“El Astronauta” is a written film, directed, produced and starring Manuel Trotta. A talented Venezuelan young filmmaker with whom I had the pleasure of collaborating in editing for this short film.
Early 2017, Manuel already had a rough cut but he felt it was very long (It was over 30 minutes) and wanted the vision of an editor with fresh eyes to keep it in a Short Film format (around 20 minutes or less).
I felt that the story flowed very well with his original cut. To my personal taste, I like slow and contemplative films… stay a while in the actor’s eyes, etc… but, too long. “The Astronaut” had the participation of Luigi Sciamanna (great Venezuelan actor) with whom I enjoy his time on screen. The challenge was how to preserve that spirit but telling the story in a short timeline.
We explored many options using Adobe Premiere and Manuel was always very close. Sometimes we did sessions in remote sharing my screen with him using Skype. In each scene we took it with special care and we debated how it could be better in every section of the story. Manuel is very calm and has an open mind to explore (like astronauts should be) to carry out the project. My job was more like from the HQ in Houston to guide him in his endeavour. 😉
Alberto (Manuel), the main character of the short film, is a successful businessman. For his work he receives many calls to his cell phone from his assistant. During the story, this type of actions are important to maintain the context of the reality that this character lives and that contrasts with the reality of his father (Luigi), a retired old man in a rural area and who already has symptoms of dementia. Many times, Alberto said on the phone that he was about to leave to return to the city. Obviously there was pressure from his work but, when that happens many times in the film, I felt that he was a person who was lying repeatedly … in the context it was logical that he stay more time with his dad but on the other side, I felt that I was damaging Alberto’s image of the successful businessman by someone who was constantly lying to his assistant. The solution was to eliminate certain moments of the phone conversation to avoid the Alberto’s phrase “I’m leaving”.
This is an example of what fresh eyes can contribute to the project. The way in which we perceive the characters (beyond what is contemplated in the script) is key for the story to reach the audience correctly. And this was a situation that not only helped us to tell the story in less time but also to the dynamics of the characters.
During 2018, “El Astronauta” has been traveling in different film festivals and has garnered several awards: 2 Audience Awards from the Latino Media Fest and the Ojai Short Film Festival and Programmers Awards from Pittsburgh Film Festival.
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