Unveiling the Secrets: How Miguel Duran Transforms Shorts into Cinematic Masterpieces
Ashley
Gotcha. Gotcha. And do you think these shorts did ultimately help you advance your career? It looks like Monsoon was your first feature film. So maybe you can sort of run us through that. You’re doing a bunch of shorts and then finally you do Monsoon. How did you get monsoon? And was it those shorts that were able to get you there?
Miguel Duran
Oh, yeah, it absolutely was. One, they gave me the confidence to know that I could direct a feature film myself. I always felt confident about the writing because I started as a writer. And I would just call myself a writer who directs. So doing the doing the actual directing of those shorts helped a lot. And along the way, I met people that ended up working on my feature film and, you know, continue to work with me. So it’s also about building a relationship because, again, it goes back to when you’re trying to be budget conscious, if you’re in a new filmmaker, if you’re trying to go out and do it on your own. So not only it helps to have those existing relationships because it also saved time. So, the cinematographer that I had on Monsoon had also shot, I think it was two or three of the shorts that I had done. And so by that, by the time we got to Monsoon, we had a short we had a shorthand. We knew exactly what we were doing together. We knew how to prep together. We knew how to communicate on set together so we could move quickly, which is so important when you don’t have a lot of money to effectively move quickly. But that relationship helped. There was an actress that I worked with on one of my shorts that ended up starting to book bigger roles, Yvette Monreal, and having her attached as we started to go out to others give us legitimacy to get a casting director, to get other talent. If it was just me having no other feature under my belt, certainly wouldn’t have been able to do. So, working with people that are also gaining experience while you are else, because it’s, I forget the phrase, but we all kind of uplift each other at the same time. So, cruise side, cast side, having those people that I had previously worked with helped a lot. It led to, through the shorts, led to an introduction of my feature by a friend who connected with me with a producer of my first film. And then that also, so he knew I hadn’t done a first feature. So, what we did is we put together a proof of concept of that feature. So, we went out and shot a proof of concept. He was sold on doing it, and that certainly helps you. And that’s what led to all those elements coming together, the casting director, the larger cast that we could have gotten, all the other people coming on board. But yeah, from those shorts was my cinematographer, my gaffer, actress all had worked together previously, and that helped a lot.
