At the End of the Night

Synopsis

On the night of a gang's initiation, a potential new member must murder two innocent civilians to gain the respect of his brother's gang.

The Experience

As a freshman at film school, I was still adjusting to the fact that I had people willing to collaborate at my disposal. The unique aspect of Chapman University's Dodge College is the fact that not everyone there is trying to be a director. There was a major for everything: cinematography, production design, visual effects/digital arts, and even screen acting. By the end of my first semester, I had created my first "three act structure" short film, "At the End of the Night," which was inspired by the recent gang activity surrounding my campus.

The project guidelines were simple, have three acts in a short film using little to no dialogue. I gathered three different Director of Photographers (one for each act), a production designer, a VFX supervisor, some real actors for a change, and a graphic designer. Above all, this film was the biggest learning curve I had ever encountered, and was the foundation for my later films.

Creating a Backstory

Working with a graphic designer for the first time, I had very little knowledge of how to "direct" him. I came up with the gang's name, "The Black Lotus", and just said I needed a very minimalist logo for tattoos, stickers, and graffiti. After a few designs, I was given this logo and never looked back.

Motion Graphics

Not being able to use dialogue, I improvised the story by having it told through a phone. Getting a close-up of an actual phone to see a message seemed like a cheap way of doing it, so I worked with a student who was studying graphic design at Chapman. This way of storytelling through text was a technique I greatly valued, and extended even further in my later films.