Fake Movies Have No Resonance by Alex Munoz [Founder FYI Films]
Film Courage: Alex how much are you sacrificing your Hollywood goals to be so heavily involved in FYI Films? Or did you never have Hollywood (quote-un-quote) goals?
Alex Muñoz, Filmmaker/Founder of FYI Films: Yes, I had goals that are in alignment with how Hollywood perceives success. But I don’t feel like I’m sacrificing anything because I feel like this is my organic journey to being a filmmaker.
I went to USC where we were very much taught a Hollywood way of filmmaking, mise-en-scène [in French meaning visual theme or telling a story], master shots, medium close-up, close-up, ECU [meaning extreme close-up], cut away!
In working with the youth [Alex is founder of FYI Films empowering youth affected by the juvenile justice system to improve their lives and become self-reliant] they are very informal. They don’t like to lock the camera down on the tripod because they are locked up. They are very inventive, like one day I came to the camp and they attached three bungee cords on each side of the camera “Hey, Muñoz…look! It’s a bungee cam.” And the camera is moving and they’re very inventive. And so the way I was taught filmmaking was to take a very stately, formal Hollywood approach.
In working with youth it liberated me from that and I become more radical in my approach to storytelling through cinema. I crossed the line. We were told “Never cross the sagittal plane” [meaning the anatomical boundary that exists between the left and right sides of the body]. Well I do all of the time now because the youth emboldened me. So I feel like my work with them is a necessary part of my journey. I feel like my work as a filmmaker is informed by my interactions and my making films with them.
The other thing they don’t like is having to memorize lines and repeat lines because it’s too robotic for them. So before we shoot a scene with them we will say this is what is happening in the scene…(Watch the video interview on Youtube here).
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