Ayrton Carrazco, Founder of C11 Media, peaks through his vintage 50mm lens
Ayrton Carrazco is a Mexican-American filmmaker hailing from the Palm Springs/Coachella Valley desert. With a deep passion for movies, Ayrton's journey began with renting VHS cassettes and DVDs as a child, later evolving into a love for watching films in theaters and reading critiques on them. This early exposure shaped Ayrton into a knowledgeable and opinionated film enthusiast.
During his teenage years, Ayrton's curiosity led him to explore the process of filmmaking. At the age of 14, he joined the video production program in Cathedral City High School, where he first dabbled in editing, writing, and directing. Ayrton's talent didn't go unnoticed, as he had the opportunity to film documentary pieces for notable organizations such as The Desert Sun, the city of Rancho Mirage, and Cathedral City High School. Ayrton even won a Student/Teacher Film award in 2011, his first of many to come!
While Ayrton's high school career predominantly involved documentary work, his true passion always lay in creating narrative films. Following his graduation, he pursued a major in Digital Filmmaking and Video Production at The Art Institute of California - Orange County. There, he honed his skills under the guidance of experienced mentors like USC graduate Scott Essman, UCLA grad Derek Mateo, and AFI grad Nathan Lane, resulting in the production of 2 of his short films, "Into The Unknown" and "For God and Country".
Ayrton moved on from college and would work for a Youtuber named Ann Le, a DIY influencer from the channel Anneorshine Media. Here Ayrton worked as a ghost editor while also helping to produce several video pieces for Ann's channel. After this, Ayrton found himself working for renown Audio/Video company PSAV as an A/V Technician. It's here where Ayrton would learn all of the tech skills needed to run Audio, Video, and even Lighting from Gurus of the craft like Ernesto Flores and Barry Klein.
After PSAV, Ayrton got recruited into a non-profit organization named DIGICOM Learning. There, Ayrton worked as an Instructor for Video-making in the classroom. It was at DIGICOM where Ayrton developed a pedagogy for tech and video. Often running to the rescue of several teachers and students who not only had video questions but also ran into technology problems, which Ayrton was more then happy to help with! This was also around the time that Ayrton produced his 40-minute featurette, "Strangers in The Nightbus" which won "Best Local Film at the 2019 Latino Film Fest in Coachella.
Recently, Ayrton's talent was also recognized for his outstanding Cinematography work on "Queen Of The Dead," a film directed by frequent collaborator; Justin Head who is also the owner of the production company: Slasher Films. Ayrton's experimental camera-work in Queen of the Dead earned him the Best Cinematography award at the Chicago Blow Up Film Fest! Ayrton has also done Cinematography for 2 other Horror pictures produced by Slasher FILMS: "Renaissance" and "I Laugh on The Outside" both films can be found on the Slasher Films Youtube page linked in this page.
Ayrton has just finished 2023 short film, "The Antidote" as part of the web series "DARK SIGNALS". Ayrton is constantly rewatching his favorite films. He is an avid hiker and nature photographer! A lover of video games and a competitive Smash Bros player. Ayrton also continues to produce a podcast titled "FILMS WITH FRIENDS", Follow the links on this page and see what else he is up to!
