my experience making my first short film

My Self

2006-01-25T08:20:00.000-06:00

14 Years ago a tape my first video when I was living in Mexico, my friend Lupe had a rock and roll band, and the first time they play I sneak out the VHS cam recorder from my parents bedroom to take it to the party. My parents never let me mess with electronic equipment by my self, because of my curios nature. I had the tendency of taking things apart to see how they work. One day, while my family was shopping I took apart the washer machine, and couldn't put it back together.

I went to the party and started shooting from different angles and camera movements. I remember my friends making fun of me because they thought I was taking it to seriously. After the party I went back home and started the editing process right away, with two VCR's. That night, I started dreaming about making movies.

Now that I am 28, I still dreaming. There are plenty of factors that have not allowed me to fully express my self, but I don't have anything to complain about. I believe this road that I have walked, has allowed me to experience and learn. I believe I have reach the point of no return, and I am ready to get to the end.

I am not a Writer

2006-01-24T09:00:00.000-06:00

I am not a writer, I still questioning why I am blogging. I guess I have a constant need for expression. As you probably know by now, English is my second language, so why to write in English? Well, I dunno, I guess am not really sure, all the “film” projects that I been involve are in English, most of the my movie friends speak English or other language but not Spanish, and I guess I don't want to exclude my circle of co workers ,and friends from this blogsspot, but I plan to write in Spanish also, I am already working in a script.

Getting the Idea

2006-01-23T11:03:00.000-06:00

There is too many ideas to make a short film. You can cover all grounds from drama to sci-fi. A short could be some thing really artsy and personal or can be something than anyone can relate to.

I got my idea out of a combination of collected experiences and a joke in a Readers Digest magazine my dad had in the bathroom. The joke is about a boy who buys condoms from a pharmacist, later during dinner at his girlfriend's house, he reliances that the pharmacist is his girlfriend's dad.

Very simple, this is probably a 5 sentence joke, but keep in mid that almost any narrative, story or joke has the tree basic elements of story telling; Beginning, Middle and End.
I had chosen characters, plot and setting out of joke printed in a magazine. I was obviously not trying to be too deep, or at least at the beginning.

MI famila

2006-01-22T11:24:00.000-06:00

I decide that it was going to be easier if I wrote about my self, my environment, and my family and their views. Since I come from a very traditional Mexican family I though that was a must in the script. Most of the dialog are pieces of actual conversations I had with friends. I was trying to make fun how different Mexican and Chicano cultures are, even though they share the same origin.

The script

2006-01-21T11:50:00.000-06:00

I really did not know if I needed a script. I have never like writing, until lately. I thought “ As long as you can keep the script on your head, you really don't need to go trough the whole writing process”. But after several failed attempts of making a non script production I decided to learn to write.

I read The Screenwriter's Bible by David Trottier I recommended, it help me so much.
I also read a couple of script of my favorites movies, as Pulp fiction, Decostructing Harry and Pay It Forward. You can get transcripts and scripts here http://www.simplyscripts.com

I join the trigger street community, where you download scripts and shorts of aspiring filmmakers to review, some of them are amazing, some are not so good, but you learn from both, and more important, you can see what other people are writing about, and the different style they are using.

Thre Actual Writing

2006-01-20T12:05:00.000-06:00

I started with a time line for the story, then I wrote scene headings in index cards. When I had a rough idea of “what, when and who” in a notebook I wrote the whole story from beginning to end, without paying attention to grammar rules, format or style. Two days later I analyze the rough draft for flaws, change it and eliminated dialogue and scenes. One day later,I started to type the second draft, this time I corrected grammar and format, with the obvious help of the processors. English is my second language, some times I write things that don't make any sense. I use Open office to write, which is a open source word processor, just because I like the idea of using a free software, alternative to Microsoft Office Take that Bill Gates ! But if you feel compel to get a writing software the is plenty in market.