LOS ANGELES - What do you call a kid who makes his first movie at nine years of age? Mature beyond his years? Gifted, or perhaps someone special who was born to make movies? All these descriptions fit Ruben Guevara the III. He had as a child and still has, as a current UCLA freshman, an unquenchable desire for making movies.
Ruben was recognized by Warner Bros. for his filmmaking ability. He was awarded their first 'Warner Bros. Film and Television Scholarship' of $10,000 and an additional $2,500 for each of the following three years at UCLA.
Michelle Crozier, Director of Corporate Responsibility for Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc., said about Ruben, "He is a very creative guy and a very technical filmmaker too. He is very prolific. I received a reel from him recently of his most recent film and he is very positive for sure about what he is doing."
In Part II we covered the filmmaking achievements of Ruben in his early teenage years.
RUBEN CONTINUES ANSWERING QUESTIONS ABOUT HIS FILM MAKING:
ET: How were you able to win the $10,000 Scholarship award?
RG: I submitted three of my films. One was a silent short piece, Slippery When Wet, with music in the background about this guy who was really obsessed with fish, and he ends up going crazy and tries to kill his fish. Finally, one of his fish manages to flop into the hallway and this introduces him to this other girl.
The reason he goes crazy and tries to kill all his fish [the film states none of the fish were actually killed] is because his girl friend left him over his obsession with fish. But he turns away from his obsession and this brings him to find new love.
Another film I submitted was the Supreme Court Film, Court of Carnage IV . The third film was one of my short "noir" films that I did.
ET: What is "noir"?
RG: Noir is a style of film that Hollywood made in response to the advent of television in the 1950's that sort of pushed the envelope on the MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America) restrictions.
The MPAA is the association that monitors whether a film will get a certain rating, like an R or G rating. And since television came out showing films, the movie industry had to be reprocessed to figure out how to encourage people to see movies in theatres and not just on TV.
So they decided to make going to the films like a movie-going experience, so that is where that term comes from. They reformatted their screens, and not just technical changes occurred, but their films became less family oriented, and they became more violent, darker, even racier like in terms of the sexuality that was portrayed. Noir was the first style that explored these new genre styles that people started to get away with more and more out of response to the threat of television.
ET: Were you the only winner of the Warner Bros. contest?
RG: Yes, only one, and it was the first scholarship given for filmmaking. And Warner Bros. selected the winner based on their own review of the films submitted, etc.
ET: Are short films difficult to make?
RG: Short films are the hardest films to make because you have to tell a story in a very short period of time. And most people aren't really used to doing that. Usually with short films it's like telling a joke. You're setting up a situation and you have a punch line at the end, because if you don't have that last feeling of relief or laughter, or a conflict to be resolved at the end of the film, it doesn't work. You need this to have a finished feeling.
So it is all about finding how to tell that quick story. Usually short films don't work as dramas, it is usually comedy based, and so you have to make it funny and fresh. If they turn away in less than three minutes then your film has a definite problem. So then you try to change your story around to keep the audience's attention.
ET: Of the three films which one do you think caught the attention of Warner Bros.?
RG: It might have been the Supreme Court film because it was so different.
RG: Probably the range of story telling, that could have been it. A lot of people [filmmakers] get bogged down in one genre. The Supreme Court was a comedy but was also a horror film because it had elements that I had taken out from other horror films to give it sort of an edge. I had a shower scene with Justice Sandra Day O'Conner, where she becomes a mutant as this guy appears to attack her in the shower.
The attack was really just turning her into a mutant. And it is a classic type scene like this girl turning on the shower faucet, and where you get a shot of the showerhead turning on, and you see her taking of her earrings, etc. So I tried to incorporate scenes from other genre's that caught my attention earlier on, as a little kid, when I was watching a lot of films. Warner Bros. may have seen that my style was eclectic and that it could be interpreted by anyone. If it is interpreted correctly you are doing your job. If it is not, then either your film is too confusing, or it just plain does not make any sense.
But usually my films are pretty straightforward. They are not usually artsy where you have to think about them. They are usually mainstream type films with the story right there in front of you and not muddled with sub-plots, or sub-genres and things like that.
ET: How did you portray Sandra Day O'Connor? Did you use an older actress?
RG: No, I just used one of my friends. One of the funny things about the film was that Justice William Rehnquist was played by a seventy year old man. The rest of the justices were just teenagers that were working with me, so that was interesting.
ET: Did they come across as credible?
RG: No, no, because the whole film itself was a parody, so there was nothing that anyone would expect to be credible. You just had to realize who they were and then based on that it was funnier because you knew they were just kids portraying them. They said these ridiculous things that they actually say in real life so it was more poking fun. Not necessarily childish as the judicial system is right now, but just how ridiculous it has gotten in the last couple of years, starting with the decision in Florida for Bush to be elected as President.
ET: What are your plans for short filmmaking in the near future?
RG: Well, right now, I want to concentrate on my schooling and get my general education (GE) out of the way. I am taking all my GE's at UCLA right now and then hopefully I would have finished those GE's by my second year and my third and fourth years would be devoted to just making films and I would get back into that. It would make me more of a well rounded person if I took those GE classes.
ET: Why did you decide to go to UCLA?
RG: I chose UCLA because it has a great reputation and at the same time it does not cost me very much money. So I think I would rather go into debt for graduate school than to go into debt for undergraduate studies.
ET: Is there a particular aspect of filmmaking that you find attractive and may want to concentrate in?
RG: I am really looking at the overall picture, because I pretty much have to do everything. Every aspect of filmmaking is so masochistic but satisfying at the same time. So that is a big conflict; something you always have to go through in film.
ET: Do you think it may be important to establish yourself with an award-winning short film at one of the film festivals that are so popular today?
RG: It is kind of difficult to do that right now because I use music that is copyrighted and I am not allowed to put them in film festivals. The only thing I can do at the present time is to submit them for scholarships.
ET: But there are short films made without music, right?
RG: I guess I could do that but I have not had the time to do that yet. But I try to incorporate music, because I think music is key to making a good film. Films that I have seen without music are not that good, in my opinion.
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