Alex Martinez loves those split seconds where everything seems to be going right. It’s his favorite part about making films.

“Often while making a movie I’m writing and directing and producing it too,” Martinez said. “It’s a lot of things at once and can be really stressful. But every once in a while you get those moments where it’s super relaxed and chill, and things are going accordingly. And those are some of the best moments. Then a minute later it goes wrong again.”

But that’s part of production. And Martinez knows it like the back of his hand. His work has been featured in multiple film festivals throughout Austin. This week, his newest piece Wired Shut will be shown online on demand at the SXSW Film Festival as part of the Texas High School Short Competition. Festival registrants can view the video through Sunday.

Wired Shut is a documentary that follows Martinez as he recovers from a bike accident.

“I had to have my jaw wired shut and I couldn’t talk, so I made a movie about it,” Martinez said. “I had to film the whole thing myself and use text to speech for narration.”

This is Martinez’s second film to be accepted into SXSW. Last year, his film The Contemporary Complex was supposed to be shown, but got canceled due to the pandemic. This year, however, SXSW will be virtual, and the crowd is expected to be bigger than ever. Despite more eyes, Martinez isn’t nervous.

“Once you actually get into the (film) industry, you have to make films for an audience because you have to make money,” Martinez said.

“But I’m not making any money, I’m just making art. So I make it for myself. And if it gets good reviews, that’s great, but it wasn’t part of the plan.”

Martinez isn’t even concerned about directly appealing to his audience.

“When I come up with the idea, it’s because it sounds cool to me, and it’s something I want to do for myself,” Martinez said. “If it’s personal to you, that’s where the audience comes in, because they’ll be able to sense the effort you put into it.”

And at this point, Martinez has put in a lot of effort–years, in fact. He’s been making movies since middle school, when he first became interested in film.

“At Lamar they had a little class where we messed around with cameras,” Martinez said. “I think that’s what got me interested. It was nothing big or groundbreaking, just practice of filming and editing. But it kind of stuck.”

Lamar, Martinez’s middle school, also influenced his music taste. There, he was introduced to more local artists, whom he began to feature in his films. With McCallum, Martinez was able to further his bond with music.

“I try to highlight musicians at McCallum as much as possible,” Martinez said. “Sometimes I’ll even do a collaboration with one. It helps to have musically inclined people to bounce ideas off of. Film and music go hand in hand, and I don’t think people talk about that enough. Music is the mastering of sound, and film masters emotion. Combining those two together creates a feeling like what we normally experience in the world around us.”

In Martinez’s movies, he portrays many different experiences. Some are happy, others are funny, and some are more dramatic.

“I don’t like being tethered to any specific genre,” Martinez said. “It’s boring. I usually try to do different things.”

No matter the genre, Martinez’s end goal is the same: to make a film that has feeling.

“With film making, you can capture a moment,” Martinez said, “and you can capture the movement of that moment and the memories behind it. And then you can share it with people. And I think that’s beautiful.”