Meet David Giganti | Filmmaker

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

Hi David, why did you decide to pursue a creative path?
So a long long time ago in a town not to far away from where I am now, I was a little kid that watched Star Wars for the first time. Which I am pretty sure is not any sort of original origin story by any means but I was obsessed with it. I would watch it over and over until the day the VHS player just spat the film out. The idea of making something that others would watch and enjoy was where I knew wanted to do, even if how was beyond me at the time.

I’ve had interest in mediums ranging from animation to video games but when all was said and done I ended up back at where it started: Film.

Alright, so let’s move onto what keeps you busy professionally?
Making stories people connect to is something I want to be present in all my projects. Which is a huge challenge since people react to stories in different ways. A story about a dog’s final day will hit differently to someone whose dog is healthy compared to someone whose dog is old or recently passed. Which is something I explored during my time at SCAD with my senior project, Chloe. Right before my senior year my dog passed away and I wrote a story about it as a means to cope. It was a personal project to me I wanted to make sure I did it justice. I rewrote it a few times before I felt like it was an actual representation to what I was feeling at the time without being overtly manipulative about how the audience was suppose to feel.

Even then that project helped me improve as a filmmaker much more than I could have ever imagined. I stepped into the medium of animation for that project so I had to plan farther ahead then I was used to for film. I needed to be so sure in what I wanted to create since I really didn’t have the time to do scenes I didn’t like once I was in production and in the end I had to be able to wrap the project up and ship it even if I wanted to keep working on it. Working in a different medium really helped me break free from what I was learning at school and the habits that formed while there.

Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?
Well I am not currently located in LA at the time of writing this so I can really only work in generalizations. But what I would think I would do is actually spend a good chunk of the week checking out some of the more touristy locations and restaurants in the city, at least to start. For the most part when you live in an area you tend not to check out many of those locations. But after that since would probably only be a day or two before that would be a bit much probably relax for another day or two and just game for a bit. I would definitely drag them to at least studio lot tour and for the final few days probably try and scour for some more local hotspots for food.

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
Matt Acuña who has been my friend since elementary school. His career path has ended down a similar path to what I have interest in so his insights have been amazing.

Lance Duvall gave me my official first peak behind the curtain for film and definitely helped me solidify that a creative career is where I wanted to be.

Will and Haley Austin, they are the concept artists who helped me immensely on when I produced and directed an animated short for the first time. They helped navigating the differences between film and animation since it was my first time working in that medium.

Jesse Wolfe, a SCAD Professor who I had multiple times during my time at SCAD. He always was open for questions and had resources for what felt like everything. He made sure we knew about them and had access to them.

Website: davidgiganti.com

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/david-p-giganti/

Image Credits
Animated Frame: Chloe, Written and Directed by David Giganti.
Background by Will Austin, Animation by Dalmarcus Constance
The field picture’s project was named Positive Mindset: Shot Taken by Lily Gann
The Dimly Lit shot was from a projected titled The Lounge Singer: Cinematography by Jacob Ho