I've Been Meaning To Write This For Sometime...(Episode 1 Reflections)

*WARNING!* This is a very personal insight on my experiences creating and filming "Those Who Go To Hell", LBP's film noir project thus far. Obviously you have the option to read it, but keep in mind it's all experiences, good and bad or inbetween or which ever, so just an fyi that is this LONG. Very, very, LONG. This is ONLY Part ONE. There will be FOUR blogs, including this one. I hope you enjoy. =D

You put a note in my pocket, said be good to yourself, and that was all...

CREATION

I remember that growing up, I've always had a fascination with loner characters. Something about the cool headed, or sometimes not so cool headed character who relied on wits and skill and sheer determination, and throughout the course of his own events, you would find out what makes him (or her) that person. Sometimes they lost everything, or gained it all, and nonetheless, the stark contrast of these revenge tales in their black and white or grainy quality of color opened up a world to me that even when the chips are down, when people shit on you and you have nothing, NOTHING, to hold you up, sometimes you can find within yourself, a strength of memory, moment, or inner self and push past what limits you. To me, watching films like Le Samourai, Hana-Bi, A Better Tomorrow, Taxi Driver, Vertigo, Le Cercle Rouge, Stray Dog, and Chinatown, were utmost pinnacles of good and bad, tough times, and perseverance. To me, growing up and watching such films took me out of the sometimes hostile outside environment I lived in. It showed that even though life can suck very hard, principles can always win out in a person if they believe in it.

If you believe, you can accomplish. Always.

It was the imagery, the encompassing straightforwardness of the story, characters, development, and violence.

Violence, next to the characters, is what I identified with the most. And it wasn't out of sheer thrill or enjoyment, it was simply because I was used to it. I understood. The type of environment I grew up in was filled in violence to varying degrees. People in the neighborhoods matched these types of characters, they were human. They weren't some guy who had a mansion or lots of money or whatever. These were the guys around the corner, the person working hard to better themselves, the kids looking up to people getting loot, the kids just trying to get by in school or better. These people exist, and I've seen it in some form or another.

I remember watching "A Bittersweet Life" after I had watched Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance and Old Boy. I remember being SO encompassed by this movie, made by this director who at the time, had directed a hilarious comedy and an impressive thriller. Here, he let loose with his style, his story of a simple man working through his way in a simple manner, only to be lead astray for one moment. One moment! And then it's over. Shit hits the fan, he is forced to survive in ways he didn't think possible, and in the end, for what? Over a disagreement. Over nothing. And its interesting to see and know people like that personally and imagine the main character as them. His story and time is yours. I was floored and I loved every minute.

It wasn't until I had gone through a spring and summer of growth that I hit a wall. I literally didn't know what to do next, stumbling along and attempting to do half assed attempts to bring everyone together until I saw one trailer:

Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=shA00_9i3YQ

It blew me away. Not because of its stylish look but because it reminded me of something I've ALWAYS wanted to do. And it hit me like a wall. I've always enjoyed noir, I've always enjoyed the look, the feel, everything. I felt I could do it, I felt like it was possible, as crazy as it seemed.

I even asked permission of Micah Moore simply because I felt it was totally disrespectful to just come out of nowhere. But I didn't want to do Dogs of Chinatown. I wanted to do A Bittersweet Life. I wanted to push my ideas out in the forefront. This wasn't some funny video for college. This was more than just the hobby, this was the real deal. This would show myself, my peers, my fellow members of LBP what I was capable of at this time. I wanted to mix the sensibility of what I loved from film noir with the look and style of A Bittersweet Life. I wanted to show I could do drama. I could do action. I could have actors and stunt performers and everything and do this on my own and show people it IS possible to make something decently entertaining if you have the passion for it. I boldly set out to create essentially a 45-50 minute film that would be split into (originally 7) 4 parts. A 4 part webisode series that would eventually be mashed together as one whole complete film and put into festivals. The ultimate goal was to mix this sensibility of american and asian and everything in between. This would be my homage to noir, my homage to korean and hong kong films and their action, and my start to a new beginning of actual filmmaker (I hoped). This was the creation of "Those Who Go To Hell".

Life being what it is, We All Dream of Revenge...

Open your eyes for a second...Just to roll them at me...

I stared straight into the sun, something to concentrate on.

EPISODE ONE

I instantly poured out the info to the group. I made up characters for everyone, made up a basic outline of story, plot, I started writing out the scrīpt, and I immediately wanted to shoot tests. Light tests, fight tests, everything. So we did. Tony Reddix supplied equipment through Depaul university and he would continue do to so (along with Keith Gubbins) to continue to supply equipment throughout ALL the shoots during the project. I got my group going and we shot tests on the DVX which you can see here:

Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=marnmdxV3BM

Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SBBUu47nbkg

Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jl7FQjb73rk

Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uuc_DmAh83U

Instantly, the response was immediate. People stood up and took a grand, grand, notice. They liked the look, liked the feel. It was different. I was serious, it was bolder, it instantly hit a groove in people.

This of course, excited my taste and made me realize I definitely was going about a right track. So I set to finishing the scrīpt and pushed to shoot, which we did.

I always considered this a vehicle for member Shawn Bernal. It's not that I didn't consider the rest of the group to be good enough, but Shawn had SO much potential and because of his lack of experience and age, I felt that at this point, he HAD to, had to do something. People had to notice him. What made this decision even more so is during working with him on our previous short, For The Win, and especially Ruthless, our john woo short. His dedication to the craft, to the group as a whole, for so little the time he was there, he always and has always put 100% into the group. For someone that joined a mere 4 or 5 months ago at the time, it was astounding to me how much he really cared deeply. I had to repay him. I had to make use of his talents and push him to do more. People had to take notice.

Shawn Bernal became my Daniel Vicente, my Lee Byung Hun to Sun Woo. If there was one thing I wanted to do with this film, it was to show that Shawn Bernal was the man and you should stand up and notice.

Now of course, this wasn't just Shawn's show and his demo reel alone. Every component had to be right. Every person picked had to fit and thus, I wrote people out specifically catered to the behavīors I saw, the characters I felt they could portray, and the ranges I wanted to see in people. I believed and still continue to believe in these people. All my LBP members I had written out things for them. My main actors Chad Sheveland, James Bezy, Allison Carvalho, and Lucas Neff, I believed them. I knew that Shawn alone couldn't be the key, because ALL of these people would help to create a new (and hopefully refreshing) unique product.

So out I set forth. I went with my trusty and ever so worthy companion Tony Reddix, who without his help, I could not have been so confident in pursuing my camera angle choices, and Shawn, and started filming in his apartment. Thus was the creation of Episode 1.

And though I had said to myself, I wanted this film to be put up by November 28th (my 21st birthday at the time) I was hilariously overjudging myself. What I didn't realize yet was that this was just more than a little project. This would become my love letter to my skills in film making at the time. I took my time on EVERYTHING. I made sure as much as I humanly could at each time that I had the right shot, the right light, tempo of movement, frames, style, etc. All by memory. All those images of noir and themes and presentation came pouring out as I shot at Shawn's apartment.

It was even clearer in editing that once I put the black and white on and saw those opening images, I had something wonderful on my hands. At the time and probably true to this moment, it was easily the most beautiful shots I've ever produced. This capability made me want to shoot for more, push for more artistry and look. I knew what I was doing, but it could be oh so much better each time.

Thus with the opening 5-7 minutes, I showed it to my actors which whom I nervously approached (in hopes they wouldn't scoff at my ideas and consider it) and I believe that they were happy and liking what they saw. They immediately became very excited to start working and doing their lines. Yet we wouldn't shoot the main conversation between the main villain Patrick Keller (Chad) and his cousin in tow, Brendan Gideon (James) until early NEXT year.

Yet when we did shoot, it was very, very, interesting. I had never, ever, directed other actors in line acting before besides LBP and especially with the actors I was dealing with who never really did film or had some film experience, but had way more acting experience than me, needless to say I felt somewhat overwhelmed. I just hoped in the back of my head, I directed them fine, I was clear, not sounding like some retarded kid who didn't know what he wanted to do. Yet the great thing was Chad and James were wonderful. They were so professional, so easygoing and committed and they pulled out some FANTASTIC stuff. I was very pleased to edit their scene because their chemistry from just working together over the years and just seeing how much fun they had with it really made me want to push for more out of my direction and camera. Thus, I was even feeling greater knowing that after I edited it for them, though they were critical of their actions on camera, they overall enjoyed the work and were excited to do more.

I mean though we ended in 2007 and started up in 2008, we already had a good half of the noir done and really all we had left was the major climax and fight. We figured this is easy! We got all the HARD stuff right?

Oh boy, how much that would come around to slap me in the face.

First off, our awesome garage location and idea in the scrīpt which was agreed by everyone, yea we did some tests, yea it came off good, yea all our schedules were fine, we went to go shoot. We were ready! We were amped!

Oh man did we not get ANYTHING done. It was terrible! Everything went wrong logistically, the location was terrible to work with, and we realized the hours would suck so much ass to get it cleared out that it was simply not worth the trouble. It was our first big wall.

Until our savior Mr. Tony Reddix stepped in with the wonderful idea of using the Depaul CTI center. It was indoors, open very late, easily accessible, much quieter, and plus it was a FILM BUILDING! Everyone would think we were students and no one would bother us. It was simply too perfect.

We looked around and after much searching, found our area. Found our ROOM. We had a WHOLE boardroom to ourselves to do wonderous things. Immediately everyone got excited again and we set off to shoot. We spent about a whole month getting the set up for the shots in the building, outside, and all leading up to the confrontation between Daniel Vicente (Shawn) and William Cheng (Steven Fung).

Though set up could take a while, and our hours were only from 4pm - 10:45pm, it still was good time to get alot done, and we did! Until we hit scheduling walls.

That was one. But we figured hey, its fine, and its manageable! As long as we have quality stuff.

Yet our biggest crutch, which we didn't expect, was the school itself.

You see, because the boardroom is public domain to the building, we figured because it was a random boardroom, not many would use it.

Oh how wrong we were.

Constantly we would come weekends on end, for months on end, to a room that didn't even allow us in because people used it up THE WHOLE TIME.

Then sometimes when we would get in, say around 6 or 7, the boardroom would be fucked up to shit and we would spend AT LEAST 2-3 hours in many occasions attempting to get it to as close as possible, what it looked like before. I had made a motive to keep this movie not only consistent in style and look, but make sure I REALLY paid attention to detail. I really wanted to show I cared and really cared about the film as a whole, so humanly possible, I was a one man writer, producer, director, DP (director of photography, or main cameraman), prop master, fight choreographer, stunt coordinator, and continuity checker. I was so precise and articulate at times and anal about the randomest shit that many a times the group would be like WTF!? But in the end, it shows off. You'll see.

However, the process became so daunting. Too daunting at times. Attempting to deal with scheduling, school, work, filming, directing, choreographing, coordinating, it was all too much! I was losing constant sleep, my demeanor became irritable as time progressed, getting frustrated at simple things and focusing so much on what we didn't have. As much as we got done at times or as much footage as we got till we were near the end, it was becoming increasingly clear that it was consuming me. All I did was film, care about film, lived and breathed film and nothing more. It was very sad.

 I'm not proud of the person I became. I was becoming more and more nervous at how long it was taking. All I was thinking was I gotta get this done, I have to get this done, my actors are gonna leave, the group is getting tired, I'm getting tired, this is bullshit, this room sucks, this day sucks, whatever. It was all negative you know? All selfishly one sided.

I really do apologize to everyone. To Ruben, Javier, Shawn, Steven, Tony, Keith, Angela, Anthony. I really do apologize that at times I just became a downright ass. I cared so much about doing good that I stopped having fun and took it out on many of you.

This is really why episode 1 isn't even done now. We took a break because it was clear I was digging myself into a very large hole and it took one member of the group to let me know that I had to stop now or dire consequences would await. Then everyone else opened up, and opened up hard.

It wasn't always pretty hearing what I heard being said, but I deserved every word and emotion. I deserved to know how I was treating others and how it was affecting my work. It made me extremely, extremely, sad and doubtful and I almost wanted to quit right then and there. But alas, my group talked me out of it and we agreed that perhaps it was best to take a break. I mean during the time we were shooting episode one, we had shot a fight for episode two with Leo Kei Angelos (from Redeemer Productions), Paul Dreschler-Martell, Jose Pacheco, and Scott Hoffman (from Hyphen Movies) and two fights for episode 3 with Jon Truei (from Surprise-Terminated Films) and Fernando "Jay" Huerto (from Jabronie Pictures). All these guys either drove or flew out from their respective states and I put them all through either weekends or weeks of nonstop filming in my drive to be better, to be perfect.

I'll explain in the next post as to why I asked them all to come out, but the fact of the matter is, I was becoming a crazy monster and my group basically told me to shut the fuck up, realize what I was doing, and to stop it.

It was heart breaking. Definitely the right thing to do, but heart breaking when you do finally realize all the shitty, stupid mistakes you did. When you realize that you did more hurting them than really helping them. The worst of it all? They put up with it! They tolerated me for as long as they could before putting me in my place. That's probably the worst memory of it all.

So approximately, we have about 9:52 or so of Episode 1. Honestly, with credits, it'll probably be around 14 - 17 minutes. It's NEARLY done. After my trip to Boston to help out Leo, we will definitely finish it and definitely start on the other parts for the acting. I was originally shooting in order (something I always do) and it was clear it was taking too long, so I really want to maximize my efficiency with time and get more done and HOPEFULLY (crossing fingers and not making promises) that we'll be done by the end of the year or early next year with ALL of the episodes (which is four).

Anyway I digress. The wake up call which I sorely needed but put me at a standstill. Though what we got in the bag was GREAT and I really love what we all as a group have done, it really showed me that I wasn't giving it back. I thus took a month off and cleared my head and made it my mission to try to show the group that I wanted us as a whole again, that I wanted people to come and enjoy themselves at practice (which we nixed by the way once we did the noir shoots) and that I wanted people to feel involved in this project because my intention ALWAYS, ALWAYS was a LBP project. Yes this is very personal to me, but I know that I can't and won't ever be able to make this without the wonderful group I have and consider so dear and close to me. I needed my brothers and this project is my heartfelt homage to LBP. This is showing the true power of everyone. From performance to range to acting to fighting to stunts, whatever! This is showing what we all are capable of at this moment.

2 years time I have watched us all grow into something much bigger than any of us imagined and I am so, so, very proud of everyone. I really do appreciate everyones efforts daily and though at this point, its very, very, hard for all of us to get together, even with my doubts I always know that in some way or form the group can always be whole again when it needs to be.

Thus, at this point in time, I am deathly nervous and afraid yet excited at the same time to start again. To finish. To begin that process. I really hope that we can do it. I KNOW we can do it, but I would like to see it done. I would like to show that all that worth WAS worth it and all that hard work was not me, but them! Everyone else. THEY make the film, not me. Them. I present the idea but they are the ones executing it. I can only humbly be in their debt for the rest of my life.

Episode 1 is nearly complete, and this blog has only just begun. I'll continue on with the other parts which deal with my experiences work with Leo, Paul, Jose, Scott, Jon, Jay, and The Stunt People!

Until then, if you've gotten this far. Thank you. Really. I wrote this mostly as a reminder to myself to stay motivated and realize I have done ALOT for this project and so has the group. But if you've cared enough to read this until the end, I really am grateful. Thank you.

Till next time! =D

And if you turned it on you'd find, I've written you a thousand times...

You would do anything, you'd give up everything for God knows why...

I just can't stay till your gone. I won't wish you well, I won't see you off.

I won't try to call if I see you in my mind.

I'll say to you, It's not your fault...

From Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Mexican.