I’m not a purist like Christopher Nolan but I think you’ll enjoy our 8 minute film more, if you watch it on a computer, full screen mode:
That’s it folks, what do you think?
Now, this will interest maybe 1% of you out there, but now follows a very detailed account on how this came to be, mistakes and lessons learned, complete with emails, feedback documents and Discord chats.
Feel free to subscribe or like this post first and then come back to read the whole story (which might take you weeks).
BACKSTORY
At a fiction group I was invited to, I mentioned I always come back to themes of surrealism, magical realism and absurdism.
mentioned I should check out Andrew Plainview’s stories.I googled him, thinking that with such an artistic name, he was a famous author from the 80s. He turned out to be much more than that: a very gifted writer with a very kind personality, who had taken the same writing course I did, Write of Passage, a few cohorts before me. I read his stories, and immediately connected with Russia Invades Ukraine, what are you doing?, on which the microfilm is based on.
The connection to the story probably had something to do with the Mexican undertones it has, the hectic and paranoid vibes it conveys, the meandering and rich story, or just the beautiful and colorful writing. And in a moment of “Don’t overthink it, Oscar”, I emailed
out of the blue asking if I could turn that story into a microfilm:
He answered almost immediately, kindly and eagerly accepting.
A few calls later that really felt surreal - “Me, adapting a story? Doing directing stuff after almost 2 decades of just thinking about it, is this really happening?” - the project started to come alive.
GENERAL MINDSET
I’d been toying with the idea of doing very small film projects since around April, to loosen and train filmmaking muscles. But I'd been struggling to find the right story. I was fixated on writing one myself. This brought up all kinds of insecurities: “is this topic good/interesting/X enough? Are you really doing this for your first film? How will that look on your filmmaking resumé?” No idea or draft was good enough.
By doing someone else’s story I removed a huge roadblock that I had unnecessarily put on myself. Everything started flowing.
From the start, I had a clear idea of what the result of this project was and wasn’t. It wasn’t a short film to submit to festivals, or a big production, or something to make money from. It was a process for me to learn by doing, make mistakes, figure out what I’m naturally good at and what I need to work on, what I enjoy and what I don’t. And a sandbox for others to do the same.
It had a lot of Systems vs. Goals approach. And in the big scheme of things, it was also the start of what I’ve deemed an International Filmmaking Collective: dedicated to doing films in all shapes and forms, where people come and go as they please depending on the project at hand, participating in areas where they'd like to get better at (from lighting, acting, producing, editing, learning the new AI tools, to contributing with a shot from the other side of the world).
That was before starting. Later, approaching the publishing date I’d set myself (and had already moved a few times), the mindset became something between the startup motto “if you are not embarrassed by the first version of your product, you've launched too late” and “perfect”. But more on that later.
For now, I can confidently say it was all the above and 10X more.
As for the microfilm concept, two things started to happen when I mentioned it: first, it was a magnet for people with creative skeletons in the closet to participate. It brought out curiosity and people offering help.
The other thing that happened was people asking something like: “What’s considered a microfilm vs a short film? Is it less than 10 minutes, or what?”. And I’d answer: “it’s just a term I made up to lower the barrier of entry in my head.” Even more people offered themselves to participate.
ADAPTING THE STORY
There were two other things I had clear from the beginning: one timeline would be shot with AI tools and the other in traditional form. The other was the importance of getting the story right before doing anything else.
On the first one, my view is it’s better to get familiarized with these tools now rather than reject them, because they’re here to stay and will forever change cinema. One big advantage is they lower the barrier of entry even more and empower more people to tell visual stories.
On the second one, in the process of “translating” the story into audiovisual form. Andrew was so kind to allow me full creative liberty with the story, while also balancing the perfect amount of clear and constructive feedback throughout the whole process of bringing this story to life.
The first thing I did was a SCENE BREAKDOWN. I went through the story and divided it by scenes, simplifying and rearranging it in the process.
I used three main resources here:
A deep dive into the classic Shapes of Stories by Kurt Vonnegut. I already wrote about the topic here. Clearly, this story structure is Man in Hole
The book The Anatomy of Story, by John Truby, given to me by my best friend a few months ago. I began reading it and then pushed it away with the excuse of being too logical, but then realized it was me avoiding the difficult work, devoured it and applied lots of it
Also, ChatGPT was my friend to bounce around ideas and do some heavy, boring lifting. I still had to do the hard work, but not necessarily the boring work
I started calling REAL the scenes we’d shoot in traditional form, and the AI ones, SURREAL. As you saw, it works in Surreal - Real - Surreal flow. I live in Mexico City, so I basically decided which one was which by easiness of shooting for real1.
I sent this document to Andrew and through calls and many intricate comments you’ll see, we settled on a story2. We got pretty deep into the details (at some point, Andrew said “man, I love we’re both story geeks”), and it was a process I very much enjoyed and I’m proud of the result.
We then asked
and Michael Dean for feedback, which you can see here. It was mostly focused on story flow and transitions, which reassured me, since I had all that very clear in my head.I refused to develop a proper script after that. The main reason was I didn’t think it was necessary for this project. Instead, I “fleshed out” each scene. Here’s the REAL and SURREAL docs with some more back and forth there.
ASSEMBLING THE CAST AND CREW
Around the same time when I emailed Andrew, Wes Sitser came into the picture.
One Monday at a men’s group meeting3, I mentioned how I was feeling stuck with kickstarting and accomplishing the start of this weird career move from business owner to filmmaker. The next day, having briefly interacted only a couple of times before, Wes texted me saying he had camera and audio equipment, in case I wanted to make something.
I can say Wes enabled this dream to happen. He gave me the specific support, accountability, encouragement, guide and tools I needed. He was actively there from the beginning until the very end. Making himself available even when he was so busy, and adapting to my (sometimes) crazy times. All for the love of the project, all for the love of creative endeavors, not expecting anything in return.
He has an amazing work ethic. An entrepreneur like myself, he currently runs a company of clean energy drinks. He holds the perfect balance of being lean and efficient, while doing things the best he can. Simply the kind of person you want in your team. I truly admire the guy.
He became more pivotal as time went by. He became the Cinematographer, camera operator and also made all the editing.
A few weeks later I met with Pedro Vázquez, my oldest friend, for some beers at Cine Tonalá. He’s always been an amazing photographer and told me he’d been getting involved in the editing side of pictures lately. I told him about this microfilm, and always up for a creative project, he joined the team.
We’d end up using his camera (a Netflix-approved Panasonic) and other equipment. I don’t see him often, but he’s followed my love for movies since I was a teenager, and was also pivotal in setting up the AI side and shooting the REAL scenes.
I met Vadim, who plays George, through Phil Chu, the same guy that led me to meet Wes. Phil invited my wife and I, and Vadim and his twin brother, to his apartment. It was months before I had even read the original story, and I mentioned I was planning to get into filmmaking. Vadim was born in the Ukraine and grew up in New York. He currently runs an education startup from Mexico City, but mentioned he sometimes acts as a hobby, and said he was down for any project I make. I took note of that, and then when I read the story with its Ukraine-Russia undertones plus his great presence, I immediately thought he was perfect for the role. I told him about it and he was all-in.
I’ve known Alma, who plays Maria, for maybe 2-3 years. Getting closer to the date of shooting, I had the shortlist in my head of who could play the girlfriend. She was not on it. One day at my apartment, I was watching her and realized she was amazing at delivering jokes, gestures, expressions and simply spot-on with all her speaking interactions. The next day I told her about the role and was immediately onboard. She’d later mention how, coincidentally, she’d had a few weeks thinking she’d like to get back into acting. She was very active in plays in college. I didn’t know all that, but it was a nice coincidence.
There was no money involved, only people willing to both support me and develop their creative side. I also know a lot of people that work in cinema to make a living, and by design, I didn’t ask for any help. My intention was to prove myself I could do it this way, and maybe in future projects bring them in with a paid position.
Besides a few other people I’ll mention later, that’s pretty much everyone who actively participated. There’s also tons of other very close people in my life that would’ve participated but I didn’t invite, mostly because they don’t currently live in Mexico City, but I know they would’ve been down and were definitely part of it in spirit.
I’m forever grateful to the people mentioned here.
REAL SHOOTING
Different from writing which is mainly a solitary activity, traditional filmmaking involves coordinating a lot of people. That’s one of the reasons I’ve always felt like it’s running a startup, and where your leadership style comes into play.
We were a small cast (Vadim and Alma) and crew (Wes, Pedro and I), but we all had businesses or jobs to run, family to attend and just daily life, so things get complicated very fast. We managed to settle on a shooting date: Saturday November 4th. Having a clear date made every action cascade back and become even more tangible.
It might be worth mentioning here my active cinema experience: I’ve participated in the shooting of 2 professionally-shot short films, watched thousands of movies and documentaries, read a lot of interviews and Wikipedia movie articles, and that’s about the whole experience I have. Which made me have this meme front and center in my mind:
But then again, I had a sort of mantra pop in my head that calmed me down: “nobody was born knowing how to make movies”. Damn right, mind, we’re learning.
I can confidently say this was the period I enjoyed the most. It had the correct amount of struggle, learning and enjoyment for me. This is what I would like to do more of.
Leading up to the day of shooting, many different things had to be sorted out:
DOCUMENTS AND RESOURCES
SHOT LIST. We already had the Scene Breakdown, which yielded the Fleshed Out Scenes. I refused to make a script or storyboard, but knew a Shot List was necessary. It’s a detailed breakdown of every shot and angle that has to be filmed, with many other details that you can see in the doc. That was a mammoth of a document that took me at least 8-10 hours to make. Sent it to Wes, and he kept asking for more details, which I didn’t quite get what he needed. In my head, I was planning to decide some specific things on the spot while filming, but that proved to be a double-edged sword. He added the “Shooting Notes + Additonal Shots” and “B-roll Ideas” columns a day before and there I understood what he meant
I also didn’t work with Call Sheets (the document that is sent to crew and cast the before shooting, that has specific schedule per person, among other things), it was more whatsapp messages and such in this case
This article about sound in low-budget films and this one about how to organize a shooting day was really helpful. Also this video on lighting a scene.
LOCATION
The location I chose to shoot is called Proof, a half gallery, half apartment in la Roma neighborhood, run by Adrian Ruiz, a good friend. It has a very classic-looking Roma style from the 60s, with tiled floor, arched passageways and the very recognizable smithery on windows and doors.
I’d been to many events and parties there, and it was usually furnished with chairs, sofas, benches and many paintings. When we were a week away from shooting I realized this was not the case anymore: it was pretty much empty, except for a Tarot paintings exhibition.
A had a mini panic attack learning that, and considered changing locations, unless we could get some practical furniture to move in. Talked with Pedro and Wes, and we all started pitching in movable sofas, chairs, lamps, tables and everything needed to dress the place. So that got solved pretty nicely.
My first instinct was to take the paintings down, but Wes pointed out they helped with the eerie vibe, and he was completely right: we ended up using them a lot
COLOR PALETTE, LOOK AND FEEL, WARDROBE
Pedro started asking me for references so he could start playing around with color-correction which forced me to think deeply about what I wanted
Maybe due to the image at the beginning and some other elements throughout the story by Andrew, the color that kept popping in my head was green. But more of a darker green. Talked about it with Pedro and he said: Of course, it represents SICKNESS! I remember that answer as unlocking a lot, yes, it was exactly what I was thinking, just didn’t know it
I then wanted a color to represent the happy, saner side, so I looked in the color wheel which was the opposite of green, and it’s red. But felt that red was too strong and also too similar to crimson, which was supposed to be very prominent throughout with the tie, so I settled on a middle-toned orange
Around that time I saw this tweet, referencing Sam Esmail, one of my favorite directors, and his new movie. It basically says that once you define a color palette, besides going all in, you should use them as much as possible during filming, instead of relying on post-production and color-correction. It made a lot of sense and used it as a guide.
So besides getting some props of that color, when I was deciding what the actors should wear, I went for clothes that matched those colors. I probably overdid it or wasn’t subtle at all
LIGHTING
Pedro had some basic lighting equipment and we also rented some more professional lighting equipment from one of Pedro’s friend, which you can see in the pictures of the shooting day
The more I know about lighting, the more I realize I know nothing, but also the more I’m curious to learn. I watched this video saying that basically the difference between a good cinematographer and a great one is their capacity to light a scene. I would like to spend days trying out different options and styles until I get it right, I think that’s a meta-skill to develop
AUDIO
I’d heard many horror stories regarding if you don’t get the audio right, it can mess up your project, so I was careful to pay attention to that
We had a Rode lav mic, a shotgun mic and a basic Zoom1 recorder, we used it all during the rehearsal and realized the lav recording was infinitely superior than the others. So I “rented” an extra lav mic on Amazon 2 days before shooting
REHEARSALS
We did two rehearsals prior to shooting. The first one was without actors, at my apartment. I mostly wanted Wes and Pedro to meet, gather all the equipment available to figure out what else was needed, and make some camera, audio and lighting tests. I got excited when we turned on the cameras. I felt electrified, like my whole body changed states.
The other rehearsal was at the location 4 days prior to shooting, with actors. We rehearsed the “Break Up Scene”, the only one with dialogue and which I was very keen to accomplish in one take (I have a deep fascination for long takes and felt perfect to experiment with)
This rehearsal was a truly magical experience. It was my first time directing actors, and even with such a small scene, I felt in complete flow and very full both getting into the intricacies of how they should deliver a line (you should say it like this because you’re thinking that, pronunciation, etc), and also choreographing them: when they should stand or sit and the power dynamics of that. All while the actors, and everyone around, made their suggestions and together we worked in unison to accomplish a great scene. It was one of the many reminders of why I’m doing this, and how deep it fulfills me
WEEK PREVIOUS TO SHOOTING
The week leading up to shooting was one of the most intense weeks of my life. I got an average of 4-5 hours of sleep a night those days, which also had to do with the fact that I didn’t want to drop any other commitment. From a dinner party I’d committed to hosting on Wednesday, to
staying at my apartment on Thursday, going to jiu jitsu classes twice a week, and just work calls and life… but, contrary to other stressful periods of my life, this time I was able to pull back, get out of my head and contemplate what I was doing. They were short glimpses, but very powerful and enjoyable onesI also wanted to make sure everything turned out right. That meant everything from figuring out the list of food for catering on the day of shooting, coordinating everyone, taking all the furniture, and countless little details that really add up
This got me thinking about set up costs: all this work, effort and coordination to shoot four scenes, out of which only one has real dialogue. I (maybe naively) believe if we do something 10X the time and scope, the amount of work, effort and coordination (set up costs) won’t necessarily be 10X. That’s why I’m thinking of making a feature length movie next, or at least aim for the most ambitious project available
The day before shooting, another startup quote popped into my head, this time by Reid Hoffman: “Starting a company film is like jumping off a cliff and assembling a plane on the way down -- your willingness to jump is your most valuable asset as an entrepreneur.” So I let go a bit and just jumped
D-DAY
The shooting day arrived: we started that Saturday at 5.30am. We set and dressed the apartment, and by 7am, Vadim arrived and we dove straight into it by shooting the first scenes
I had rearranged the shot list so it was organized by actors involved, specific parts of the location and wardrobe/section of the story. It was the most efficient way I could think of dividing it
The only direct advice I got from a seasoned director was: “make sure you’re only directing the day of the shooting, not worrying about logistics or something else”. Of course I didn’t follow that advice and had to live it to really interiorize it. Which led me to one of the main things I learned that day: the importance of spending time beforehand forming an opinion on what I as a director want with each scene. By being so focused on getting everything right (from food to persons to location), I neglected spending enough time on having a clear picture in my head of how each shot should be done. I was also thinking of improvising a bit, and Wes was right to, in some cases, step in and propose where the camera should be placed or what takes we should get
This also made me live firsthand the special dynamic between the director and cinematographer. The cinematographer’s most important job is bringing the director’s vision to life, mainly by way of lighting, and camera placement and movements. I’m sure there are different styles and ways to execute this relationship, but I realized how collaborative, on-the-spot quick decision making this two-person dynamic has to be. There has to be a lot chemistry, or else chaos ensues
My wife helped and was pivotal in bringing the tamales guy, who was both thrilled and a bit confused on why we had to get so many takes of him doing the same
It wasn’t my plan or intention to appear in the microfilm. I offered the mini role of Antonio to a friend, he accepted but then the night before shooting said he couldn’t make it. It wasn’t an important role, and I just stepped in to fill it in since I was the obvious choice. I do hope to at least get an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor.
Around noon, the time arrived to shoot that slightly more complicated scene with dialogue (where they break up). It was the only time saying “Acción!” was really needed. And we did accomplish shooting that scene in one take (although later we did cut using the many angles we got, since it felt much more dynamic). And again, directing the actors and choreographing everything was utterly magical and just made me feel so full. This is the part I want to do more of.
Another thing I learned came by way of my dad. He’s an architect, and something he would always highlight, and be proud of, is how orderly and organized his construction sites are, even for such a messy and crowded job. I plan to be the same with the sets I’m involved with
That day I also realized I need to know a bit more about cameras, lenses, angles and camera positions so I can give clearer instructions
By around 3.30pm we wrapped up after a very intense day, and more than tired, we all felt satisfied and excited. We had managed to cross the bridge together and bring what once was words into visual format
DEVELOPING THE SURREAL TIMELINE
I thought the hardest part had passed, but I was in for a surprise.
My very naive idea was to have both the REAL and SURREAL timelines recorded and developed by that weekend, and do maybe 2-3 weeks of post-production. Boy, was I wrong.
I overestimated the capabilities of what you can currently make with the new AI tools. I think if you start with something in mind specific for these tools, like made-up trailers (on which narration helps a lot) or short and clear ideas, is way easier. But bringing in the nuances of a character, the expressions, the movements from a well written story is still very hard.
And sometimes it was not even nuanced, just getting an image of someone brushing his teeth, without the toothbrush exploding or the hand being a mess, proved almost impossible.
Pedro shared this video, which became my Bible and the main workflow I followed, which basically consisted of:
Developing images for each scene in Midjourney ->
To keep facial consistency in actors, “swap” the face with the plugin InSwapper
Upscaling the images in Topaz Image AI ->
Animating and doing camera movement in RunwayML ->
Upscaling those videos in Topaz Video AI ->
Develop voices and narration in Eleven Labs ->
Stitch and bring everything together in Final Cut
Now, that sounds relatively easy, but I lived first hand it is not:
Developing the images in Midjourney
By far, the hardest part.
I got to redeem myself from not having a clear idea in some of the REAL shots by having to get really good at “prompting”, since I had to do a deep dive on different kinds of shots, lenses, camera styles and also work on my writing abilities to succinctly convey what I wanted (I used this wheel of emotions a lot).
To develop one single scene I had to break down into specific images each of the sections. No long takes or even complicated movements, only images that when animated and brought together will tell a story.
The prompts were complete paragraphs:
Even with that, I can’t quite convey how complicated getting right some of those images is, so you can go in and join the private Discord chat where you can see the endless attempts I made, day after day, for each of the scenes.
Something that helped a lot with style consistency is a feature called Style Tuner in Midjourney, which came out one day before we did the REAL shooting. With it, you can choose from up to 64 images that more closely match what style you have in mind, and it will give you a unique code, which you can then use in every prompt.
Before we get into how the last weeks unfolded, I want to mention some things about the other tools:
Upscaling
Here I just want to tell you to get a computer with some good RAM if you’re going to use Topaz, especially for video. I have a pretty basic 2018 MacAir that I had to leave overnight working on the images and video.
For upscaling the video I ended up using CapCut, which upscales up to 2K but is more than enough in this case, and is really fast, free and runs on the cloud.
RunwayML
It’s funny but just as in real life, I really enjoyed this part. It involves bringing the upscaled Midjourney image, and making it a video while choosing any camera movement. When I started a few weeks ago it was only zoom in and out, and vertical, horizontal and rolling movements were available. While developing this project, panning and tilting was added.
In a way, it lets you direct the scene and the actors.
Another feature that came out during this project is Motion Brush. It lets you choose specific areas of the image that you want to animate. I used this a lot, mainly for face close-ups and the first image with a car moving in the distance.
It has some other great additional tools that are worth using and exploring. I mostly want to highlight Video-to-Video, which I used when I had to get creative from some shots I wasn’t getting right in Midjourney. I recorded myself with my cellphone and a DJI stabilizer, ran it through that tool with an already generated image from Midjourney as reference, and the results are the scenes with the laptop closing/opening, cans and bottle packing4, and finding the diary.
I also made most of the AI editing in the built-in editor it has, though Wes added most of the details and then stitched everything together in Final Cut.
Eleven Labs
This is another great tool, where you get to create speech from text. You can choose from a wide array of pre-recorded voices, or clone a real one, as we did with Vadim/George’s. You can add inflections by playing around with instability and style features.
It’s really easy and fun to use. We made the pandemic announcement here, and the self-talk George makes during the film.
POST-DEVELOPMENT HELL
I got really deep and obsessed with accomplishing bringing the SURREAL section to life.
I had already promised myself and others that I would publish the microfilm this year, and that looming “accountability” helped me push forward. I started getting up at 4am to have 3-4 hours of deep work on it and be able to keep up with my other responsibilities. I did this more times than I can count in the last 5 weeks. There was a lot of Porter in those 4am sessions (Creo que ahora si me estoy volviendo loco…), as well as lots of The Smile.
At some point during this process I just went into a tunnel, possessed by getting it right. By doing that, I probably also blocked myself from seeing other options and lost sight of the bigger picture, of what I was doing. At times, it felt more like laying bricks instead of bringing a story to life.
And these processes aren’t something you go on Fiverr and hire someone to execute. We’re all, collectively and in real time, still figuring out what we can accomplish with these tools, and that’s both scary and fascinating5. I’m really grateful I went through this tunnel.
While I was doing all of the above, Wes was working on editing the REAL scenes. He first shared this test. He’s great at creating a mood with the editing and sound effects6, and that made me, once again, know that I was in good hands.
I sent Wes the first AI timeline on November 29. He stitched everything together, added sound and editing effects and we had a first complete version on December 10. I watched it and gave notes to Wes, plus more AI material.
The ending scene was the most difficult. I started by simplifying it a bit. First by dropping the basketball theme because we realized it didn’t add much to the story, but mostly because I was getting, ehem, interesting results:
Then we played around with some other ideas, from flashbacks, to self-talk or narration, to other out-of-the-box simple ideas. Nothing convinced us.
We repeated the above back-and-forth general feedback process maybe 5-7 times, some of it with my wife watching alongside me and offering constructive and sincere feedback.
Last weekend, I felt we needed the perspective of someone that wasn’t as biased as we were, to make sure it was understandable. So I sent it to
, who has edited many of my written essays, bringing the best out of them. Apparently her abilities translate to any medium, because she offered some great feedback, plus some encouragement that helped a lot to see a bigger picture again.A few more back-and-forths this week and we were still doing some changes last night. We know it could be still be improved if we work more on it, but I prioritized publishing rather than having it perfect. I feel proud and excited to finally get it out!
COSTS AND TIME
I sent the first email to Andrew on August 16, and we’re releasing this on December 22, so that’s roughly 4 months.
It wasn’t all active or a full time job, even taking into account the mental space it occupied7. A lot else happened in those months: I moved to a new apartment, had out-of-town weddings, lots of visits, dinner parties, I ran a business and launched spin-offs from it and just life happened. The last 2-3 weeks were the most time consuming, as well as the shooting week, and still I’d say it was the equivalent of a half-time job.
I’m pretty sure it can be done in a shorter time. Maybe even 2-3 weeks (one for prep, one for shooting and one for post-production) if there’s an experienced 2-4 person crew working full time on this.
As for costs, the grand total was US$480. Most of the costs went for the AI section (80%), and the bulk of it was Topaz.
This costs are obviously unrealistic, as nobody got paid (except for the tamales guy, who made in an hour the same that he makes in a day) and didn’t pay for location, equipment, etc.
Here’s the breakdown:
REAL section
Tamales guy/Shooting day: $30
Lights rental: $30
Catering: $30
Mask: $10
SURREAL section
Runway: $70 (2 months of subscription + many extra credits)
Midjourney: $60 (3 months subscription, two Basic and one Standard plan)
Topaz: $250 (Black Friday promotion for both Video and Image, one-time payment)
OTHER RANDOM LEARNINGS, INSIGHTS AND MISTAKES
In no particular order (and subject to change and grow as time goes by):
Omar brought to my attention a quote from Jimmy Chin: “commit, then figure it out”. This was key in getting this off the ground
In the REAL scenes, getting many different angles of the same shot, plus getting coverage, was key in accomplishing a more professional look
We should develop a better structure to keep track of the different takes of each scene and sound recorded. That’s why a clapperboard was invented
Andrew mentioned a good practice from a friend, who asks a question before starting a project: what’s the part I know least about? Then he starts there. Maybe I should’ve started with the AI part (although I probably knew the least about everything)
The importance of the team I assemble to make a film
Also, develop clear boundaries and responsibilities among that team
Expectedly, this all felt like when you don’t have money and are starting a business. You ask for a lot of favors, are afraid to ask for more / you’re in no position for. Tough but necessary, and could be improved by having some money involved for certain positions
Mistake: Taking so much time to start doing this, just do it!
When you talk about a project and people hear your enthusiasm about it, sincere help will be offered
What would I have done differently? Maybe spending less time perfecting the AI images and more on adapting the story itself
On the next project, arrange a system for me to do more of what I like, and less of what I don’t (now I know which one is which)
When I was in the post-production hole, I found this quote in one video from the great
: “When you’re chasing a big goal, you’re supposed to feel good ⅓ of the time, okay ⅓ of the time and crappy ⅓ of the time”. This perfectly encapsulates the mental states I switched through for this project, and also helped put everything in perspective and feel better overallProbably spending some more time with launching. Some build-up and distribution
Man, how fertile this has been and much satisfaction this has brought <- I keep telling myself that over and over
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Besides the people already mentioned here and at the risk of sounding like Oscar just won an Oscar, I would like to thank the Academy:
My wife, for reading and watching the many drafts and giving sincere feedback, encouraging me during periods of doubt and just her endless, endless support throughout the whole process. This wouldn’t be what it is without her
Sandra Yvonne. First, her general support throughout the process, the thoughtful feedback offered twice, and her constant kind words of encouragement
My parents and sister, who I’ve made them sat through endless artsy movies and have been witnessed my love for cinema since I was young
Omar Diosdado, my best friend, who was also very supportive throughout the process
Betty Huerta and Ricardo Moncada, two very good friends who always offer encouraging and thoughtful comments
Phil Chu, for being the unknowingly catalyzer of this project
My writing group:
, , , , and , who are an endless stream of support and encouragementAccounts on Twitter that spread both new talent and new featues (with amazing breakdowns), like Min Choi, Nick St. Pierre and Proper, to name a few
And all the people that surround me, who know how much I love movies and filmmaking, and have been either silent or vocal supporters all my life. This is a shared win
WHAT’S NEXT
The dam broke. The fire has started. More filmmaking in the works. This was the catalyzer, the project that showed me it can be done.
As to what specifically, a few projects are cooking (a music video and a street character documentary series), and my original plan was to make maybe another 4-5 of these microfilms next year, but now I’m not so sure and maybe a bigger project makes more sense.
I’ll take some weeks to analyze the options, but two things are for sure:
More filmmaking will be done next year
I’ll be selective and only choose projects that are close to my heart and the style and topics I want to develop
Thank you for watching, and for sticking to the end!
Feel free to comment your thoughts on the microfilm, ask any questions, give feedback, ask for my Runway password or any material from the microfilm, suggest stories to develop next… everything is welcomed!
An unused but interesting idea came from Michael Dean, where he mentioned if we could make the change between the Real and AI when George, the main character, gets more or less paranoid, as if he sees the world differently. That can be applied to any story in different formats
As a side note, something funny that happened due to my non-native English involved the phrase “dribbling toothpaste” from the original story. I was sure it meant him pouring toothpaste from the tube directly onto his sweatshirt, and like drawing on it with the toothpaste. Andrew, obviously, had the correct meaning. I kept pushing on it, even saying I loved how “mundanely surreal” it was. It was until Andrew asked me in one call if I could explain how I saw it that I understood its true meaning, and we laughed a lot about it.
I was invited to that men’s group by a guy I briefly met at a music event that a guy that was a Tinder date from a WoP student that was passing by though Mexico City invited me to. How the hell does that even happen?
If you look closely, you can see my injured finger sticking out. I figured that if AI can make weird hands, so can I.
Something very palpable during this process was the extremely fast pace of new tools, features and progress in these tools. I kept seeing on Twitter new things, that would either give me ideas or FOMO. I’m finishing this on December 22, and this week v6 of Midjourney came out, which is both more realistic and obedient to prompts. I also missed playing with Krea.AI and Pika due to their closed betas, and just didn’t fin the time to play with Stable Diffusion’s video feature.
My friend Omar jokingly said he’s now forever scared of tamales
I pretty much didn’t publish anything else during these weeks
Oscar! You did it, amico mio. This is awesome, and a titanic project. I will re-watch the movie on a big screen, as you suggested, but I can already tell you that I loved it. So, so, SO happy for you!
HE’S A FILMMAKER!!! YUHUUUUU!!!
I’m happy you wrote up this entire thing, I loved getting to read about the entire process from beginning to end! (Mistakes and all lol) Truly buzzing with joy for you. Is a secondhand filmmaking buzz a thing? I think I have it.
It was the greatest thing to hear about your journey along the way and witness your joy and see you working through the challenges. And SO grateful you trust me enough to reach out and ask for help and that you even wanted me to help at all! I’ve loved getting to be in your corner rooting for you, even if it's from a distance, and I’m always going to be here rooting for you.
As a True Fan™️ I loved all these details. Like hearing about the color palette, checking out your shot list, the lighting, etc. And that tip about making sure you just focus on directing the day of filming. Makes sense, this sounds like so much project management! And it being your first time, you did an incredible job with how much you were juggling and learning. I know it wasn’t easy.
You know, very few people follow-through with what they say they’re going to do. And you did! That’s fucking amazing. Like, truly. When you consider how much time, thought, and challenges go into making even a small film, it’s crazy that any movie gets made at all. And the fact that you picked such a challenging concept, brought in AI into the mix, and just threw yourself into this beautiful chaos with no idea what was going to happen, but really striving to complete it and do the best you could do while literally figuring it out along the way. I can't believe this was 4 months, that's crazy. It went from IT'S ALL HAPPENING, IT'S REAL to it HAPPENED. You're such an inspiration, my friend.
And the REAL scene with them arguing was so good. I’m happy to hear how much fun and joy you had with that one. And I was thinking the intro to Mexico 2020 had a music video vibe, so I’m excited to see what you do when you dive into making a real one!
I laughed so hard at this: "My wife helped and was pivotal in bringing the tamales guy, who was both thrilled and a bit confused on why we had to get so many takes of him doing the same" and the kid with the basketball. I see you forgot to include Ale in your budget!! The tamale guy was an important role, she deserves compensation!
This was so insightful, I’m learning so much from you by reading this and it makes me look forward to the day I get to really dive into filmmaking in some way too. Loved seeing the progression to this final version. It came out awesome, Oscar. Forever proud of you.
I feel like I have more to say, but I’ll stop there for now. You and everyone involved did a fantastic job. (And it’s so cool to see my name in the credits! Biggest smile on my face!!!!) One day, I hope to witness you in your element in person. Until then, I’m happy to get a tiny glimpse of it from a distance. I hope you're enjoying the post-publish in peace, Director Oscar. Abrazos.
P.S. Ready to make a film together when you are.