Director Shavar Ross Speaks About His New Short Movie

How I Got Started

First off I must say that shooting and directing this movie was a great experience for me.  Before shooting this particular short I'd only directed some home movies, a few plays and a commercial.  It all started after basically being bored waiting for that next audition.  I've had to go through this waiting period of the audition process mostly all my life as a professional actor.  The thought never occurred to me that I could do anything else besides acting.  It's all I ever knew to do since I got my start at eight years old.  I've always enjoyed the film and movie-making "process" but knew I had no chance of ever being creative on that side of things since it costs so much to make a movie in the first place.  That is, until digital video technology exploded a few years ago.

I started learning everything thing I could on the subject of digital video.  After two years I taught myself to edit and studied everything I could on computers and digital video cameras.  By the way, Star Wars: Episode II: Attack Of The Clones and Spy Kids 2 were both shot on Sony high definition digital cameras. Directors George Lucas and Robert Rodriguez vow never to shoot a movie on film again.  I'm convinced that digital video technology is the future of filmmaking.  In this new millennium, films or should I say "digital movies" will be a lot cheaper to make as well as produce imagery that far surpasses the clarity of even the best film stock.

Anyway, eventually I ended up purchasing my own camera, a Sony VX-2000 on which we shot the movie Soul To Take.  I did however use a very wide angle lens with the camera as well as making the film a little wider in post production to give the movie more of a cinematic look.  If you saw the movie---it doesn't quite look like film and it doesn't quite look like video either.  That was precisely the effect that I wanted.  The movie has a 16mm progressive scanned look which I like.  I also purchased and use an "all Sony" studio editing system.  Our company has recently purchased Adobe After Effects' (Production Bundle) which is an amazing professional software tool for special effects.  It's also an "industry standard" in Hollywood and every professional editor has this great tool in their arsenal.  I just wish we had it during the time we were editing the movie!

Writing the Movie

I had only a few goals in mind when I wrote this short.  I wanted to really establish my characters.  You don't see established characters in short films these days.  I also wanted to have a lot of "inter-cutting" (a series of shots in various locations), take 3 separate stories and intermingle them all into one climactic ending, and finally to have a spiritual message. I wasn't really trying to do anything original on this particular movie.  I just really wanted to practice my "cuts" as an editor and to get a feel of the camera as a director.  Anyway, I purchased the best scriptwriting software around: Final Draft 6.  It's the best tool to use in my opinion if you're gonna write a screenplay.  After having a basic premise of the movie, I would take my laptop to the library everyday and peck away.  It took about a week for me to come up with about 26 pages.

Shooting the Movie

Shooting the movie was fun, very quick and easy for me.  I probably went too fast for the actors though.  They were very talented but hadn't had as much experience on the set as me.  It was probably good for them since I work like most Hollywood directors on the big budget movie sets.  I also had to work fast because half the time we didn't have all of our locations secured, not to mention the actors had to drive 150 miles (both ways) every time we shot. I was basically on their time and they weren't getting paid but they did have a few good home cooked meals during the shoot.  We shot the movie in Lancaster, California (near the Mojave desert) about 75 miles or so on the outskirts of Hollywood. I'm almost positive that the movie Terminator 3: The Rise of the Machines was shot in some of the exact areas we shot our movie.  You'll have to compare the two if you get both movies.  In Terminator 3, there's dialogue about the Mojave Desert and Victorville. (near us)  I'm also convinced that one desert shot in their movie is exactly the same spot where we shot our movie's opener -- when Nairobi (the angel) makes his trek through the desert. (On the Cover Below)  That area was so gorgeous to shoot and I have heard that they shoot many movies there.

All of the actors were wonderful.  I was pleasantly surprised at how good everyone turned out in the movie after receiving 300 or so pictures of actors from all over town and the nation.  We did do our casting in Hollywood and saw exactly 100 people in 5 hours.   Our original scheduled shoot was 9 days over 3 weekends but everything went so fast we finished early.  We also had to change the ending and title of the movie at the last minute because of a location problem.  The original name of the movie was The Joshua Club.  At the end of the "The Joshua Club" all the characters become friends and reunite for a happy ending at a hip-hop club.  Very unrealistic and corny.  So I decided to make up a climatic ending instead.

Since it was a 26 minute short and not a feature length movie I knew I'd have to leave some things with character development out.  I did feel I had established all of the characters nicely in so little time. 

Post Production

If anyone knows anything about post production and the editing process they'd tell you it takes a lot of patience.  I love editing.  It has taught me patience.  It can be complicated and meticulous at times and very time consuming and mind boggling.  I say mind boggling because you have to have a knowledge of computers and how non-linear editing works. Murphy's law is truly in effect when you're editing.  It actually took me a little over 2 weeks to edit the movie.  Longer than the movie shoot itself.  The good part was that since I was also the editor of the movie I practically had a "rough cut" of each scene done the next day after we shot it.  When the actors would show up to shoot the next day they were shocked to see the work they'd done practically edited.  I did this in hopes to encourage them.  To let them know I was serious about my newfound talents.  All in all we got some good clean cuts in the movie.

A Lot of Symbolism in the Movie

Believe it or not the movie has a lot of symbolism in it.  In the beginning I chose to shoot the period piece in black and white, symbolic of good versus evil.  In the alley scene I wanted it very dark, almost silhouette like.  Notice in the opening scene in the alley there's a big bright light in the background.  It's the only light in the scene.  Well, that light to me represents God's love shining even in the darkness.  If you notice, I use the bright sun a few times in scenes -- representing God overlooking us all.  The movie also looks very "hot" on some of actors and you will even see a few glares of the sun coming through to the camera lens as Stacie talks to Rochelle in one scene.  All this is symbolic of a higher power overhead. 

There is also symbolism with the two angelic human-like beings Nairobi and Azrael.  Even though Azrael is white, good-looking and debonair, he's the evil one and Nairobi, the black man is the good angel.  A black man that big (tall) in movies is usually the bad guy so I tried something a little different.

I also wanted to deal with black on black crime and how the cycle continuously repeats itself for the African-American youth of today.  If you notice the beginning scene with the two thugs is almost an exact repeat of what happens towards the end of the movie with OC and Dane.  OC and Dane both escape the scene the same way Dax and Rob does (in the beginning) which is symbolic of how some African-American youth run from the responsibility of their bad actions.

There's also a message in there between Stacie and her boyfriend Rob.  Message: Some people will hold you back from your dreams in life if you let them. 

Anyway, I hope this gives you a better understanding of the the movie and why I made it.