Filmmaking with Diego Navarro
This week Nicholas and Derek talk to director/writer Diego Navarro about how he got into filmmaking and how long it took him to make his very first Feature film.
Transcript
This is Film Center.
Speaker:Your number one show for real entertainment industry news.
Speaker:No fluff.
Speaker:All facts.
Speaker:Now, here are your anchors, Derek Johnson II and Nicholas Killian.
Speaker:Hey, welcome to Film Center.
Speaker:I'm Derek Johnson II.
Speaker:I'm Nicholas Killian.
Speaker:And what are we doing today, Nicholas?
Speaker:Today we're introducing a special friend of ours.
Speaker:Could you please introduce yourself?
Speaker:Sure.
Speaker:My name is Diego Navarro.
Speaker:I'm a writer director.
Speaker:Hey, Diego.
Speaker:How you doing?
Speaker:Pretty good.
Speaker:I know.
Speaker:All right.
Speaker:Hold up.
Speaker:Hold up.
Speaker:Just up front.
Speaker:You're wearing a John Deere hat.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:It's what's the question?
Speaker:I thought this would come up.
Speaker:I'm from the South.
Speaker:I'm from Tennessee.
Speaker:John Deere is with tractors and everything.
Speaker:They're very popular, but so do you.
Speaker:Is this some sort of foreign background?
Speaker:You just like John Deere?
Speaker:I, it's ironic.
Speaker:It's an ironic thing.
Speaker:Number one, I'm wearing it because it's the only kind of clean ish hat that I had.
Speaker:But two, I come from like a rural area with like tractors and stuff.
Speaker:Where at?
Speaker:In Paso Robles, California.
Speaker:That's, oh so there is a disc tracker life over there.
Speaker:That'ss.
Speaker:What I'm saying, no one randomly wears a John Deere hat . No.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Part of it is ironic and part of it is like a callback to like my
Speaker:roots, but I don't, I've probably driven a tractor once in my life.
Speaker:Oh really?
Speaker:Just once.
Speaker:Just once.
Speaker:Just to do it.
Speaker:And that was like last month?
Speaker:Oh, just last month.
Speaker:Just last month.
Speaker:How was your first tractor?
Speaker:It was pretty fun.
Speaker:Yeah, it was pretty fun.
Speaker:My dad has property over there, so we were.
Speaker:Driving back and forth across the property in the tractor.
Speaker:So he taught me how to drive it, so that was Oh, nice.
Speaker:Those are very powerful machines.
Speaker:When you get it, when you're behind the wheel of one, you like,
Speaker:when you're looking at it, you're like, oh, it's like a slower car.
Speaker:When you get behind it, there's all that oh, wow.
Speaker:Actually a lot of power.
Speaker:A lot of power.
Speaker:Oh, yeah.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:It's a, it's quite a contrast.
Speaker:You got the jacket on and the glasses and then John Deere.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Although we're one to talk, we're both from the south.
Speaker:Mr.
Speaker:Louisiana.
Speaker:So is that where you're from?
Speaker:Paso Robles?
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:I've been in LA since 2015.
Speaker:So I went home for a couple of years during COVID and like after college.
Speaker:So all together been here for seven years.
Speaker:Where'd you go to college?
Speaker:Cal State, LA.
Speaker:Oh, nice.
Speaker:Cal State.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:So you've been in living in California your whole life?
Speaker:Pretty much.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Before Paso, it was San Jose.
Speaker:So the Bay Area.
Speaker:Oh, okay.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Bay Area!
Speaker:Are your parents also from California?
Speaker:My mom is from the Bay Area.
Speaker:Her family's from the Bay, originally.
Speaker:My dad's from Mexico.
Speaker:Oh, nice.
Speaker:What part of Mexico?
Speaker:Guadalajara.
Speaker:Oh, nice.
Speaker:So I'm like one and a half generation because my dad is like he came over
Speaker:here, but my mom had already been here So it's like one of the hatchet, you
Speaker:know what we round up here Round down it round down first generation just
Speaker:choose first You know because technically On one side, you are first, right?
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:So might as well just go ahead and just take the dub.
Speaker:Take the dub.
Speaker:Take the dub.
Speaker:Growing up in that area, is that what kind of like, where you were
Speaker:first interested in entertainment?
Speaker:Cause it's, it is California.
Speaker:Although I will say this, people who don't live in California, who
Speaker:are listening, Northern California and Southern California might
Speaker:as well be two different states.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Might as well be two different countries.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:They're a lot.
Speaker:It's the same state, but.
Speaker:Is it so different?
Speaker:One, the snow, when you get up there, it'll get cold, and then, and San Diego
Speaker:has never seen a ice flake in its life.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:That's crazy.
Speaker:But even past Robla's, it's three hour, a three hour drive from here.
Speaker:Three hour drive?
Speaker:That's almost as far as it takes to get to Las Vegas.
Speaker:Yeah, about four hours.
Speaker:Las Vegas is like four.
Speaker:But even there it's like a different whole different environment different
Speaker:country so the entertainment influence is not there like whatsoever
Speaker:Would you do you interesting like writing or something like that?
Speaker:We were like a kid or like drama or anything?
Speaker:Yeah, so was your canon event my canon event for sure.
Speaker:I remember being like five years old Dang, this tango back goes all the way back.
Speaker:You were that self aware at five years old?
Speaker:Yeah, I have a great memory.
Speaker:That's how you know this man's a writer.
Speaker:Unfortunately.
Speaker:Yeah, I was about five years old and those like boom boxes that have
Speaker:the CD player and the tape as well.
Speaker:So you could record from the CD onto the tape.
Speaker:I remember like making my own like mixtapes.
Speaker:Like I would take parts of one CD, like the intro I think some 41 or no, the
Speaker:offspring had an intro that's for their CD that said, when we step up onto the
Speaker:mic, it sounds something like this.
Speaker:So I like recorded that part.
Speaker:Then I had a different CD.
Speaker:It was probably like.
Speaker:Eminem or something and then I like put so I was making my own mixtapes.
Speaker:I like five you were mixing the CDs Yeah, I was mixing the CD.
Speaker:So you say you would go when I step up to the mic.
Speaker:I say hi.
Speaker:My name is Basically, it would be I don't know if it was that clever.
Speaker:But I hopefully it was that clever.
Speaker:I don't have these tapes anymore I wish I did I really miss Being able to like,
Speaker:when you mix those CDs or like those tapes for the road or something like
Speaker:that, it'd be like, Oh, you know what?
Speaker:Cause not everything's on, on, on Spotify, or whatever you might listen to.
Speaker:SoundCloud or whatever.
Speaker:You used to be like, Oh man, you're going, how long are you going to be driving?
Speaker:Oh, you'd be like your friend or your cousin.
Speaker:I'm like, Oh, it's like a four hour drive.
Speaker:Bro.
Speaker:I got you.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Listen to listen to this.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Sharpie writing like number one, number two, number three.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:It was awesome.
Speaker:But I think yeah, that was my first.
Speaker:of wanting to do something creative.
Speaker:Cause when I did that, I was like, I want to do this for a living, but that
Speaker:lasted like a day, how did it only last?
Speaker:What did you, so when you were, oh, sorry, what'd you say?
Speaker:How did it only last a day?
Speaker:I don't know.
Speaker:I don't remember like that dream or that goal carrying on.
Speaker:But I've made mixtapes like up until today, probably.
Speaker:So when you were in high school what did you want to be?
Speaker:If it wasn't like.
Speaker:A writer, director.
Speaker:So in high school that's when I found filmmaking.
Speaker:Because I'd always been like, wanting to put things together, the reason I
Speaker:bring up the mixtape thing is because the idea of taking certain elements
Speaker:and putting them together to make something new is a collaborative effort.
Speaker:It's a collaborative effort.
Speaker:And it's like you're cultivating and curating certain things that you think are
Speaker:cool, and you're putting them out there.
Speaker:So I've always been like really interested in that.
Speaker:So the way film comes into this is I was In video production
Speaker:as an elective in high school.
Speaker:And a friend of mine told me about a film called El Mariachi by Robert Rodriguez.
Speaker:And I was like, okay, whatever.
Speaker:I'll watch it.
Speaker:Didn't really think much of it before watching it, but once I watched it, it
Speaker:changed how I viewed film because I don't know if you guys know, but it's like a
Speaker:7, 000 movie back in 1991 or so for 92.
Speaker:You.
Speaker:So it's like very, it's almost like a homemade movie, if a homemade
Speaker:movie was picked up by a major studio so like that, when I watched that,
Speaker:that was the first time where I felt like I could see the feasibility
Speaker:of making something, making a film.
Speaker:And it just inspired me to feasibility, like it was even within your grasp.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Because the film.
Speaker:I could see okay, this guy, Robert Rodriguez, is doing everything himself,
Speaker:like he's shooting it, he's directing it, he wrote it, he's editing it, the only
Speaker:thing he's not doing is acting in it.
Speaker:You can't do everything, right?
Speaker:You can't hold the camera And act at the same time.
Speaker:But, That's vlogging.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:He wasn't doing that back then.
Speaker:And then what about the film is, you said it changed your way of looking at film.
Speaker:Besides everything we just said, how did it change how you looked at film?
Speaker:I think because, part of it was like, I don't know about you guys but I feel
Speaker:like when you can appreciate like an artisan's Work of art like something
Speaker:that's handcrafted like you can tell like their fingerprints are on it
Speaker:Like literally it's handcrafted like a sculpture a clay sculpture or a wooden
Speaker:sculpture like that's how it felt to me Even though the film was cheesy Because
Speaker:it's it is like a cheesy action movie and me that was their intention going
Speaker:into it to me it was like It was art.
Speaker:It was like it was a beautiful piece of art.
Speaker:Yeah, inspired you to say Oh, maybe you know if they Maybe I should try
Speaker:my self expressing myself in this way.
Speaker:Right as well.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Yeah, because I mean up until that point I had made my own home movies
Speaker:like and I feel you've been making home movies for a while in high school.
Speaker:Yeah, because my Mom had a camcorder so she would record us a lot I think
Speaker:naturally like whenever there's a camcorder around kids are gonna grab
Speaker:it and try to make their own movie So I didn't really It wasn't anything serious.
Speaker:It was never like, I'm going to be a filmmaker, but it was more like my brother
Speaker:was a skater, so he did his skate videos.
Speaker:And then I grabbed the camera with my little brother and we did he was the
Speaker:skater and you were like the director.
Speaker:Kinda.
Speaker:That's cool.
Speaker:Yeah, that's cool.
Speaker:And then in high school when did you sit there and say, Okay,
Speaker:I'm gonna do this for a living.
Speaker:Cause you talked about, during the mixtapes.
Speaker:You saw the movie.
Speaker:And then you said the movie changed part of your inspiration.
Speaker:Then yeah, so then when you say, Okay, now I'm gonna tell my
Speaker:parents this is what I'm gonna do.
Speaker:How did that conversation go?
Speaker:I didn't tell them right then and there, but the seed was definitely planted
Speaker:when I saw that film El Mariachi, because like I said, it just felt
Speaker:like it was something within my grasp.
Speaker:So I, having all this creative energy and like wanting to put something
Speaker:together as big as a film like I had that urge to, to make something like that.
Speaker:You go to college for filmmaking?
Speaker:I did, but before I went to college, I actually made a feature film.
Speaker:Oh, really?
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:How long after you saw the film, did you make the feature film?
Speaker:So I saw the film in 2010, I remember I was 16, I was a sophomore in high school.
Speaker:And I think that summer, so the summer after sophomore year.
Speaker:I'd written a script and it was like I want to say 80 something pages, maybe a
Speaker:hundred pages, which I look back at now.
Speaker:I'm like, how did I do that?
Speaker:If I find it so difficult to do now we are young, you don't have that that blockage.
Speaker:You might've, Oh, it has to be self critical.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Especially especially as a writer myself, I usually find that a lot
Speaker:of writers, they have, they know what it takes to make a good script.
Speaker:So it's Oh, I'm going to work through all these like errors that I know
Speaker:first before I actually get it down on the page compared to probably when
Speaker:you were young, but I didn't care.
Speaker:You know what I'm saying?
Speaker:They were just writing just right.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:I forget who said this, but they, yeah, they said That the longer you paint,
Speaker:the harder it is to pick up a brush.
Speaker:Wow.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And it's, I think it's the same thing.
Speaker:Cause where, you know what good scripts look like, what the good things look like,
Speaker:so that kind of blocks you for when you're young like that, you probably didn't care
Speaker:and you just had a lot of fun, I assume.
Speaker:And then it's, and it's also, it's you don't know the, I heard an artist tell
Speaker:me one time, you never know when you're done though, because it's like you said,
Speaker:like DJ said, and like you said, you never know I know what it takes to make
Speaker:it good, and it's never good enough because I know that there's something
Speaker:that can be better, but then that's what can then in turn ruin something.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:No, I totally agree with that, both statements, because all I'm
Speaker:trying to do now, skipping ahead to now, I know we're going a little
Speaker:bit We can do what we want to.
Speaker:It's our show.
Speaker:We can do what we want to.
Speaker:We can jump back in time if you want.
Speaker:Talk about now.
Speaker:It's like a Christopher Nolan movie.
Speaker:Inception.
Speaker:But that's what I'm trying to do now is remove all those like inner
Speaker:critics and all that blockage.
Speaker:And go back to like when I was 16 and just like I didn't
Speaker:care about how it turned out.
Speaker:Like I only did it because I felt like it was fun.
Speaker:So that's.
Speaker:What my kind of motivation is going forward now is I don't want to do anything
Speaker:to impress anybody, like I just want to be able to Just create, express yourself.
Speaker:Create and express myself because I think that was another to me
Speaker:wanting to be a filmmaker once.
Speaker:So once I started shooting that movie and it took three years.
Speaker:So I did it junior year, senior year, I graduated.
Speaker:And my first year of community college, that thing finally came out.
Speaker:So it was, that was a long time coming.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:So it was like the reason for taking so long.
Speaker:Just availability of like my friends.
Speaker:Cause I was relying on a couple of friends in high school to, to be in it.
Speaker:And then.
Speaker:There was some scenes that we shot over and over again, cause I would borrow a
Speaker:camera, then I got a new camera, then I got a DSLR, so I was like, let's
Speaker:just re shoot, so I think kinda just perfectionism, which kinda goes against
Speaker:what I just said about not having that inner critic but also, not knowing
Speaker:how ambitious a feature film was, Back then you just jumped in the water.
Speaker:I was like, yeah, let's make this and you were like, oh crap For sure.
Speaker:I'm gonna jump in this ocean.
Speaker:Can you swim?
Speaker:Eventually, Jump off this clip.
Speaker:How you gonna let figure out on the way down exactly it and it was like that's
Speaker:because this Your original question.
Speaker:The reason why I'm explaining all this is you asked if I went to film school I
Speaker:feel like that was my film school Like putting together in those three years.
Speaker:Hey, experience is way better than theory.
Speaker:As someone who went to film school.
Speaker:Yeah, experience is better than film school.
Speaker:Way better than theory.
Speaker:Not to say that theory is not good.
Speaker:But it's like.
Speaker:Theories are more like.
Speaker:Guiding principles, but the actual experience is to
Speaker:teaching you how to do it.
Speaker:For example, when you if you go to school, your teachers explain to you,
Speaker:Oh, addition is one thing added to another one, but it's not until you
Speaker:sit down and start actually doing some problems that you learn how to use
Speaker:addition oh, okay, this is how you actually, this is what's going on.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:It's it's interesting that you say it took.
Speaker:Who had those three years to make that, right?
Speaker:So does this include also shooting or is it just editing like they
Speaker:were they aging through the movie?
Speaker:Yeah, it's there.
Speaker:We're aging through the movie.
Speaker:Was that on purpose?
Speaker:No, that was on purpose The only thing that was cuz I would say
Speaker:that's some genius I would say you should say that's what the goal was.
Speaker:It's like why just you know They've anyone else the character so it makes
Speaker:you look like Man, this dude is a genius.
Speaker:This guy's a genius.
Speaker:It's like Boyhood by Richard Linklater.
Speaker:It's it's a real life evolution of a guy growing up.
Speaker:We just kept having to shoot things because, we were getting older.
Speaker:But that was also my intention.
Speaker:It's like, all right, cool.
Speaker:We have enough scenes for this age, guys.
Speaker:I'll see you in a year.
Speaker:Yeah, basically.
Speaker:Hey, come back with a beard, bro.
Speaker:You need to work on that puberty, Mike.
Speaker:Yeah, I could say that.
Speaker:But then when you watch it, you're like, This character was
Speaker:just like pudgy and baby fat.
Speaker:The last scene, now he's slender, and then in the next scene he's
Speaker:pudgy and baby fatty again.
Speaker:It's . Hey, he he, he skipped lunch that day.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:That's what happened.
Speaker:He skipped lunch, and I was actually, I actually acted in that film.
Speaker:So I was the one that was like gaining and losing weight and hair,
Speaker:facial hair coming in finally.
Speaker:Did you play any sports in high school?
Speaker:I didn't.
Speaker:I'm very clumsy.
Speaker:So that's, I think that's why I leaned into the creative stuff.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:So you, so when you graduated high school, you did tell your parents?
Speaker:So you were like, oh, or you were just like, oh, they're just going to find out.
Speaker:You're telling them you're going to go to school for something else.
Speaker:No, eventually I did tell them.
Speaker:And what was that conversation like?
Speaker:And were they happy?
Speaker:Because, we get a variety here.
Speaker:I, a lot of people say that, Oh, it went sour in some ways.
Speaker:And some people say, Oh, actually they were super supportive.
Speaker:Kind of depends on the race of the person.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And and the reason for going to the reason for getting into it.
Speaker:I guess the reason more yeah.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:I'm trying to remember, I remember one conversation that we had Where I just
Speaker:like I was disappointing them because like they had Preaching to the crowd All
Speaker:my parents said was cool just don't get anybody pregnant my parents were like,
Speaker:oh it's so You're oh, you're gonna have a hobby while you're actually working.
Speaker:I think that's great And I was like, like this is what I'm gonna do for real
Speaker:and they were like But what is this?
Speaker:So that's like plan C.
Speaker:What does that mean?
Speaker:So were they did you tell them individually or at the same time?
Speaker:At the same time.
Speaker:But it was never like, I don't think we actually had a conversation
Speaker:where I sat him down and I was like, this is what I want to do.
Speaker:I just started doing it, and then I would keep doing it, so after I did
Speaker:that feature, like, the same kind of core of people that did that.
Speaker:We did a short film cause we were like, we're not going to do a feature again.
Speaker:That was not going to take another three years.
Speaker:So we did short after short in a good span of two years.
Speaker:So it was just kind of something that I was already doing.
Speaker:And then when it came time, cause I went to community college first and
Speaker:got my I guess associates degree.
Speaker:I'm not sure.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And once I was going to transfer and pick a major, I was just like I'm doing film.
Speaker:And they were supportive at that point.
Speaker:They didn't because you had been doing it because I had been doing it and they
Speaker:saw like how much that it meant to me.
Speaker:And . I think especially when I was younger now that I'm not 18
Speaker:years old, it it's a lot more like.
Speaker:If you, I'm more comfortable talking about my work with them.
Speaker:Whereas before it was like they don't get it.
Speaker:So I don't really want to get into details.
Speaker:And I don't know, I felt, like I said, I felt understand it more than they used to.
Speaker:Even like when I talked to my dad about literally anything on set,
Speaker:if I say, so I say writing a script or I say someone's directing,
Speaker:he's okay, I'm like following you.
Speaker:But as soon as I mentioned anything technical of leg, are you like, Oh.
Speaker:He goes, sometimes parents just ask arbitrary questions and he has no
Speaker:idea that I have a specific answer.
Speaker:He's oh, what kind of camera do you use?
Speaker:Oh, we use the we use the Dragon Komodo.
Speaker:And he's nope, stop.
Speaker:Nuh next topic.
Speaker:I don't know who, I don't know, I don't know what you mean.
Speaker:I'm like, but dad, it's cool.
Speaker:Cause we had this anamorphic lens.
Speaker:He's no, stop.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:I don't know what you're talking about.
Speaker:I don't understand.
Speaker:No, my parents are just they're just, my mom is just like, Oh, it's always, she's
Speaker:just trying to get me to move back home.
Speaker:Like I'm 32 now.
Speaker:And she's just like I'm from Louisiana and there's a lot of stuff going on
Speaker:back home and she's always this is what's going on, but, and I'm just like
Speaker:yeah, so for you then with your with your parents, I guess they, they might
Speaker:understand more now, especially if you're, if you had the passion and dedication
Speaker:to make a feature in high school.
Speaker:That's amazing.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Over three years.
Speaker:You gotta really like something that you've been working on it that long.
Speaker:And I think now that it's been like 14 years since then they're like, okay,
Speaker:it's just, he's not going to let it go.
Speaker:Let's just let him have it.
Speaker:It's not a phase.
Speaker:It's not a phase.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:But one of the, it's funny.
Speaker:One of the last conversations I had about filmmaking with my mom
Speaker:I made that sound like she's dead.
Speaker:She's not dead.
Speaker:I meant shout out to mom, she's still alive.
Speaker:But the last.
Speaker:time we talked about filmmaking I was like, yeah, I'm writing a script
Speaker:and she's just like just don't spend any money on it and I was like, I'm
Speaker:hoping someone else spends their money because I'm tired of self funding But
Speaker:yeah, I mean using someone else's money to make films is the better way to
Speaker:make it The best way to do something.
Speaker:So did your parents think oh, okay.
Speaker:Yeah, he's making films That's cute.
Speaker:And then he'll go on to something that'll actually, make himself some money.
Speaker:Yeah for sure I think like Coming out of high school, that was the
Speaker:that was the, their plan for me.
Speaker:They said, okay, you're, I know you're having fun with filmmaking,
Speaker:but when are you going to get like serious about something else?
Speaker:And I flirted with the ideas of doing something else,
Speaker:but nothing ever came to me.
Speaker:It was never really came or stuck.
Speaker:With your father being from Mexico cause the Latin community is
Speaker:like the entertainment industry.
Speaker:For tv and film and music it's getting way exploding in the latin community i'm not
Speaker:saying that it hasn't already been there, but it's just going dummy crazy right now.
Speaker:Do you ever in any of your Previous films that you've made Have you ever gone down
Speaker:back down to mexico to shoot anything?
Speaker:Over there because i'm sure you visited it, but it's you know
Speaker:Ever, shot anything down there.
Speaker:I took my camera when we did a family trip back You Maybe in 2010, like when
Speaker:I was just first starting to get into it but I didn't shoot anything specifically.
Speaker:I didn't have a script.
Speaker:I would just like shoot parts of the streets because, they looked really cool.
Speaker:But there's, because that film El Mariachi was a Mexican film like I think that's
Speaker:part of why it stuck with me so much.
Speaker:Cause I finally saw you self identified.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:So people who look like you, people who were, people you
Speaker:can relate to, yeah, for sure.
Speaker:And I think, that's obviously a big part of it.
Speaker:That movie shot in Mexico.
Speaker:So I always felt I want to shoot in Mexico one day.
Speaker:What would you shoot in Mexico?
Speaker:Like right now you have whatever funding for whatever idea you have.
Speaker:What, cause I'm sure you have a couple of different things on your chopping block
Speaker:that you want to, especially since you're a writer, they always have 40 ideas.
Speaker:They only want to go with two or three of them.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:What type of, if you could go to Mexico to shoot something right now, what
Speaker:type of thing would you do down there?
Speaker:Genre wise?
Speaker:There's this genre is kind of, I can't really identify it yet because
Speaker:it's still on like the incubation stage but I was writing a treatment
Speaker:for a film about it's a period piece in Mexico, like 1900s, early 1900s.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:So that's something I would, I'd want to shoot in Mexico and that
Speaker:was like, it's not a horror film.
Speaker:Maybe more of a thriller, but it has like horror elements to it.
Speaker:Yeah, you know I don't see a lot of period pieces done in Mexico.
Speaker:So that's why I say this is actually quite interesting I don't think I can't
Speaker:think of one off of the top of my head I am sure there are some that I just
Speaker:am ignorant to like I just might never heard of but I can't think of any Oh,
Speaker:the audience would be like, how dare you?
Speaker:You don't know I guarantee you about to get like a bunch of emails and
Speaker:messages Oh, you don't know this one that I know and to be fair.
Speaker:So speaking of movie history, I recently a good friend of mine
Speaker:my birthday was early this month.
Speaker:And a good friend of mine.
Speaker:No, thank you.
Speaker:Took me down to the, he was like, oh, you wanna do Warner Brothers tour?
Speaker:I used to go to film school right across from there.
Speaker:So I've been on that tour a bit, and I have not been on it in years.
Speaker:Anyway he was like, oh, he wants, we go, whatever, I don't really care.
Speaker:Went on the tour.
Speaker:And there was this guy there who was like, Oh, you guys just shout
Speaker:out some, I think his name's Dan.
Speaker:He's like a tour guide there, whatever.
Speaker:It's like shout out to Dan.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Shout out to Dan.
Speaker:Cause he was like, Oh, Do you guys name some movies?
Speaker:And then, I might, see how I can Cater it specifically to you guys,
Speaker:things that you might like, right?
Speaker:And people were shouting out things like, oh, friends.
Speaker:And then they said some stuff that WB doesn't own.
Speaker:So he can't do anything with Marvel movies and stuff like that.
Speaker:And then I was like, Oh, hey, watch this.
Speaker:I'm about to stump him.
Speaker:I was like, Oh, how about the 1939 movie?
Speaker:The women, he was like.
Speaker:The women I see.
Speaker:I see how you're confused.
Speaker:Because actually we do own the remake.
Speaker:The other women that came out in the 1950s, but actually back in the
Speaker:1939, it was made by MGM and it was like, whoa, this man knows his stuff.
Speaker:You do his stuff.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Whoa.
Speaker:I guarantee you somebody like that is about to begin this comic savant.
Speaker:You don't know, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:What are some of your major influences that you would say to you currently?
Speaker:For sure.
Speaker:Rodriguez has always stuck with me, even though his movies
Speaker:aren't liked by everyone.
Speaker:Every time I say Robert Rodriguez is my influence, people like, snicker.
Speaker:They're like, ah, really?
Speaker:And it's not his, the, it's not his movies, but it's the way he makes movies.
Speaker:He's very tenacious.
Speaker:He's very self I guess self supportive, is that?
Speaker:He's self he's not dependent on a lot of other people.
Speaker:He's self sustaining, I think that's what I was yeah, self sustaining.
Speaker:But when it comes to like actual like films that I love obviously
Speaker:there's Martin Scorsese and Quentin Tarantino and Christopher Nolan.
Speaker:Or just, I know those are like very basic answers, but they make great movies.
Speaker:So there's a reason, there's a reason why they're big time.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:They're so cliche.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Is there like a specific genre that you usually find yourself
Speaker:writing more than others?
Speaker:I think so.
Speaker:I think drama.
Speaker:Even though that term is so broad.
Speaker:But, right now, I'm writing a sports drama.
Speaker:That's Have you guys seen The Wrestler?
Speaker:With Mickey Rourke?
Speaker:It's got that kind of grittiness to it.
Speaker:But it's about baseball.
Speaker:And I'm not like, I watch a lot of football, but I don't
Speaker:want to chill out of baseball.
Speaker:Like I'm not an expert in baseball whatsoever, so I kind of embrace
Speaker:that challenge to make something about baseball without having
Speaker:it feel like a baseball movie.
Speaker:If that makes sense.
Speaker:What made you want to make this film?
Speaker:And it's about an aging baseball player that's trying to make it back into the
Speaker:pros after being gone for 12 years.
Speaker:To me, it's about following a dream.
Speaker:And yeah, so you're basically, what you're doing is you're writing
Speaker:a story about somebody going through something and baseball just
Speaker:happens to be the vehicle to do it.
Speaker:And who knows in two weeks, the thing could be about like
Speaker:bobsledding instead, yeah.
Speaker:That's how the writing goes, isn't it?
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:The, I feel like the points that I want to make with this film
Speaker:are driven around the characters.
Speaker:Not so much about what what they're doing not to say that what they're doing
Speaker:is not what it's about, but like you said, it's what they're going through
Speaker:that kind of drives the narrative.
Speaker:So in your writing process, are you a pantser or an outliner?
Speaker:Cause I hope I'm, I die hard outlines.
Speaker:I cannot do, I don't like, not that I can't write on the fly, but I
Speaker:just, I don't like doing it when I'm professionally developing something.
Speaker:What did you say?
Speaker:A pantser?
Speaker:A pantser.
Speaker:People who write by their pants.
Speaker:People who, they just sit down at a screen and like, all right, cool.
Speaker:Type, until they feel like they're done.
Speaker:And there are some people.
Speaker:I wasn't Quentin, Quentin Tarantino's, I think he said now he only outlines
Speaker:to like the middle, the mid point, and then he doesn't do anything.
Speaker:How about you?
Speaker:So I feel like my process is all over the place.
Speaker:And I'm still like, even to this day, trying to figure out what the process is.
Speaker:But what's been working for me, like in the last six months, at
Speaker:least, because now I write every day, every single day I'm writing.
Speaker:But before that, I was like, very kind of Things were sporadic and only when kind of
Speaker:inspiration came out, sit down and write.
Speaker:But in this last month with this baseball project that I've been working on I've
Speaker:been determined to write every day.
Speaker:And the way that started was got a pen and paper because I don't
Speaker:know, it's to me, the pen and paper is so almost therapeutic.
Speaker:Because I'm doing something.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:I'm doing something with my body, at least with my hands.
Speaker:And there's not distractions as opposed to typing as opposed to typing.
Speaker:But that's so my writing, like when I sit down to write, I got a pen and
Speaker:paper and I just start writing whatever.
Speaker:So usually it'll start as a journal entry.
Speaker:So it's a panther then?
Speaker:Nice.
Speaker:As you say, that's a warm up right there.
Speaker:It's the journaling kind of, it's a, it's like an introduction.
Speaker:Because usually the first line is, I don't want to write, that's the first line.
Speaker:I don't want to be doing this right now, but I'm here anyway, so I'm going
Speaker:to try to come up with something.
Speaker:And then I start developing like plot points and stuff.
Speaker:So the journal kind of transforms into this outline.
Speaker:So the way I'm writing my script today.
Speaker:Is I started with handwritten notes, then I typed the outline once I had
Speaker:an outline kind of together in those handwritten notes and then off the
Speaker:outline, I'm writing the script, but I still start every day with
Speaker:a journal entry just to it sounds, it's almost it's quite interesting.
Speaker:I I hear a lot about I talked to other writers.
Speaker:Once they get started, they won't stop, but it's about starting that engine.
Speaker:That's like the hardest part.
Speaker:So I think that's a really good idea to warm up first with something just
Speaker:easy that has nothing to do with journaling or something like that.
Speaker:Because then you're like, oh, it's already warm by the time you're trying to
Speaker:actually really get into the thick of it.
Speaker:Yeah, and I've heard that it Clears the cobwebs.
Speaker:Because I write not first thing in the morning.
Speaker:I watch a little bit of tv in the morning because it I don't
Speaker:know I Spurs on the creativity.
Speaker:It doesn't really spur the creativity.
Speaker:I watch very bad television in the morning, when I have my coffee and then
Speaker:I it's just to wake up but i'll start writing and Yeah, it'll just start as a
Speaker:journal entry to transcend into Dialogue.
Speaker:It seems like you could, you would be writing like, I don't want to do this
Speaker:right now because it makes me feel like a cowboy and blah, blah, blah.
Speaker:And then all of a sudden you're just like, Oh, wow, I guess I'm writing some cowboys.
Speaker:Yeah, this is this is a story, yeah.
Speaker:I think the, what eventually happens is I trick my brain.
Speaker:Like it's all about trying to trick my brain.
Speaker:Cause I overthink too much.
Speaker:And I'm like, okay.
Speaker:I'm already here.
Speaker:Like I've already sat down.
Speaker:I might as well come up with something.
Speaker:Have you seen X Men 97?
Speaker:I know this is a hard left turn.
Speaker:Have you seen X Men 97?
Speaker:X Men is doing nothing but talking about X Men 97.
Speaker:Oh my gosh, it's so good.
Speaker:I haven't seen it.
Speaker:Yeah, you gotta check it out.
Speaker:If you were a fan of the old X Men cartoons, it picks up
Speaker:where the old one left off.
Speaker:Really?
Speaker:Yeah the only reason I bring it is relevant.
Speaker:It is relevant, Nicholas.
Speaker:How is it relevant, DJ?
Speaker:Please, I would love to hear the bridge on this.
Speaker:It is relevant because there's a whole bunch of elements in the script itself
Speaker:that they say they took directly how they used to make stuff back in the 90s.
Speaker:So back when they used to come up with the used to be Saturday
Speaker:morning cartoons type stuff, right?
Speaker:Since they're using the same showrunners from back then, they said they're trying
Speaker:to carry over their writer's room.
Speaker:. And it really shows because the type of writing that you would see in
Speaker:like cartoons and TV shows and movies back then is a little bit darker.
Speaker:Or in, they're more, especially in the nineties, way, way easier
Speaker:to have a subject matter about.
Speaker:Darker themes and, the general public than it is now, now they
Speaker:were just throwing stuff at the wall And just seeing what was sticking.
Speaker:Yeah, but you had like episodes of hey Arnold that were about like, oh My
Speaker:separated from my daughter in Vietnam, but I got read, you know We they
Speaker:would just do things out of nowhere rugrats would have stuff like that.
Speaker:Yeah, I could power I was like, oh my I'm gonna deal with the death of my mother
Speaker:in this kids TV show Yeah, crazy, Yeah.
Speaker:TV is a different monster because you're constantly coming up with episodes
Speaker:and different, scenarios for, is there any films of yours that you would
Speaker:think they'd do pretty good in TV?
Speaker:I have this sci fi short film that again is more of a drama, but it has those
Speaker:elements of sci fi to drive the story.
Speaker:It's about being able to, jump into parallel dimensions and I feel like the
Speaker:frequency okay yeah I saw some of that because you when you sent me your Vimeo
Speaker:you have four or five short films so you have the one where it was an apocalypse
Speaker:And I think that was like one of the first things I ever the one that made that won
Speaker:the it was in 2016 that won the award.
Speaker:Yeah, only me.
Speaker:Only me.
Speaker:2016.
Speaker:So yeah, parallel dimensions.
Speaker:There's always so much you can do with that.
Speaker:If anything's proven that you can look at brick and mortar in there.
Speaker:800 episodes.
Speaker:Yeah, but it's also but the thing is whenever something is very malleable
Speaker:or when something has a lot of possibilities, you also as I'm.
Speaker:Sure, you guys both know as writers, it's also very easy to be lazy about it,
Speaker:because there are so many possibilities.
Speaker:And I know a lot of people have said this, but, the MCU is a perfect example of being
Speaker:lazy about, the endless possibilities that you can go through with it.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And I think when I was writing the frequency, it was, I
Speaker:took a different approach.
Speaker:It was it's a little bit woo, but I was just like, I was stuck.
Speaker:I was just stuck.
Speaker:I didn't know what to make.
Speaker:And I just sat there for 10 minutes and I said, whatever comes
Speaker:to me, I'm going to write down.
Speaker:And that's what came to me.
Speaker:Like a guy that was obsessed with something in his garage and
Speaker:was separated from his family.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:'cause he had the helmet on his head and he me spoiling all the movie
Speaker:man . Oh, niggas gave me spoiling.
Speaker:I was watching this, I was like, oh, that's, you can spoiled
Speaker:you the entire movie, man.
Speaker:That's just the beginning.
Speaker:So you're good.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:But no spoiling.
Speaker:Yeah, no spoilers.
Speaker:Spoiled.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:But you didn't say spoil the warning at all.
Speaker:Some people, especially nowadays, they're like, oh, there are characters in this.
Speaker:You spoiled it.
Speaker:You spoiled it for me, and now I was putting the helmet on the
Speaker:head and listening to the spoiler.
Speaker:I guarantee you, the same person who says that we should have known
Speaker:that movie I'm the same person who's gonna say that, and I didn't know.
Speaker:The helmet spoiler!
Speaker:Oh my gosh!
Speaker:It's been real great having you on the show, is there
Speaker:somewhere people can follow you?
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:I'm on Instagram at Diego double underscore two underscores, NAV, N A V.
Speaker:Do you have any projects you want to plug?
Speaker:Anything?
Speaker:Nothing to plug yet.
Speaker:I just, I'm working on that script.
Speaker:So hopefully, I can come back here and talk about that once it's done.
Speaker:Yeah, of course.
Speaker:Please.
Speaker:Definitely.
Speaker:Definitely.
Speaker:Guys, This has been Film Center News.
Speaker:I'm Derek Johnson II.
Speaker:I'm Nicholas Killian.
Speaker:And we're here with Diego Navarro.
Speaker:And we'll see you next time.
Speaker:See ya.
Speaker:See ya.
Speaker:This has been Film Center on Comic Con Radio.
Speaker:Check out our previous episodes at comicconradio.
Speaker:com.
Speaker:You can follow the show at Film Center News on all major social media platforms.
Speaker:Tune in next Wednesday for a fresh update.
Speaker:Until next time, this has been Film Center.
Speaker:Hey, do you like manga, Nick and I are big fans of the genre.
Speaker:Yeah, we recently discovered a manga named Tamashii.
Speaker:It's written and created by Ryan McCarthy, and it recently just
Speaker:came out with its 10th volume.
Speaker:Now, Tamashii is an isekai about a girl who gets transported to another
Speaker:world called the Ancient Lands.
Speaker:She gains mysterious powers and must fight demons and monsters to find her way home.
Speaker:Check it out on Amazon, Blurp, and get a physical copy at ryanmccarthyproductions.
Speaker:com.
