When you give students free range on a project (with the handcuffing limitation of an altogether WEIRD script), this is the byproduct: drugs experimentation, talking to one’s own personified conscience, and weird costumes. So, what was it like making this rather weird film? To say it politely, it was difficult.

So, what was this film about? Well basically the concept we tried to portray was that Blu, after drug use, goes through paranoia while talking to his personified conscience, Galvez. Then, Spider (a real person) comes in and has no idea that Galvez is there since it is just Blu’s imagination. Spider, though, goes through the same paranoia that Blu does. In the end, we realize that New York’s colorful history is what is actually causing these reactions. So, do you think we were successful in making this theme understandable using a script we weren’t allowed to alter? Considering our limiting factors, I think we did a pretty nice job.

This film was the ultimate group project: either you come out loving your group or hating the entire world. While I can’t speak for the rest of my group, I think fighting through the crazy hours (and script), hunger induced anger, and impossible task of memorizing lines (which we hardly did) actually brought us all together. Allow me to set the scene: our production of the film actually was filmed at The Douglaston Manor, the catering hall I work at as a waiter. We filmed in one of the bridal suites (which is 100% haunted: ask the group/anyone who works there). Although it seemed to be a good place to film in theory, in practice it was difficult not only because of timing, but also because of it’s location. It is in Douglaston, which is the north-east-most part of Queens (yes yes it’s still Queens), which was not easy for most of the group to get to. Also, our time was extremely limited: we needed a night which satisfied every need of ours: I had to not have work that night, there had to not be a party going on in which the bridal suite would be needed, and the Manor actually closes somewhat early on nights without parties. So, after that was sorted out and we started filming, we realized that this script was incredibly hard to memorize since half of it is literally “who,” “what,” and “yikes.” One night actually, there was a party going on, and not only were we often interrupted by my coworkers coming in and laughing, but I was also asked to come down to the kitchen (in full costume) and help with dinner service for about 300 people, which needless to say, used a big chuck of our time that night. On top of all of that, each day we filmed, we basically survived on water and pizza each time, eating pizza from different pizzerias every night. On the last day of filming, which took almost 9 hours, we actually didn’t eat at all… maybe that’s why the end of the film goes all cuckoo-cuckoo! So, did we actually memorize our lines? OF COURSE NOT! As a group, we spent so much time with camera angles to hide the fact that scripts (on the computer and on paper) were actually hidden all over the scene. (This can be seen in the window scene, where we actually held scripts under the cloth over the windowpane).

My favorite part of the film-making process was actually finishing it: the end product was so much better than I thought it was going to be (because my acting sucks so much!). Honestly I give the whole end product’s credit to Noelia for actually editing the whole movie and making it seem like it was actually a good film! After adding the music, I feel that although it was incredibly frustrating to film, we actually produced a good film (in my opinion).

From a seemingly meaningless script, our production actually did have a meaning to me after our group added our own artistic liberating qualities. What does it mean to me? Well, I feel that New York’s past builds upon itself, similarly to the steps of a pyramid, except it doesn’t have just one direction: it grows in all directions in all types of speeds. In the film, all time periods converge and affect everyone in ways that we yet seem to fully understand.