Sunday, June 22, 2008

Revolving Around My Weekends

Once upon a time there was an idea...

Pablo: So I have this idea for a short film. It's about this guy...
Lauren: ...that you want Jaime to play?
Jaime:...who is a slacker that's called to do something bigger with his life.
Pablo: So once I cut the trailer...
Lauren: we'll come to realize that this isn't just a short...
Jaime:... it should be a webseries.

And so was born the demolisher of what was left of my free time. But I'm not complaining. Here's why...

Back when I was a wee little writer, my inspiration came from books written by R.L. Stine and later Dean Koontz. I was a sci-fi/fantasy/thriller lover until freshman year of college when suddenly it became easier to write about my own life in the version of chic lit rather than the imaginary stuff that took more brain power. As movies like "Harry Potter" and TV shows like "Heroes" made their way into popularity, I'd kick myself thinking that I could have written things of that caliber had I only tried harder. Instead, I had thrown all creative ambitions to the wind and settled with a job that paid me to do the other thing I was good at; managing someone else's life. So here, many years after I'd packed away previous manuscripts, I was given the chance to reinvent myself and my craft (can I even call it a craft if I haven't been fully successful yet?)


Pablo and Jaime spit out ideas while I worked diligently to string them all into something that... made sense. When the script was finalized and approved by all, Pablo went to work doing what he's good at (finding locations, setting up shot lists, etc. while Jaime and I ran lines. Sidebar-- to that point in time I hadn't seen Jaime act in anything where he wasn't a) a goofball, b) a maniac or c) gay. Gabriel, the character after which the title was named, is just a normal guy and as simple as that sounds, I feared it might be the hardest thing for Jaime to pull off. As we adjusted to the script (oh, and it's "we" because I would be acting opposite in him- this endeavor was triple fold), I became confident that this thing we were creating was in fact, good. And with that in mind, we went to work.

After a six hour shoot and some hours on the editing table with Pablo, this was the first run trailer.




We blasted this trailer on our Myspace pages and through email blasts. The reply that resonated to each of us was the question "What happens next?" with a certain degree of urgency. We had an audience. An audience that wanted more than just a short film. And so became the idea of the webseries.

Off the bat we knew "Missing" for a title, wasn't going to work. Pablo and I were stuck on one word names and symbols. At first stuck on words revolving around "dream" or "missing", it wasn't until I sat through the movie "Iron Man" that I would come across the one word that blazed like a lighthouse beacon. It was a name. Simple and yet strong. I immediately texted Pablo who agreed as soon as he received the text. I took a deep breath. We had a name. Now, we just needed a storyline.

Over the course of the next month I would write and we would film, two more episodes introducing new characters and plot twists. The scripts flowed from my thoughts so easily that I was surprised I hadn't lost my knack for this kind of stuff. As we continue with this series, I will keep you informed of its progress. Once the first 3 episodes have been fully edited, we will begin release. In the mean time I'm hoping to land an exclusivity deal with one of my many social networking connections to make this project fully legit. But in the mean time, it's fun as all hell :)

Here are some on set photos:




Amanda Andujar (Angel), Jaime Fernandez (Gabriel) and Danny Rivera (Danny)


Pablo Diaz and moi






Me, Amanda, Jaime, Pablo and Jerry Diaz (Jason)

2 comments:

Jerk Of All Trades 2.0 said...

Jackie of All Trades? Is that copyright infringement or something I can sue over? Jackie of All Trades.....pfft...I've never seen you at the family reunions.

P.S. I think you've gotten hotter. Stop. We men can't take it. You're fine (foine?) where you are.

Unknown said...

Jerk??? Jerk is that you?? I thought you left the blog world lol. I must catch up on Jerk, 2.0.
P.S. You're too kind, too kind!!!