Exclusive Interview with Shawna Baca about “Ascended Masters” Project

SF-Fandom’s exclusive interview with award-winning Latina film-maker Shawna Baca was conducted by email a few weeks prior to the April 21, 2011 deadline for closing out donations to the “Ascended Masters” project. Unfortunately, we were unable to publish the interview in the timeframe we had expected. Here at last are our questions and Shawna’s answers. You can learn more about her work at her personal Website and you can make as little as a $5 donation to the Kickstarter “Ascended Masters” project. Be sure to watch the video to learn more about the project and some of the other people participating in it.

SF-Fandom: In looking at your background and watching some of the interviews on your Website, I noticed that you didn’t go to film school. Having grown up wanting to be a producer/director, what did you do to prepare for your career and how did you finally get the opportunity to make a film like “Impersonal Impression”?

Shawna Baca: I didn’t go to film school. I didn’t even know it existed when I was in high school. I think growing up in East Los Angeles at that time, there weren’t a lot of opportunities or outreach in those areas of art that I was aware of. I would have never been exposed to it, had my aunt not married a music executive in the entertainment industry. Early on, my mother wanted and pushed for me to be an actress, so I thought that’s what I wanted to do, but realized quickly that I really fell in love with what was going on behind the scenes. At nine, while visiting my aunt’s house, I saw a movie being shot two blocks over. I walked over at was hanging out with Pricilla Barnes and the crew. About five hours later, the cops came and took me home. Apparently, I forgot to tell my aunt where I was and no one from the crew ever questioned me being there. Later in college, I started a theatre production company in San Diego with three other people. We rented out space in Downtown San Diego. I am glad I didn’t know that theatre didn’t make money or I probably wouldn’t have done it. We were successful. After deciding that I should move back to Los Angeles, I think I worked on every bad student or independent project that never finished getting made and that’s when I felt the confidence of saying to myself, “I may not know what I’m doing, but I know I can finish something I start.” I wrote Impersonal Impression, not to direct but to write and produce. I fell for every person who technically seemed to know the jargon. After going through a ton of smooth talkers, I found my crew. I took a thousand dollars of the theatre profit to shoot it, but primarily it was done on favors. The film won the Slamdance Online Anarchy competition and I was invited to screen at Slamdance. So, my first film festival was in Park City. I had no idea what that meant, I was really green. I spent the next few short films learning about filmmaking. So, in essence that became my film school.

SF-Fandom: According to IMDB your filmography includes many roles: producer, writer, director, actress, 2nd unit director, etc. Each experience adds to your pool of influences. Are you on a path to master all aspects of film-making or is this just the way things have gone for you? Does your personal curiosity lead you to say, “I’d like to try that role in the process” or has it been more of “Here is an opportunity, are you interested?”

Shawna Baca: No, I am not on the path to master all aspects. I think I tried different aspects of filmmaking to see what I loved the most. But, I think every director should know what it’s like to work in various aspects of production. It helps you understand what’s going on around you and when you ask one of your crew members to do something, you know exactly what you are asking them to do. I feel like you can’t run a company or manage a department or even be a captain of a ship unless you know how it operates. If you want to direct, everyone is depending on you to make decisions, how can you make those decisions if you don’t know what’s going on?

SF-Fandom: Your short film, “Isabel”, was produced on an estimated budget of $30,000 (according to IMDB). Is that about right? How do you spend $30,000 when making a film? Other than professional talent of cast and crew, what goes in to distinguishing an independent, short film from an amateur movie? What does that budget have to bring to the production so that people take the film seriously?

Shawna Baca: Isabel was a short I had to write, shoot, and edited in a week for the Steven Spielberg/Mark Burnett Reality Show ON THE LOT. They made the filmmakers pay for our own productions. I had a real issue with that. I was reading the Hollywood Reporter that day I got the assignment, an article featuring Guillermo Del Toro and he was talking about how he doesn’t put his own money into his productions anymore. He had been taught by his mentor not to do so, especially when going through the studio system. After reading that, I made a few phone calls and had about $5,000.00 cash from investors. I couldn’t tell them it was for the show. Then Panavision gave us the Genesis camera package to shoot it with and all my post was pretty much donated. If you put an actual cash value on that, it would exceed $30,000. It’s really easy to spend $30,000. A good camera package can run you $3,500.00 a week. You need a lighting package that will run you in the thousands. Telecine, onlining, editing, sound editing, hiring a crew for two days and good craft services. Paying actors salaries on a SAG Ultra Low Agreement, running that through a payroll services, permits, insurance.

I like my films to look like a short piece of a feature film. I think a good story is really what ultimately will get people to emotionally invest into watching your film, even if the production value is not that great. The budget allows you to determine what you can or cannot do. If you have a bad story, bad actors, and bad production value, then you won’t be taken seriously. Nowadays, with YouTube and the Flip, everyone can be a filmmaker, so it’s hard to say what is considered an amateur video. People are getting recognized with amateur video clips.

SF-Fandom: Looking at your work in the film industry, what would you say were your advantages and disadvantages? Were you helped along the way at any point? Have there been times where you have had to just rely on yourself to make something happen, to overcome a great challenge?

Shawna Baca: I have to rely on myself a lot to be persistent and determined enough to get a project done. I have done almost every diversity program out there. It has been another valuable tool that I like to say was part of what I consider my film school experience. In the PGA Diversity’s Workshop, I learned how to pitch. In the Fox Diversity Writer’s Program, I learned how to structure my screenplays and so on. All tools I need as I moved forward. I think there are clearly some disadvantages to being a female director. When I was trying to look for a commercial production company to rep me, I clearly noticed that ratio of women directors being represented vs. the male directors. You look at the percentage of female DGA directors there are and it’s not even close to 20%. It’s very discouraging. There are people that have helped me a long the way and I have over the years built my crew. Now, I am faced with, you’re a female writer/director who wrote a high concept action sci-fi trilogy, “Why are you aiming so high, when you are just launching your career?” “Why don’t you just do a calling card film first?” On the flip side, coming from all the diversity programs, you have people saying not to do diverse projects, focus on commercial screenplays and films. So, now I have both that I’m packaging and developing.

SF-Fandom: What was it like to work with Tippi Hedren on “Rose’s Garden”? How did your first meeting with her go?

Shawna Baca: Rose’s Garden was my first film I directed. I met a casting director through a friend and after reading Chris Gore’s Ultimate Film Festival Guide, I knew I had to get a casting director. We met and went through a list of actresses. Honestly, I never thought in a million years, we would get Tippi Hedren, but my CD was confident about pursing it. He sent over the script to her agent. Miraculously, the owner of the agency was in the office over the weekend and read the script. She forwarded it to Tippi, even though she was on location filming. We needed an answer by Monday. On Monday, Tippi Hedren called me directly and said she loved the script and wanted to do it. I was completely shocked. That was the first time my script had ever gone through an agency, so I was terrified that it wouldn’t be received well. Tippi said it was a sweet story and she wanted to do the short. It was a big deal to me because I’m such a Hitchcock fan, so I was excited to work with her. She was delightful and professional. A real blessing for a first time director.

SF-Fandom: So let’s talk about “Ascended Masters”. Where did you get the concept for that production? The film’s core theme — immortal warriors battling on behalf of mankind — resembles many martial arts/anime concepts but do you draw on your Native American heritage when developing spiritual themes?

Shawna Baca: I never really truly knew I was Mexican Indian/Native American until I started writing. I mean I was raised by my Indian grandma and there is a sense of spirituality and cultural dominance within me, even though I am about as American as you can get. I think there is an element about everything I do that has that love for mysticism, spirituality, magical realism that lives inside me. I often consider myself as a storyteller rather than labeling myself as a writer. Storytelling is a big part of the Indian culture. As for Ascended Masters, I am really of lover of where science, religion, and new age/spiritual philosophy’s start to parallel. I spent two years and a half years reading and looking into this. There are immortal watchers in every aspect of religion, science, new age theories, theosophy, etc. that talk about these cosmic/celestial/divine beings. I really became fascinated with Helena Blavatsky’s theories on the spirituality of the cosmos. I thought it would be great to bring these characters into a screenplay as they’ve never really been portrayed in a movie. I made the decision to write the screenplays from a science fiction perspective than a spiritual perspective.

SF-Fandom: Did you pick Kikey Castillo for her role? How did you meet her, Ernesto Matamoros, and Don Hyun Kiolbassa?

Shawna Baca: I met Kikey awhile back when we belonged to a non-profit organization called Nosotros, that was founded in 1971 by the late Ricardo Montalban. The organization mission is to portray Hispanic/Latino talent both behind and in front of the camera in a positive light. Kikey and I worked together a few years ago on a couple of projects of mine. So, when I decided to do a sizzle short for the Ascended Masters trilogy, I contacted her.

I met Don Hyun Kiolbassa through a filmmaker friend about two years ago and knew I wanted to work with him on a project in the future. I see big things for him and he’s a world champion Wushu martial artist. He has done motion captures for Mortal Combat and other Warner Brother films. I called Don. Later, he introduced me to Ernesto.

SF-Fandom: How is a project like “Ascended Masters” different from shooting a TV commercial like your Bud Light piece? Are there different considerations? More freedoms one way versus the other?

Shawna Baca: Wow. The Ascended Masters project has so many more elements. I don’t think it’s about freedom, it’s about depending on more people to collaborate with you to help create your vision. I mean, we have martial art stunts, wire and rigging, special effects make-up, visual effects that are going to have to be shot in a way that the visual effects team can work with in post. It’s a team of people trying to execute the director’s vision. Shooting action and setting up your shots for visual effects to be done in post production is a whole other element than framing a shot and letting the actors perform their scenes. We have to plan out our shots, and then the visual effects supervisor will say, “You can’t have the camera moving in this frame if you want a stream of electricity to shoot out of the actor’s hand in this sequence.” Then you have to alter the shot for that sequence.

SF-Fandom: How does one go about starting an independent film? Is there a well-trodden path that leads to the independent film festival circuit? What would you recommend to people who want to break into this type of film-making?

Shawna Baca: I don’t think there’s any one way. For me, it’s about falling in love and feeling passionate about a story and building from there. If I love the story, it’s then about making the decision to spend the next year or two working on the project. I have found that the hardest thing is, to make the decision to do it and sticking with it. I do think that there are so many film festivals, so know what’s out there and know what you want to get out of making an independent film. There are a lot of really good filmmakers out there. Go to film festivals, see some of their work, read up on their biographies. Talk to some of them, they are all accessible at the festivals. Sometimes, you will find that they have star-studded casts, some have amazing stories, some went through some of the festival filmmaker programs. There are festivals that are geared towards just women, or Latino, Asian, African American filmmakers and so on. Do your research.

SF-Fandom: Is “Ascended Masters” the first project you’ve taken to Kickstarter? Do you think Kickstarter is having a significant impact on the entertainment field?

Shawna Baca: Yes, this is my first. I have never raised money through a crowd-funding platform before. It’s a whole new thing for me. Although, social networking and crowd-funding are now coming to the forefront because of where we are at with technology. Today, I can reach out to people I don’t know across the world, that I would have never been able to reach to before. That’s exciting. I think Kickstarter is a having a great impact on fulfilling artists dreams for those projects that are successful. I think it gives more independent filmmakers power to create. It’s harder to rely on production companies and studios to read your projects and greenlight them. This way, you are getting out there.

SF-Fandom: How did you select the deadline of April 21 for the budget target goal? If you don’t raise the money but come close — say you get $15,000 in pledges (backers won’t be charged if the goal is not met, correct?) — will you then say, “Hm. Maybe if we push a little harder, we can try again and it might work”? Or is this the one chance everyone has to help bring about the success of the film?

Shawna Baca: We wanted to do a 60 day campaign, so that’s where the date fell on. If we don’t raise the entire projected goal amount by April 21st, we don’t get one penny. It’s all or nothing! If we don’t make our goal, then we either don’t make the film, I continue to shop it to production companies, and/or will look for an investor.

SF-Fandom: For $20,000 what do you think you can do? For example, will there be special effects managed by some process other than film editing? Will you use digital photography? Will the whole piece be shot on location or will you be able to use a film studio?

Shawna Baca The first half of it will go to location permits, equipment rentals, costumes, special effects make-up, sound crew, film crew. I think when you added up, most people will still be donating their time and services. The other half of the financing would go into the post-production budget for visual effects, editing, music composing, onlining, color correction, etc. These things even a student discount or friends and family rates, add up quickly. Production insurance cost alone with be a couple thousand dollars because we are doing wire and rigging work and stunts. That’s 20% of our overall budget.

SF-Fandom: Does a film like “Ascended Masters” need a set designer?

Shawna Baca: It will need a set designer at least for our Underworld scene. We will shoot that in a sound stage. It will be a hybrid using some practical set pieces and a green screen behind it, so we can paint the background in post. The other set backdrop is an open clearing in a forest setting or an alternate would be a desert backdrop. We are still scouting for that location.

SF-Fandom: Have you been scouting locations for “Ascended Masters”? Do you just go out and drive around and say, “I think that would be a good place to film” or is there something like THE INDEPENDENT FILM-MAKER’S GUIDE TO LOCATIONS that you refer to?

Shawna Baca: I drove out to California City to look at a location. It’s a desert area, the issue with using that location would be moving an entire film crew an hour and a half out of Los Angeles. I have another one I need to look out that’s in Thousand Oaks. I am talking with different UPM’s about referrals to locations. The intricate element to using a location is that we have stunts and action scenes to shoot. So, that raises liability issues. If we were shooting a 100 million dollar film, then it would make us have more freedom on our locations, but we are shooting a $20,000 film and we need to make sure everyone is in a safe environment and we have professional stunt people and operators for these scenes. And the location has to be conducive to what we are trying to accomplish.

We want to extend our thanks to Shawna for taking the time to answer our questions, and we also appreciate her reaching out to SF-Fandom and science fiction fans everywhere. Despite the unexpected technical issues that confronted us, SF-Fandom really hopes that we are able to make a difference in promoting the “Ascended Masters” project.