La Esencia - Ideas and Things to Consider

It's been over two month since my last blog, and I'm only a couple posts deep. Not the best way to promote my website, but I digress. April 2017 has, without a doubt, been the busiest and craziest month of my life.

But I'll spare you those details for the REAL exciting stuff.

The exciting news is that this month I was selected to write and direct my school's capstone project in Fall of 2017! I'll have the chance to experience firsthand a small taste of what directing movies in the real world is like. The film itself is low budget, our crew is unpaid film students and (seemingly) all the odd are against me. With all that said, I couldn't be more excited to start working and collaborating with my amazing team to bring the film to life. The project itself presents a lot of challenges and obstacles that we must hurdle over, as well as basic filmmaking obstacles that I've never experienced before: budgeting, casting, location scouting, the to-do list goes on.

The first thing I have to do, as a director of a film production, is make sure that everyone involved with the film is on the same page. Me and my cinematographer don't want to have two different movies in mind when we walk onto set day one. Every detail of the film, from the framing of each individual shot, to the dissolve at the end credits, must be meticulously planned out and set up for success. It's honestly pretty crazy how much planning goes into every film. Even now as a filmmaker, I think pre-production is the most difficult and demanding phase of the entire filmmaking process simply because it's never done. You can never plan ahead too much, and if you think you have prepared for everything you're only lying to yourself until production starts.

My goal with this blog post is to fully explain the story of my film, explain my creative process and my own vision for the movie. I hope that, in the future, I can refer back to this post if I ever get lost down the road and remember what I originally wanted this movie to be. All of this is subject to change, but what you see here should definitely resemble what we'll (hopefully) spit out at the end of November.

STORY

La Esencia is a thriller/horror story centered around a popular food blogger/reviewer named Samuel Mitchell based out of San Fransisco. His blog is starting to go downhill and he needs a pick-me-up post to help get the ball rolling again. His search for the perfect review leads him to La Esencia, a new restaurant set up by a world renowned Chef named Benito. Then, when a mystery dish hooks Samuel like a fish, Benito invites him to a mysterious dinner party to try the same dish again. A dinner party and a bloody apology later, and Samuel figures out that the mystery dish Benito has been serving was human flesh. Samuel ends up killing Benito, but becomes addicted to the taste of human flesh and is seen at the end nibbling on cooked people while he writes away at his blog.

CHARACTERS

Samuel Mitchell

Samuel is a twenty-something blogger and food lover who has too much in his life to worry about. His blog, his girlfriend, the rent, what's for dinner tonight? He is always thinking about something, and sometimes it works against him. His unwritten and failing blog is a mirror of his current situation; he's unsure about the future and he doesn't feel totally complete. There's a void in Samuel that needs to be filled, and throughout the film he comes to realize that his void is filled with food...but not a meal you would expect.

One thing that I want to try and allude to in La Esencia is Samuel's addiction to human flesh, which is the driving force behind all the actions and events that take place in the story. If he hadn't tried people (or liked it as much as he did) that first night at the restaurant, none of the events in the film would happen. Samuel is a tragic character in that he is "worse off" at the end of the film than he was at the beginning, or so it's meant to seem. He quietly stays addicted to people while, at the same time, going about his normal life and routine. The idea is this: we're told our whole lives to be ourselves and stand up for what we believe in, but what if our ideals are against societal standards? Is it still right for a man to be a pedophile if, deep down, he truly loves having sex with children? Is it right for people to eat other people if you so desire to? Who's to tell us what's right and what is wrong?

Chef Benito

My idea for Benito's backstory goes a little like this: imagine a chef who has achieved critical acclaim all across the globe, and has already made a name for himself as one of the greatest cooks of ALL TIME. But that alone isn't enough. His taste buds, his desire to create the perfect dish, and his passion for cooking fuels him to want more than what he already has. So he goes on a journey around the world exploring different cultures, different tastes and different ideas until he comes across it...an ancient Mayan temple that details their cannibalistic past and what it did to their society. Being the sick, passionate chef that he is, Benito sets out to cook human and explore a meat that hasn't been served in thousands of years.

Benito's character is one shrouded in mystery and fear. For an international celebrity, he keeps to himself and never reveals his secrets. But his demeanor and image is intimidating, uninviting and just dark overall. I don't think of Benito as the film's antagonist (even though he technically is), I like to think of him more as an idea presenter. He is a man who has already figured himself out; he knows he is the best chef in the world, he knows what he likes and he's not out to prove anything. Only to make good food. Samuel presents the opposite idea, a man who hasn't figured himself out yet and is actively looking for it.

I draw inspiration for Benito's character from Gus Fring in AMC's Breaking Bad. A character that has two completely different personalities, but only shows it when their mysterious shroud has been lifted.

Emma

The least complex character in the story, Emma is Samuel's girlfriend and represents a connection to Samuel outside of his life in his food/blogging world. When we are first introduced to her, she isn't taking her boyfriend's blog as serious as she should. She shows this by inviting herself to her boyfriend's dinner party, and this decision leads to her eventual guilt and death.

THEME and LOOK

The theme of the film is: morality versus desire, and how our desires can make us question our morals and who we really are. Humans are all innately greedy and it affects us all in more ways than we realize. It's most apparent in the decisions we make, and in the film each character's decisions affect their lives drastically. Emma's decision to stand up for her boyfriend (against Benito) gets her killed by the culinary cannibal. Samuel's decision to go to the dinner party triggers the whole chain of events that play out through the movie.

As far as look, I draw inspiration once again from Breaking Bad. The film noir-style lighting and dynamic framing help tell the story that much better, and that's something I definitely want to mimic in my film.

The way Michael Slovis (the main cinematographer for Breaking Bad) selectively uses black in his frames, to me, adds so much depth to the image. It directs your eyes to the brighter parts of the image, while also giving character clues as to who's the "bad guy" in every conversation. What I mean by this is that every character has a motive or hidden intentions when they interact or share a dialogue with another character. The way you frame and light that interaction will not only help with the performance, but it helps tell the story and define who our characters really are.

FINAL NOTE

I'm nowhere near close to finishing my story, and the script will probably continue to be edited going into production in November. But the hard work and time I put in now will only benefit me when the time comes to actually make this thing.

I also wanna give a huge thank you to everyone who helped me get this far. Your love and support keeps me going and inspires me everyday to work hard and never give up, even when the going gets bad. This film and everything that comes with it will only be good and I can't wait to share it with you guys when it's all done.

-morgan

#directing #laesencia