The Zone
Creative ideas are hard to find because somebody is already doing them or they've already been done. It's easy to go online and research something but as a filmmaker, I want my story to have emotions but most importantly to be authentic. I always get my ideas while I am driving and this day, in particular, I was listening to my latest purchase, "The Trilogy" by The Weekend.
I've always loved the way a song can make you feel. It can bring back past memories and emotions. As I started listening to "The Zone", I paid close attention to the lyrics. The song is about a guy who has just been through a breakup and was left heartbroken. His way of coping with the breakup is by self-medication until he can't "feel a damn thing". As usual, the song starts getting sexual and it talks about the guy hooking up with another girl but is fantasizing about his ex while doing so.
When I got home, I printed out the lyrics and visualized every line in the song. I reversed the roles as if the man in the song is a woman. I used different drugs and sexual acts to compare the pain stages to self-medication. I really wanted to make this authentic and show that not all stories have a happy ending.
The color visuals bounce back and forth from the past to present. The black and white visuals show a young woman reminiscing about the past. As the drug gets more intense, so do the sexual acts.
I shared my story idea with a close friend of mine, Jose Cervantes. We started to draw out concepts, a storyline, and choreography. I then reached out to another friend, Nelly. We have worked together in the past and when she heard my story, she was all in. We still had no idea who the male character was going to be portrayed by. A few days passed and Nelly called me telling me she had found the perfect guy. I wanted to meet him before saying yes, but she assured me that I had nothing to worry about. I am a control freak when it comes to production. Everybody who has worked with me knows that I do not like to waste time and do things wrong.
Production day was finally here and I was really nervous knowing that I was barely going to meet the talent of my story until this day. Jose and I arrived at the hotel to set up while Nelly got ready. We suddenly hear a knock on the door and it was our male actor. This was not just a typical male model, this was Romeo Brown, an actor, model, and director. Romeo was an amazing guy to work with, very relaxed and professional. He pushed us to high limits and wanted this production to come out great just as we did. It was finally time to shoot the last scene and as you watch you can really tell how he brought out every emotion. As Jose and I see the tears coming out of Romeo's eyes, all we could do is stare at each other and silently say, "what the fuck just happened?"