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For example, how
many times have we all nearly blown our tops
when another car steals a parking spot we were
waiting for? But in the bigger picture,
does it really matter? In the context of
weddings, I find it terribly sad when people
lose sight of what's important on a day that's
supposed to be a celebration of two people's
love. Weddings aren't about conveying a perfect
"princess" image or throwing a perfect party for
one day. They're the first step towards
marriage, which is a lifelong commitment between
two people who love each other.
When we leave "Desert Wedding,"
Marissa seems to be a changed
person. Was this left ambiguous or
has she completely changed her
outlook on life?
| Well, I guess you'd have to tell me
whether you think this is ambiguous
or not! Seriously though, I most
definitely think she's a changed
person. How could she not be after
going through everything she has? I
would like to think that she will
approach her marriage to Trey very,
very differently. I think she just
feels very fortunate to have someone
she loves and who loves her back.
Hopefully her future union will
reflect that notion.
Where
did you film "Desert Wedding"?
We filmed "Desert Wedding" in
Antelope Valley, which is located
about an hour and a half from Los
Angeles. The actual desert location
was only a couple of miles down the
road from the deserted church you
see at the beginning of "Kill Bill"!
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And what was
it like filming in the hot temperatures?
It actually wasn't all that hot until the last
day. Our biggest battle wasn't really with the
temperatures but with the winds! It was
INCREDIBLY windy! We'd rented large tarps to
help my DP control the light. But the wind made
it very, very tough to rig them safely. The
daily rigging and breakdown therefore ate up an
enormous chunk of our shooting time. But aside
from the winds and the related complications,
the filming in the desert was toughest on Dayna,
the actress who plays Marissa. She had to keep
on changing in and out of the massive wedding
dresses to keep them clean. (Yes, we had more
than one!) Because the film is also so physical,
she would get hot and tired very quickly.
Can you tell
us about the other short films you've directed?
The first film I wrote and directed was "Good
Morning", a two minute short about an older
woman who wakes in the morning and enjoys
listening to her husband's heartbeat only for it
to suddenly stop. I shot the film as part of an
exercise at UCLA, for which we were given 400 ft
of film (approx. 10 minutes worth of film stock)
and four hours to shoot. The next film I made
was called "Ice Cream", a six minute short about
a five-year-old girl who steals some money from
her mother in order to buy herself an ice cream.
Both my first two films have virtually no
dialogue in them; I was interested in telling
stories entirely visually and figuring out how
far I could take that. It was actually the best
lesson I got in terms of storytelling. Both
those films did very well on the festival
circuit; "Ice Cream" even won a few awards.
My third film was
"Parthenabe", a nineteen minute short about a
caretaker named Parthenabe, who looks after
Albert, an old man with dementia. While Albert's
daughter travels and pursues a blossoming
career, Albert and Parthenabe share a unique
friendship, which is threatened when
Parthenabe's health starts to deteriorate. "Parthenabe"
also played on the festival circuit and, to my
complete surprise, won 1st place at the Student
Emmys. I was so nervous when I accepted the
award; I honestly thought the Academy had made a
mistake! My fourth and final short is
"Desert Wedding", which I only finished a few
weeks ago.
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Can you tell us about your history
with theater?
I grew up in Switzerland, where I
acted in several plays throughout
school. I left Switzerland after
high school to study drama at the
University of Bristol in England.
The focus of my degree was on
theatre and I was involved with
many, many plays. Since I'd mostly
acted in Switzerland, I started out
the same way at Bristol. But I
quickly learned that acting wasn't
really for me. First of all, I
wasn't good enough and secondly, I'd
always been utterly traumatized
every time I had to go on stage. It
got really bad at Bristol. On the
days leading up to a performance,
I'd stop eating and sleeping and
would cry in my bed at night. It was
awful. I found I was much more
comfortable hiding behind the scenes
and crafting the story we were
trying to tell. |
Looking back, it
seems funny to me now that I started out acting,
considering how much I hated being in the
limelight (which I still do by the way)!
Exposing myself in front of lots of people makes
me very, very uncomfortable. But I must say that
I'm very grateful to have done it, because it's
given me a much deeper understanding of both
acting and actors, which in turn has helped me
enormously as a writer and director. I produced
a couple of plays while I was at Bristol,
co-directed here and there, and worked in all
kinds of capacities on a slew of other plays. It
wasn't until the very end of university that I
started working with films.
What's your
approach towards screenplays?
I'm a very organized person. Some of my friends
call me anal and I drove an old roommate of mine
crazy with all my organizational habits. But
funnily enough, it seems I'm completely
disorganized when it comes to my own creativity.
Most of us can't really determine when
creativity hits us, which is certainly the case
for me. And this can be very, very frustrating.
I can sit at my desk for days on end and nothing
is happening. I'll stare at my blinking cursor
for hours, try to write, delete everything at
the end of the day, and curse the heavens aloud.
But then, suddenly, as if out of nowhere, it
comes.
| But
of course all the hard and seemingly
unproductive labour (in other words
the blood, sweat and many, many
tears) in between is necessary for
me to get to that point. My best
ideas usually hit me out of the
blue. Most of the time, it's an
accumulation of things that I'm
witnessing in my everyday life, most
of which I'm not really consciously
aware of until my idea suddenly
emerges. It's suddenly as if I
finally understand what I've been
thinking all this time. When I start
writing, I'll usually go through
many different drafts of a script,
during which I get very discouraged.
More often than not, I'll give up in
the middle and write something
completely different. But again
suddenly out of the blue, I somehow
manage to figure it out and return
to my original idea. I'm afraid it's
really not any more structured than
that. I wish it were, because it
certainly would save me a lot of
pain and agony! |
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What genre do
you feel is your niche?
Most definitely drama. I'm interested in real
life problems and issues.
Have you
entered "Desert Wedding" in to any festivals?
I've just started sending out the film; I only
completed it about six weeks ago! Since I've
only just started sending out the film, I
haven't heard yet from any of the festivals. But
I have my fingers tightly crossed...
Do you have
another profession or job when you're not making
movies?
I only just graduated from UCLA with my MFA
in film directing. I'm writing a feature while
working for the Sundance Writers' Lab, for which
I read and write coverage on scripts.
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What advice would you provide to
other indie fillmmakers looking to
get their movies off the ground?
Hmmm, that's a tough question. I
think the best advice anyone ever
gave me was to only work on projects
that I love, projects to which I
have some kind of personal
connection. A professor of mine
always says that the difference
between the people who make it in
this business and those who don't is
how they handle despair. Getting a
film made is such a long and labour
intensive process, during which we
have to face so much rejection. But
it's impossible to handle the
rejection and despair well, if you
don't love and believe in the
project on which you're working.
Unless you're really in love with
the project you're writing,
directing, producing, whatever it
is, it becomes very hard to keep
pushing. |
So what are
you working on next?
I'm currently writing a feature. It's a
relationship drama about a married couple, whose
marriage falls apart when the husband is very
seriously injured.
Thanks a lot
for your time, Alexandra.
My pleasure.
-
Felix Vasquez Jr.
8/22/08 |
