Copyright by Jason Eric Outenreath 2016 The report committee for Jason Eric Outenreath certifies that this is the approved version of the following report: La Sobreviviente / Salvation APPROVED BY SUPERVISING COMMITTEE: Supervisor: _____________________________ Stuart Kelban _____________________________ Andrew Garrison _____________________________ Donna DeCesare La Sobreviviente / Salvation By Jason Eric Outenreath, B.A. Report Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of the University of Texas at Austin in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Fine Arts The University of Texas at Austin December 2016 Acknowledgements My graduate thesis film was made possible with the help of many professors, fellow students, and Austin community members. I am indebted to the University of Texas at Austin and the tireless faculty and staff who dedicated their time to helping me make the best film possible. I would like to especially thank my thesis supervisor, Stuart Kelban, as well as Andrew Garrison, and Donna DeCesare. Without their guidance and inspiration this film could not have come to fruition. I would like to also thank Steve Mims, Charles Ramirez Berg, Jeremy Gruy, and Susanne Kraft. On a personal level I would like to thank my parents for their endless support, as well as the entire cast and crew of the film, without whom the film would not have been possible. Films are truly made with armies, and are collaborative by their very nature. Finally, I would like to acknowledge the exceptional educational program that has guided me these past three years to this point in my life and career. The University of Texas at Austin runs a world-class MFA film program taught by world-class professors. I felt supported at both individual and institutional levels, and am deeply grateful for the opportunity to have studied at this school. These past three years have completely changed the trajectory of my life and career, and in particular myself as a filmmaker. In a good way. iv Abstract La Sobreviviente / Salvation by Jason Eric Outenreath, M.F.A. The University of Texas at Austin, 2016 Supervisor: Stuart Kelban My thesis as an MFA candidate, La Sobreviviente / Salvation, is a narrative short film. After Mariela, an undocumented Mexican immigrant is diagnosed with kidney failure, her daughter Jenni and husband Leo must safely smuggle her into Mexico in order for her to receive the dialysis treatments she needs for her survival. Through this paper, I will discuss the process of creating this film. Additionally, this paper will focus on the ways in which writing and directing this film have changed me as a filmmaker and a person. Specifically, how my time at the University of Texas at Austin has completely altered my philosophies on both media creation and ingestion. v Table of Contents Inspiration and Reflection…………………………………………………………………........1 Introduction to Salvation………………………………………………………………………..3 Chapter 1: Pre-Production……………………………………………………………………...4 Chapter 2: Production…………………………………………………………………………..8 Day 1……………………………………………………………………………………...8 Day 2……………………………………………………………………………………...9 Day 3……………………………………………………………………………………..11 Day 4……………………………………………………………………………………..13 Day 5……………………………………………………………………………………..14 Day 6……………………………………………………………………………………..15 Day 7……………………………………………………………………………………..16 Pickups…………………………………………………………………………………...19 Chapter 3: Post-Production……………………………………………………………………20 Chapter 4: Conclusion…………………………………………….……………………....……22 Appendix 1: Shooting Script…………………………………………………………………...23 Appendix 2: Original 2010 Script…………………………………………………….………..39 vi Inspiration and Reflection This report acknowledges and reflects upon the completion of my graduate studies at the University of Texas at Austin. I have always had a difficult time accepting any individual project as a culmination. Partly this is a reflection of the reality of being a filmmaker, in which the pressure to constantly produce new work is virtually never ending. The other part is having the humility to admit, candidly, that the completion of a thesis film at the graduate level, while a worthy accomplishment, provides no guarantees in life, or as a filmmaker. Students approach film school with many different goals. Some enter with the expectation that their projects will carry their careers to the next level. Others join for the contacts they will make in the industry that will lead them to a job, or to future collaborators. My reason for applying to, and attending the University of Texas at Austin, was simply to learn as much as possible about becoming the best filmmaker I could be. I have never seen the degree in and of itself as an end. It is part of a journey that will continue, hopefully forever. I knew there was no guarantee that I would have a job waiting for me upon graduation, or that any of my projects would achieve even modest acclaim. For me, that wasn’t part of the plan. Improving as a filmmaker and artist was. It would be extremely presumptuous to think that at 29, I have a signature style that I have perfected. I utilized film school to try many different styles of filmmaking, some more successful than others. It was a big experiment for me to discover what kind of filmmaker I wanted to be. And at the end of three years, I feel I am much closer to discovering that than I was upon coming into the program. 1 Salvation is my most personal project to date, tying together numerous interests and life events that have occurred over the last fifteen years. I lived in Nicaragua three times over the past ten years, the longest stint being two and a half years as a Peace Corps Volunteer. I lived and studied in Mexico for a year. And my father suffered from kidney failure. I was the donor. Although I am not Latino, nor do I have Latino roots, I feel a deep connection to Latino culture, the Spanish language, and political issues affecting Latino communities in the US and abroad. The first draft of Salvation was actually completed in 2010 while I was a Peace Corps volunteer in Nicaragua. It needed significant changes, however, to arrive at what it became. Much of the credit for those improvements can be credited to professor Stuart Kelban. I have included the 2010 draft as well as the shooting draft as points of contrast in the appendices of this document. 2 Introduction to Salvation In 2006, I was a senior at Terra Linda High School. It was a difficult year academically, but also personally. My father, several years earlier, had been diagnosed with kidney failure, and his situation had steadily deteriorated. The transplant happened in June of 2010, right after I got my diploma—I was the donor. At 18 I didn’t really consider the consequences of that turn our family had taken, or my decision to help my father. But later I was told it saved his life, and that he would have died in a matter of months without the transplant. The wait lists for anonymous donors is long, and it would have taken many years for my father to have qualified. My family was fortunate to have health insurance, which paid for the operations. This life event served as the initial inspiration for my thesis film. Two years earlier I had served as an Amigos de las Americas volunteer in Nicaragua for a summer. Basically, the high school version of Peace Corps. You sell poinsettias and boxes of grapefruit to fund your trip, and spend two months in a rural community assisting in teaching classes. Of course, I was pretty useless. My Spanish was poor, I was timid, and did not have much to offer a community that had lived fine without me before I arrived. That said, the experience did leave a deep impression on me that would direct my work as a filmmaker as well as a person. In 2010 I joined the Peace Corps out of college and was sent back to Nicaragua. That’s when I wrote the first draft of Salvation. I was inspired by the political and social problems surrounding healthcare in the United States, and re-imagined my father’s situation in the context of an undocumented immigrant family. 3 Chapter 1: Pre-Production Pre-production for Salvation began in the fall of 2015. It was during that time that I met Sheridan Aguirre, who would become one of the producers of the film. While I continued to edit the script, Sheridan and I began visiting locations, talking about scenes in the film, and discussing the logistics related to the shoot which was slated to happen in February of 2016. It soon became clear, however, that a February shoot date was overly optimistic. There were major logistical hurdles to overcome, including finding a location for the border checkpoint scene, gaining access to an operational dialysis clinic, and finding a house that was consistent with the vision of the film. Not to mention casting, which took a long time, but was made a wonderful experience by my collaboration with Christine Grasso, an undergraduate RTF student. She ended up becoming an extremely reliable and critical person in the pre-production of the film. We had three casting sessions for the four principal characters, as well as an additional day reserved for the doctor and border guard. The most difficult role to cast was that of the young girl, Jenni. Not only were we searching for a talented younger actress, but also one who was natively fluent in both English and Spanish. We auditioned many who were deficient enough in one language or the other as to stand out to a native audience, regardless of their acting talents. The girl we ended up casting, Regina Casillas, was the first actress offered a role. She brought professionalism and a dedicated work ethic to the film, and had, up until then, never acted in a movie before. 4 It was during this time that Sheridan expressed a desire to bring on additional producers, since he was extremely busy in his final semester as a student in the RTF program.