When most people walk past vending machines, they barely glance at them. But for 19-year-old media and communications major Joshua Ramirez-Lopez, those same machines became the stars of an award-winning film.
His short film The Machines, a visual portrait exploring how something as simple as a vending machine can reveal human habits and hidden meanings, earned him the 2024 Student MAC Award at SUNY Old Westbury for Best Portrait of a Place.
“I just wanted to show people that there’s a lot more than it looks like,” Ramirez-Lopez said. “It might be simple, like this chair, but there’s a lot more to its history and the use of it.”
Ramirez-Lopez didn’t expect to win that night. Wearing sweatpants and a hoodie, he walked into the award ceremony thinking his classmates’ projects might take the spotlight.
“When I won, I couldn’t believe it,” he recalled. “The first thing I looked at were my hands, and they were kind of shaking because I felt recognized for the first time in a long while.”
That moment marked a turning point in his creative journey. Though he’d been making videos for years, The Machines revalidated his belief that film could transform the ordinary into something meaningful. His ability to find beauty and story in simple objects, like vending machines, has become a signature trait of his filmmaking style.
Ramirez-Lopez traces his love of film back to his middle school years when he started experimenting with editing videos.
“I started watching YouTube videos and was like, I want to do that too,” he said. “It’s like watching people eat your cooking and they like it. It’s something you created and you put all your hard work in.”
While he has worked on group projects, such as The Joker and the Bat, a recreation of a scene from The Dark Knight that was nominated for Best High School Film at Five Towns College, back when he was in high school, editing remains his biggest passion.
“My acting sucked,” he admitted with a laugh, “but it was fun to rehearse and dress up. Editing is my main thing, I’m an editor, that’s my passion for film production.”
Ramirez-Lopez describes his filmmaking style in three words: simple, informative, and creative. He said he believes the key to success in film lies in perseverance and curiosity rather than perfection.
“Do whatever you’d like to do,” he advises other aspiring filmmakers. “Even if you think it’s bad or good, at least you made something. It takes time to perfect your work and understand the craft.”
Now nearing his 20th birthday, Ramirez-Lopez continues to refine his storytelling skills, hoping one day to work as an editor for movies or television. For him, filmmaking isn’t just about capturing motion, it’s about capturing meaning.
Whether it’s a vending machine or some other inanimate object, he can find stories in the simplest things, proving that art truly does live anywhere — that is. if you’re willing to look close enough.
