Chris Rodriguez, born in Florida from Argentinian parents, first met Grant Rosado, born in Texas from a Cuban father and an American mother, when they both showed up at their assigned room at Emerson College in Boston. Soon they learned that they got along very well, and also that they shared a lot of common interests, including filmmaking. Since then, they have been partnering in creating shorts and music videos, and when the COVID pandemic hit the school and they had to take online classes, they used the extra time that gave them to write, produce and direct their first feature, Twas the Night, a Christmas story with a thriller twist that has just been released in the US by Vertical Entertainment. We spoke to the young Latinx directors about creating the film, which features a diverse cast that includes Nicole Pringle, David S. Perez, Cynthia D. Perry and Abel Rosario; we also spoke about how education was the key to their evolution as filmmakers.

 

How was the process of making Twas the Night?

Chris Rodriguez: This movie didn’t exist before the pandemic. But then we had all of this time and we wanted to do something with it, and we asked ourselves, “What is a story that we can write that takes place for the most part in one location that we could film with a skeleton crew?” – and that is how the movie was born. We figured that there was going to be a gap in film content, specifically with holiday films, and that we could take advantage of that and tell this story that kind of has a fun spin on the Hallmark genre.

 

How difficult was it to make it happen? It costs money to hire people.

Grant Rosado: It was incredibly difficult, but any challenge is worth facing for your craft. And in terms of how we paid the people, it was mainly just paying them back in points and kind of using the connections that we already had through Emerson College. We decided on a locale in Savannah, Georgia, and we cast the film online: there’s tons of great talent out there that are just looking for opportunities, and we know that if we just harness that, then we are moving in the right direction. 

 

How complicated was it to get actors who were willing to risk working in the early days of the pandemic?

CR:  Really not that difficult. I mean, I think we were at a point where almost every actor in the country was out of work. So, a lot of people were willing to work, and we kind of laid out our COVID plan very clearly for everyone on set – we did a thing where we kind of created our own bubble with everyone in the production. People felt comfortable with that. So, we honestly had a ton of people submit that we had to audition and sort through, but the people we ended up with we think are very talented people – a lot of them had flown in from different cities despite the pandemic, and thankfully nobody got sick on set, everyone was safe, and it all ended up working out.

 

Why did you want to set the story over the Christmas season?

CG: Originally, because of the place we had access to, which was Savannah, Georgia.  We thought the architecture and just the general feel of the town is very folksy, very fairytale and that it would lend itself to a Christmas atmosphere; the reason why the film’s set at Christmas, is basically a case of working with what you have.  In terms of the plot, it’s a different type of story from the usual Christmas sort. The in-laws arrive for the season and they are hiding a dead body, so it’s all very Alfred Hitchcock: it’s taking those elements and wrapping them in a Christmas theme. It’s very Hitchcock, very tense, very Rope-inspired.  Christmas is just kind of the icing on the cake – it’s working with what we have, and that’s why we wanted to make it a Christmas movie.

CR:  We thought it was important to show how a lot of times during the holidays, people are very stressed out and they are worried about making a good impression on their family.  And we wanted to get that, but also to heighten it to every extent that we possibly could: this element of a dead body in the house serves as the trigger to heighten that stress.  And we figured the holidays – especially in times of the pandemic, like last year and this year as well – are a very stressful time.  And although we never specifically mention the pandemic in the film, we wanted to bring that feeling into the holiday movie genre. 

 

In the film, one of the leads is a Latino actor.  Is that a statement, or was it because he was the best of the people who auditioned for the role?

CG: We cast the film just off talent really. And we thought David was incredible – his facial expressions are hilarious, and we loved working with him. As soon as we spoke to him, we were like, “I want to work with this guy.” So, we kind of figured Nick can be anyone. and can look like anyone and be from any sort of ethnicity. We felt the same way about Holly.  And we cast the film just based on…  I mean, we always love to incorporate any Latinos that we can into our films and into our storytelling just because that is how we grew up. But yeah, it’s really just that David was really talented, so that is how he got the role.

 

What’s your work process on set?

CR: We basically do everything that we can to direct the movie before anybody shows up.  (laughs) So we run through every single shot, we run through every single plot point, everything we can beforehand. If we can do it on the set we do, if not we find an area where we map out the space of the set – that way, once we are actually on set and we are tight on time and we have got to move and get the shots done, it’s already muscle memory, we already know what we are doing.  Sometimes one of us will take over one scene while the other one is setting up the next one – we trust each other because we already have the same vision for it and we already know exactly the way we want it to be done. So, I guess the answer would be that we both do it as efficiently as possible. 

GR:  You want as few surprises as possible when you are co-directing.

 

It was probably either a computer or a college employee that put you guys together in a room in college.

Yes.

 

When did you discover that the two of you could work together?

CR:  Grant brought me a script for a short film, I think our second year of college.

GR:  The first thing was Brunch in Bristol.  And I hired Chris, I was like, “Chris, do you want to be AD on this film I am making?” We shot it in a bar in Boston, ’cause, you know, you are with your roommates and it’s kind of like everyone wants to be in it. And just in the course of AD’ing and directing, we just kind of got to know each other a bit more. And then I was like, “Yeah, this guy is really good, he gets a lot of stuff done.” And then the story picks up where Chris was taking it.

CR:  Yeah, he gave me a script for a short film that I thought would be great as a feature. So, I told him, I was, like, “Look, dude, I think we can turn this into a feature, and I think it’s something we can produce with a low budget.” And then we started developing another project that we are still actually working on. 

 

You both were already filming before meeting there. How did college change you guys as filmmakers?

CR: I think that we learned a ton in college. I mean, I knew how to point a camera at something and hit record, but I didn’t know the technical stuff, I didn’t know how a production really works. And one thing that I really credit Emerson for, is they taught us how to edit on 35mm film, how to shoot on a Bowflex. And I think that really helps you when you learn how to edit with scissors and tape, it gives you a different eye when you are editing digitally. And I think that is something that really helped us when we edited Twas the Night, you are a lot more careful with how you film everything from the very beginning. There’s that whole sequence in the movie when all the parents go upstairs, and they want a tour of the house. And the way we organized all of that and storyboarded it was with every single edit in mind. And I don’t know that that’s something that I would have thought to do before learning that stuff in college.

GR: College taught me the politics of filmmaking.  Because when you are in high school, I was, like, “Oh, I have a film idea,” and you go and get your friends and they are all like, “Yeah of course we’ll help,” because they are your friends, and they are going to help you out no matter what. But in college, you are surrounded by other people who also have dreams and also have their own projects. So, it’s learning to balance your dreams and your projects with other people’s aspirations, because everyone is looking to do something, everyone is looking to make that dream project, that dream goal. And it’s about coordinating their efforts behind your project, that I think is really, that was the biggest takeaway from college with me, because you are no longer just working with people who are just like, “Yeah, sure, whatever,” but you are working with people who view themselves as professionals and expect you to return favors and hold yourself to a higher standard.  I think that is the biggest thing I took from being injected directly into a massive film community, which was unlike where I was before.

 

When you guys met, did you feel that the Latin connection made things easier?

CR: I think it did help us connect. I mean, not only as friends but also in the way that we tell stories through film.  Spanish was my first language when I was growing up, and I don’t think it was that way for Grant. But when I was growing up, when I was young in school, it was sometimes hard for me to remember certain words in English. And the language barrier was kind of confusing because at home we spoke a mix, everything was in English or Spanish, it was in Spanglish, but when I went to school it wasn’t. So sometimes I would get confused with some of the things that I was trying to say, and it was hard for me to understand some things. But I always loved movies and I always loved watching movies and I loved watching American movies in English and even though I would get confused, and I wouldn’t understand everything that was being said, I knew what was happening because I could understand it. And I guess that is the language of cinema, that is the language of movies – it’s something that I really felt helped me communicate because I felt like I couldn’t communicate clearly in one language or the other.  So, I think that that’s something that kind of helps us both when we are making stories.  And just more in the way that we tell them, we try to do stuff visually, rather than just through dialogue.

GR: I think just the Latino and the Spanish flair in the film is really like a sort of a massive untapped resource pool, stories that people haven’t really heard before.  And there are really great stories, like the musical that came out this Summer, In the Heights, that was like, it did really well because no one had seen a story like that before, or a community represented like that. So, I definitely think it helps within just like naturally just speaking to my father or the other people in the Latino community that – for lack of a better term – their vibes as I guess the young people say today, and I think that’s something that most people just don’t understand and they can’t take advantage of it, because they don’t understand it. 

 

And now that you guys are out in this world making and selling movies, how does the film world react to the idea of two young Latinx filmmakers working together? 

GR: I think it’s a really powerful concept. I think it’s something a lot of people can kind of rally behind because we do represent two very different Hispanic communities. And I think a lot of people also, they kind of just see Hispanics like all painted with one brush.  But you have Argentina, you have Cuba, that in itself is just such a great opportunity to show the distinctions between different Hispanic ethnic groups and what each one brings to the table and how they interact with one another. So, I definitely think it’s a fantastic opportunity.

CR: Not only that, I think we come from a unique point of view as Latino-Americans.  We grew up in America and we are the second generation here. But it’s a little bit of a different perspective than people who immigrated to America. So, I think that that’s also something that is unique about us.