Happy New Year, Everybody!
Kicking off the Celtx Project of the Week for 2009 is an entertaining short action film by Juan Pennisi of Barcelona-based Stone Brokers Productions. "AS DE TRÉBOL, AS DE CORAZONES'"/ "ACE OF CLUBS, ACE OF HEARTS" is a great achievement for Juan and his small crew, especially when you consider it was made on a budget of less than 300€ (including the € 199 Canon MD101 they shot it with), and that none of the actors had ever acted before!
Made entirely with Celtx, a view of the project's Master Catalog shows how Juan put the application through it's paces, from writing the script, breaking it down, storyboarding each scene, and carefully planning the lighting, camera shots, special effects and other details to ensure the film evokes his own unique cinematic style. Read on as Juan explains in detail how the making of the film came about...
"I am 29 years old and started learning about cinematography only 4 years ago, when I moved to Barcelona to do so. “Ace of Clubs” is my second short film because shortly after moving here I was hired at a huge production company as one of its director’s personal assistant, where I basically learned all I know. A year ago I dropped everything because I needed to experiment myself, and because I wanted to dedicate myself to fictional story telling, movie making, not commercials. I began preparing a huge short with a calculated budget of over 70.000€ Euros but was only able to gather 15.000€ and the project froze... In my despair I shot “Ace of Clubs” instead, mainly to prove money was not an issue. So no money, no team, the cheapest camera I could find... And the short was created.
Since we had no budget, to get started we first did an inventory of all we had; locations, props, wardrobe, and out of that came inspiration for our ideas. My actors had never done anything before so I wrote the kind of movie I thought they’d like to be in. Guns and action, but even that’s not necessarily my kind of movie.
As for my roles in the project,... Basically I was everything except for actor, even though I did use my arms and hands as stand-ins for some shots haha... I wrote it together with two of the actors, and was the only member of the technical team except for my girlfriend, who helped me out editing the color and designing the promo stuff. I lit, directed, located, everything... It had a lot of pro’s... The larger the team the larger the probability for disaster... At least here in Spain hehe...
Currently I am writing my first feature film script. In the mean time my intention is to continue shooting shorts, trying to create some noise in festivals, and eventually try to produce my first feature film. Right now we’re writing, with Celtx, of course, a short about mountain climbers. Will be up on Celtx very soon ;) (well... A couple of months I guess).
Juan said he had Celtx on his Mac for a looong time... "And right when I was writing “Ace of Clubs” (in Final Draft) I opened Celtx and somehow mysteriously immediately connected with it. Haven’t dropped it since!"
So it just goes to show, Folks... You don't need no Hollywood budget to get the job done... Just a few inspired and resourceful bodies that aren't afraid to get their hands dirty, a camera, and some good old imagination (powered by Celtx ;)... et Voila!
All the best to you Juan, and to Emi, Diego and Gas. You should all be very proud.
Cheers!.. and good luck with that feature.
Sheila and The C-Team
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