to introduce you to Nickolas Gastaris.
Hi Nickolas, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstory.
Well, I doubt my story is any different from anyone else’s, but here it goes. I grew up watching movies. My dad would take me and my brothers almost every weekend. There was a time when theaters would run out of films that we hadn’t already seen, and this was when theaters were in their prime! During those younger years, we would often make home movies on my dads old video tape camera. I am sure those recordings are somewhere. A lot of those old videos would involve action figures and voice overs. We really got into it with a close friend of my mothers. We would look forward to her visiting in the summer, because we knew it meant another cool action figurine film was bound to be made. I even got a bit into stop motion, but never really finished any big projects. Fast forward some years and I started doing talent shows in elementary school. I was about five years old and I was on stage doing a comedy show. I did that for about four years until they stopped doing talent shows. Long story short, I wanted to be an actor. I wanted to be on screen and be someone else and grab viewers’ attention. I looked up to action hero’s like Sylvester Stallone, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Tom Cruise, and anyone else my dad introduced me to. I thought that was something I could see myself being a part of one day. I guess I was a bit of an attention seeker, still am. It might be part of the competitiveness in me, this need to be the best in all the activities I do. Anyways… I ended up taking acting classes in middle school. I think I was about 13 or 14. I missed my chance to get an agent, didn’t prepare a good enough monologue, but I always told myself I’d go back, or at least at the time I did. The thing is, when I was 13 I also started losing my hair and that devastated me. I couldn’t go anywhere without a hat on. I didn’t feel comfortable for a very long time, so I never ended up going back to those acting classes. By the time I was 16 I had buzzed my hair. When I was 17 I went completely bald. Hair doesn’t seem very important, but not having any really makes you see the world in a different way. I became very self conscious about my image and the world wasn’t very nice to a 17 year old kid with no hair. There wasn’t a day that went by where I didn’t hear something about my appearance or was physically harassed. It was really hard for me to trust anyone, and believe they respected me, because I was the punchline in every joke. So if we take it back a few years, in middle school I got my first camera, it was a GoPro Hero +. I remember the first GoPro I had ever seen. I had used my friends in a pool and at the time my mind was bewildered. It was made for me. An UNBREAKABLE, easy to use device to capture extreme action. So I went home and told my parents I needed a GoPro. I got one and my life changed forever. I started making all sorts of action sports videos, from dirt bikes and four-wheelers, to snowboarding, adventure parks, and all sorts of water activities. I wanted to capture my own adventures, but I soon found out the cooler videos often came from when I was capturing OTHERS. It came down to two simple reasons. 1. I’m not as cool and good at action sports as I had thought I was, and 2. Nobody else could work the camera like I could, nobody cared as much as me. I had a buddy who could and still can absolutely shred on a snowboard… but for whatever reason never cared enough to want to film his skills. I could not for the life of me snowboard, yet that first or second day I was out, I had the trusty GoPro with me to capture and make as cool of a video as I could. So no. I didn’t know that I wanted to be a filmmaker right out of the gate but the signs were there. I wanted to be an actor and I loved movies. I didn’t know what it meant to be a director and frankly I didn’t care, I just wanted to be on the screen and to shoot sports videos. However, for as long as I can remember, I always wanted to BE somebody. I really wanted to do something with my life, something that would make me recognizable. I never knew exactly what it would be, I thought it might have been sports for a bit, but I think every kid dreams of being in the big leagues at some point in their life right. There was a time where I wanted to be an author for a little bit. I wrote down a ton of cool ideas as a kid, but never fleshed them out, I think that ties into why I want to write screenplays now. Anyways once again, fast forwarding some years, 8th grade I put together my first list of screenplay ideas. I had no idea what I was doing, but I had an old note book and I wrote down and laid out the story for a film. I found that page a couple of months ago, dated sometime in 2016. Interestingly, once I entered high school, I inevitably forgot about the screenplay and stopped trying to write anything. I got busy with school, sports, girls and dealing with going bald. I ended up taking multimedia classes, where we would make PSA’s and run a news show. That is where I first really got into editing, creating videos and putting stories together. I won some minor awards and really took a liking to that class and realized the amount of work it takes to make a film come to life behind the camera. So with that, every element needed to really sprout the filmmaking seed that had been planted in my mind years prior was present. I was self conscious and didn’t feel comfortable on camera (bald), I was learning about the process of filmmaking, I had strong family support, and years of prior video and other creative outlets. I had been through a lot of hardship socially and if I could channel those experiences into my work, I thought I just might be able to inspire someone else. When covid hit in march of 2020, while I was a junior in high school, I still had to figure out what I wanted to do when I graduated the next year. I am not sure how I found it, but there was a local film school I discovered during covid. The Motion Picture Institute. I didn’t know what I wanted to do about college and film has always been my first love, so I chose to chase the dream. The very last dream left from kindergarten Nick if you were to ask him what he wanted to do when he grew up. The Motion Picture Institute was a 12 month course, part of it was online due to covid, but I attended classes there from September 2021 – October 2022. I got a lot of hands-on experience, I regret not trying harder in my courses and socializing with more classmates, I had been going through a rough patch at the time, but regardless it gave me the foundation to build off of. After graduation I got a job with a former MPI student working as a Boom operator on the set of season 2 or 3 of “The Dirty D”. It was my first job and it was quite the experience. I put it on my resume right away and went about my day. This period of time was interesting for me, especially since its been over three years ago now. I wasn’t in school and I didn’t think I would be going back to school (I in fact did end up going back to school). Finding film work was super slow since it was winter and I was based in Detroit. I ended up going to a mixer where I got to meet with a bunch of local narrative independent production companies in Detroit. Out of the over 15 booths I went to, only one of them ever reached out to me… Mula Films. I had hardly any filmmaking experience, but they called me up one day and asked if I knew how to production sound mix. They mentioned they saw I had boom operated on the set of “the Dirty D”… The thing is, a boom operator is the same person as the sound mixer on set for a lot of independent films, but on “the Dirty D” I had just been assisting and holding the mic up with a boom, rather than actually sound mixing. Sooooo, I did what any smart, experience hungry, starving artist would do. I said “Yes Bri, I do know how to production sound mix, what day do I start”. I had never actually been in charge of audio on a production set. Sure, I learned about it in film school, which I thought I’d be able to recall, because it had only been about six months since I had graduated ( Nope, I couldn’t recall much at all actually). I had about two days to prepare from the time I received the phone call to the time I would be on set running the audio department. When I say department, I mean just me. Essentially I watched youtube for two days and showed up on set asking a million questions and continuing to youtube while I was there. Little did I know that would lead me to working with the Mula Films team for the next several years, That one yes. That one opportunity created a bond that at this point could never be broken. I am in my third year at the Mula FIlms company. I never wanted to do production sound mixing, it was the last thing I thought about being involved in. However, I sound mixed on set with Mula Films for two years. They offered me a full-time job after my second project with them. I didn’t take it because I was fresh out of film school, the office is forty-minutes away, and I thought I would freelance more. The opposite happened, I pretty much worked solely with them for the last few years, as if I had taken the job without taking the job. So yeah, I did a job I hated because I just wanted to be on set and be a part of the vision. Any chance I would get though, I would hop on the camera and practice my shots. Any chance I would get I would help out with the lighting and gaff. Any chance I would get I would spitball ideas and ask questions about the independent filmmaking process. After those first two years of hard work and dedication, I finally got my opportunity to work as a director of photography. I ended up shooting Season 2 of “McGraw Ave: H-Block”… The first season of that show had actually been my first project with Mula Films and only my second film project ever. So yeah life has a way of making sure you get the message. I spent the entire summer of 2025 shooting season 2 of H-Block and editing every episode. I shared the work with a Co-Director of Photography, so I don’t deserve all of the roses. I went on to work as a Director of Photography on “Buffed Up 2” right after that in the fall. I produced my first talk show earlier that year in January of 2025, “Drinks with Coach” season 2, and started editing for Mula Films that same month, working on several of their projects and learning the scoring process. I can’t tell you how much scoring genuinely changed my editing process and my perspective on film. Up until that point I had never really dived through the complex layers that film and music share. I would often throw a song on a scene that felt like it fit the vibe or simply because I liked it and called it a day, but scoring genuinely changes how a scene will play out and when cuts will happen. This summer (2026) I plan on shooting my own feature film that I wrote with the team at Mula films, so yeah I guess you could say I’ve come quite a long way. I know it said brief, but I just ended up brain dumping… my bad. Last thing to note is I am also a full time college student while all this is going on. I attend classes at OCC and plan on going for my bachelors in communications and phycology the fall of 2026 at Wayne State. I do have to note before closing out, genuinely lucky and grateful to have a supporting family behind me that has made all of this possible. Without my mom, dad, and step dad, and the support from my siblings and extended family, I wouldn’t be where I am today.
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
If its been a smooth road you’re either lucky or are not trying hard enough. The most difficult part for me was getting started in the industry. Film school teaches you a lot about the process of filmmaking. In fact it bestows many expectations on graduating students on what the film industry will be like for them, but it doesn’t really prepare them for the real deal. I am sure people have had all different kinds of experiences… potentially less grueling, but that was not the case for me. First of all, finding work was difficult and it still is at times. As a young filmmaker, I didn’t yet grasp how much effort and time it would take to find work and get your name out there. I had a regular job at the time working construction, but I went about 8 months with about 3ish weeks worth of film work total. That first year or two took a lot of hard work trying to get enough opportunities to take filmmaking full time. Hours spent networking and attending social events. The filmmaking work schedule is no joke either. Being on set for 12+ hours a day, never knowing when a new job might pop up and force me to change plans, not being able to see friends or family for weeks at a time, sometimes even months, and then forcing myself to delay my own personal work when I am on set because there is no time to do anything else other than eat, sleep, work and repeat. For example, this past November I had planned to focus on classes for the remainder of the semester. However, November 1st I received a phone call about a 2 and a half week-ish project in Elko Nevada… the other side of the country. I was on the road November 6th and didn’t return until the 26th. Needless to say I didn’t do so well in those college classes. But in this industry opportunities will pop up and you need to be ready to take a leap of faith. So yeah, its been a struggle finding a work/life balance. It’s not like a 9-5 where I have the whole rest of the day to do other tasks after work, more often than not I am getting home around 12am and back up at 8am. It has also been difficult to prove myself as a director of photography and future director/screen writer. I spent two years as a production sound mixer before I was given a chance behind the camera. Within those first two years I realized I would only be given that chance by first making my own opportunities. That is when I started filming my own music videos and putting my own side projects together so others knew I wasn’t just here to work audio. More than that, when I was working audio I made sure to work hard, master it, and show my passion for filmmaking. To this day I am still the most qualified audio mixer at the production house. Coming to terms with where I am and where I want to be was also challenging. Working on narrative projects in Detroit isn’t exactly what I pictured myself doing after film school, especially because it was not a community I had known about or really understood. I underestimated how powerful and important the independent film scene was in Detroit, just because it wasn’t something that I heard of. I didn’t “know” who the actors were, I never had seen any of the shows, nobody in my circles had heard of any films that had come out of Detroit. Little did I know how big the industry really was and how many fans they had around the world. The films we were making were being watched, enjoyed and inspiring audiences from all over. I thought I had to go to Hollywood to do what we were doing. I wanted to leave and adventure onto multi-million dollar productions. However, what were doing in Detroit is bigger, an entire film industry is being built from the ground up with no signs of stopping. But yeah, early on I was conflicted about the type of work I was doing, the hours, the pay, the time commitment, and sometimes safety has even come into question. But looking back now, its all been worth it. The most recent struggle for me was shooting season 2 of “McGraw Ave: H-Block” in the summer of 2025. It was my first time as Director of Photography on such a large set. I was expected to be a leader and help control/ guide the set. Generally speaking, a Director of Photography isn’t expected to be in charge of the flow of the production, but in this case I was. I shared the role with a fellow filmmaker of mine and we did our best for over seven weeks. It was the toughest summer of my life. We would shoot one episode a week, take a week off to edit that episode, and then move on and shoot the next episode the following week. It was non-stop and expectations were high and jumping into the leadership role was no easy task. Going from sound mixer and not having much of a say, to being in charge of the guys that had just been one of your peers less than a month ago was huge shift and required an adjustment of perspective and behavior. I learned a lot about myself on that set and what it takes to be a leader, ended up taking some communication courses at Oakland Community College that fall to improve my leadership skills. In filmmaking the learning never stops.
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
I am a Director of Photography. I plan to move into Directing and writing screenplays in the near future, in fact I am in pre-production for a feature in the Summer of 2026. I work primarily with Mula Films in Detroit, but often work on other sets when the opportunity presents itself. I am very skilled at working with Motion picture film, I own several Super 8 cameras and a Russian super 16 camera. I hope to preserve the use of motion picture film in feature length movies and TV shows, so I use them whenever I get the chance. Theres no other feeling better than getting a roll of film developed and seeing your vision come to life. I actually shot an entire short film on Super 8 film. Even though I am only 23, I still consider myself kind of old school and plan on building my brand and director vision around staying grounded, realistic, classic, and bringing out relatable human stories in my future projects. One of the main reasons “The Godfather” was such a fantastic film was because the story within the story was relatable to such a wide audience. It wasn’t a movie about gangsters, it was a movie about family and loyalty. So finding the core of the story and being able to connect with audiences on that level is one of the most important foundations of my filmmaking style. I am most proud of my work ethic. I am a full time student and a full time filmmaker, never lacking on either. I am doing everything within my power to do what I have to do to succeed, there is no one or the other for me. I am recognized for my Super 8 and 16 work, as well as my great cinematography skills and vision, I am pretty young to be in the position that I am so I think that helps me stand out as well. A lot of my collaborators are twice my age with double the experience and I am still able to hold my own. I edit a lot of my own work as well and am well known to give all of my projects my full attention and effort. My first sound mixing job I was on youtube university the entire two weeks, expanding my knowledge and skillset in order to better improve my capabilities. To this day I do that no matter the position. I shot a music video back in 2024 that won some awards, being that it was my first music video I was very proud about how it turned out. For Mula Films, recent work includes producing “Drinks With Coach” on their Youtube. Scoring “A Very Merry Hood Christmas 2”, and being director of Photography on “McGraw Ave: H-Block ” season 2 and “Buffed Up 2”. On our sets, as an independent studio, all the crew wear a lot of hats. When I was working audio, there wasn’t a day I wasn’t also setting up lights and moving equipment. I think that gives me an advantage because I was able to get experience in so many different positions. All of the projects I have been involved with have been narrative, which being located in Michigan is pretty lucky, a lot of filmmakers end up working commercially. I lost my aunt back in 2022. She was a photography teacher in my high school. I like to think that I am sorta following in her footsteps. She wasn’t involved in the film industry, but none the less, she worked with cameras and was a very creative person. I try to tell myself she’d be proud of where I am at today, I was really inspired by her growing up, her work never failed to impress me. I just hope to carry on her legacy in some regard and make the family proud.
Where do you see things going in the next 5-10 years?
I am not as nervous about the future of the film Industry as some people are. I believe in people and I believe in humanity, so I don’t think AI will replace human storytelling anytime soon. Film for example has been obsolete for the last ten years or so, but some of the biggest movies are still being shot on film, like the upcoming “The Odyssey” by Christopher Nolan! There will always be a need for human story telling and for old techniques. However, with the introduction of streaming, the film world is in for a huge shake up. Streaming and digital cameras have allowed film makers to spread out and shoot movies wherever they would like. No longer is anyone tied to Hollywood or New York City! The mysterious vail that has covered Hollywood for years is beginning to come down, giving so many other filmmakers a chance to bring their dreams to life in their own local hometowns! I see the industry spreading out and having more home bases in the next 10 years. I think there will be more stories than ever before, so it might be harder to stand out and will require a lot more creativity than ever before from filmmakers. Marketing and social media is gonna play an even bigger role in wether or not a film does well and AI will seep into filmmaking, but it will not take it over. I Know Detroit is gonna blow up as a movie making hub, I can feel it in my bones. Mula Films and their distributer Ucult just released “Ucult” also known as “The U”, a streaming platform for independent films. Tubi is starting to pivot away from supporting independent films, so that is where the U plans to interrupt things and create a space for independent filmmakers to release their content. Its in the early stages right now, but in the next five years, the streaming space will never be the same and Detroit won’t just be recognize for cars and music, but films and tv shows too. I think theaters will make a comeback too, it just depends on how they pivot. They’ve faced issues like this before, like when televisions were first invented, so theaters invented widescreen and made color film. Its not a matter of if theaters will come back, but when.
Contact Info:
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/two4films/
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/feed/
- Other: https://vimeo.com/user184912806
