Hello

I'm Alec Arnold: A proud Hapa born and raised in Fairfield, CA – a third-generation Filipino, mixed with Native American, Jewish, and other European ancestries. In the same way, Marceline, MO’s nature elements inspired Disney, Fairfield openeda world of diverse ethnicities and cultures for me: I loved that the Asian food market was a stone’s throw away from the Jellybean and Budweiser Factories.

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My grandmother says I remind her of my maternal great-grandfather, who settled my Filipino side in the Bay Area after fighting for the US in World War 2. A lover of cinema, he was the manager of the local movie theater near the end of his life — a love which I share possibly passed down through DNA.

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Though he wasn’t around, I’m more like my dad, an artist with wanderlust who tried new things: drumming, acting, and directing films. Though it didn't work out, he directed that creativity into making alcohol and crafting bar programs (Distillery Row in Portland, Oregon being the biggest), and he shared that experience with me, as well as others on social media.

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My mother moved us to another part of California — Visalia. There, I had a coming-of-age that let me identify with the Modesto childhood of George Lucas. Like him, I was a kid asking myself, “How do I break free from the small-town mediocrity?” The answer was pop culture. I loved it all: comic books, sci-fi, music, and cinema. I was decent at sports, but I was a theater kid trying to learn how to communicate through stories. And the desire to tell stories brought me out of Visalia into Hollywood, the land of imagination and dreams.

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​In 2012, I formally started my film education by studying screenwriting with the Act One Program. I continue my education in storytelling and film with the help of my mentors – Leo Partible and Jim Krueger. In 2022, I completed CG Pro's Unreal for Filmmakers Connector Program taught by Edward Dawson-Taylor. Now, I take all my experiences to use as a storyteller and filmmaker.