What failures (of your own) have you been able to learn from? How did they change you and your process?

After making my first short film I learned that to tell a good story you don’t have to be overly ambitious in terms of locations. The story of my first short film required complex things, like: filling a house with trash, shooting in a prison, shooting a fight scene, working with a child... I think because it was my first short film, I didn’t know what I was getting myself into. Ultimately, I was able to pull it off, but the result wasn’t something that satisfied my expectations of the type of film I wanted to make.

My first short film taught me to be more practical. That’s why when I was given the assignment of making a second short film; I decided to follow Robert Rodriguez philosophy of making a story with what you have. I knew that the best thing would be to write a story that could be shoot in an easy setting, so I came up with a story that took place in the University. I ended up shooting a story about a student who wakes up late for school and has to overcome many obstacles to get to the University, just to realize it’s Sunday. Shooting a more practical story really made a difference. My first short film took me 8 days to shoot, while the second one only took two days.

I also learned that you don’t need to come up with as many angles as possible for every scene. I also learned that having a storyboard could make communication with the cameraman easier. During the shooting of my first short film, I always wasted a lot of time trying to get the camera operator to frame the shoot as I had picture it in my mind. Halfway through the shooting the instructor suggested me to do a storyboard, so I made one and it worked. The storyboard helped me show the cameraman how I wanted the shots and he was able to set them up more quickly. After that I always use a storyboard.

I also realized after my two short films that you don’t have to stress about lighting. Lighting a scene usually takes time, but in my case I realized that no matter how long we took trying to make it look right, it never satisfied us because we didn’t have the proper equipment or a technician who knew how to properly light a scene. After learning more about editing, I realized that It would be better for me to stop wasting time trying to light a scene that was always going to end up looking bad, when I could correct that later in postproduction. Now, when I shoot and I don’t have someone in my crew who can light a scene really well or if we don’t have all the lights we need, I don’t worry because I can see in my mind how it’ll look after doing some postproduction. I know that you can’t do everything in postproduction, but you can do a lot, especially if you set the lights thinking about how you might alter their look later.

When you get angry at a movie, what sets you off? Are there common qualities in cinema today that you dislike? Is there something you try to subvert or avoid or rebel against in your work?

I don’t like stories that seem little pretentious. I hate when I see a movie like “Black Swan” and I suddenly feel like they are banking on the essence and effort of a previous film like “The Piano Teacher”. Making it look like they are the groundbreakers when someone before them came up with that style of story. Talking about the Black Swan, I also don’t like films that exploit sexuality just cause they think that putting a sex scene increases the art status of their film. If you are doing a film like “Fatal Attractions” then sex scenes are justified or “Irreversible” where it’s a key part of the story. Sex scenes, like any type of scene need to have a reason to be in the story and sometimes I feel like some filmmakers just like to throw them in there to shock the audience like in “The girl with the Dragon Tattoo”.

I also hate when there’s a trend that starts getting out of hand. For example, one person makes a good movie about pirates, and then suddenly everyone starts making pirate movies regardless of the quality of the scripts. Repetitive storylines are boring too: the ugly girl who gets transformed into a beauty, the college kids who always end up on a deserted house where a killer awaits them, etc. In my work, I try to stay away from this. I try to give my stories a twist in the end that takes them away from what’s expected.

Another thing that I have a problem with are overly dramatic scenes that have a exaggerated style of acting. In my opinion this doesn’t work anymore because it belongs to an older film language or style. I remember watching the third season of Damages (which isn’t a film but I think it illustrates my point) and thinking what happened? When did this turn into a soap opera?

I also can’t stand character’s that are way too good. Character’s who are designed to portray an image of moral incorruptibility, kind of like a superhero. Unless, they are outstanding characters like Atticus Finch from “To Kill a Mockingbird” or Eliot Ness in “The Untouchables”. I like flawed characters that convey real human emotions. In my stories, I always try to create characters that make mistakes; who may have petty emotions because they feel more real to me. I try to stay away from making characters that always do the right thing. I find more interesting creating characters that might do things for selfish reasons.

But, the thing that really irritates me when I see a movie is bad novel adaptation. I just hate when they make changes to the original story for no reason at all. Because when I’m watching a novel adaptation I’m always analyzing whether they made the change for production or time related reasons. When, I find that the changes they made didn’t represent a benefit, I get angry. Especially when scriptwriters cut scenes that I though were essential to the story or the character’s motivation and make changes that may totally alter our interpretation of the character’s actions. For example, in the film “Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince” during the scene where Dumbledore is killed, Harry is supposed to be paralyzed by spell casted seconds before thus preventing him from doing something to help him. In the film, however the scriptwriter chose to just let Harry hide and witness the attack. In my opinion, a change like that alters completely our perception of the character. In the first case, he was portrayed as someone brave who might have done something, while in the second example; he comes across as someone too scared to act. Leaving the story as it was in the book wouldn’t have cost more or less money to the filmmakers because the scene would have been shot anyway, just with that slight change. I think this why people usually feel disappointed when they watch a novel adaptation.