Interview - Miguel Coyula

Conducted by Ron Cotton - February 9, 2006

Miguel Coyula is best known for his Heretic Films release Red Cockroaches and will be known for his future release of Edmundo Desnoes’ Memories of Overdevelopment. Miguel's films are defined by both its a visceral texture of alienation and high-production values on extremely low budgets. The feature-length film Red Cockroaches is regarded highly by audiences and reviewers alike winning numerous awards. Miguel's high concept shorts are thought provoking and visually stunning. Today, he continues production on Memories of Overdevelopment without fail. His heart and determination are sure to see him through.

You've produced many short films over the years. Do any of your shorts in the past best represent your directing style that shouldn't go unwatched?

MC: I’ve been experimenting with different styles and genres in many of the shorts (even animation, musical and martial arts) I do think that I’m finding my real tone in Red Cockroaches. But even that is an exercise, from a narrative standpoint is not that complex, if I would explain what’s going on, you’d have a regular thriller that progresses in a quite lineal (chronologically speaking) way: (SPOILERS) Man meets girl, girl turns up to be long lost sister, they have intercourse, she gets mad at him, reveals that she was abused as little, leaves, he wanders alone in guilt, she comes back pregnant and start living together, mom suddenly finds out, a Greek tragedy, and they run away to the unknown… Open ending. Quite a simple story from a narrative structural standpoint. The rest is how you deconstruct it, create layers, and hide the answers.

For example I think that the narrative of my very first short film Piramide is great. Despite the technical shortcomings I wouldn’t hesitate to call it my favorite piece of work to date. I was a teenager and had all these ideas and dreams still uncorrupted by film school. Unfortunately many of those shorts can’t be released in the US because I don’t have the rights to the music.

Valvula De Luz (Light Valve) is a quite majestic black and white short on your Red Cockroaches DVD release that bears mentioning. How did you create the credits with that Fritz Lang Metropolis style?

MC: I edited the film analog so and I could only use the computer (a 486 at the time) to generate some animations for only 5 shots. I didn't even had a video card so I could only capture stills. The credits were done with 3D Studio 4 (the MS DOS version) I animated them by stretching the vortexes of the letters.

Light Valve has an amazing and breathtaking location. Where was that location filmed?

MC: That’s a gigantic ruined down building by the sea in Havana. About 20 years ago the tide rose and the building was evacuated before the ocean came in. It’s quite damaged now and abandoned. I love that place, you can’t build sets like that.

Was the long tracking shot of the mouse ball rolling along the floor difficult to shoot in Light Valve?

MC: That was done with a little car toy I had built when I was little, It was useful as a dolly for that some shots, although it was very hard to control and still shaky.

I've noticed that Red Cockroaches took a long festival tour from 2003 to 2005. Was Red Cockroaches ever presented as a theatrical release before being distributed on DVD? If so, which locations?

MC: Heretic Films had a theatrical Premiere in San Francisco. And it has played in several theaters in Cuba. Once in a while they still program it.

Red Cockroaches uses a wide assortment of color gels. How did your love of intense color gels begin?

MC: Since the very beginning when I did my first short on VHS. I had an infrared light that I used in many scenes; I was fascinated about how expressive they could be since I grew up watching a lot of Japanese animation. I use color to generate atmosphere sometimes answering to an impulse, for example in Red Cockroaches I though the underground locations should be green-ish (the garage, Nick’s lab, the club) Somehow that evokes a dirty feel to me, an exaggerated underworld of neon. Adam’s room had to be blue-ish, to emphasize his isolation. While the mother’s house is more de-saturated, the grays prevail, like the beach.

What equipment on your set do you substitute for real “film grade” tools?

MC: Outdoors I create dolly shots from a car, while indoors I resort to fix camera, pans, or tilts, and sometimes a small “crane effect” that I achieve while leveling the height of the tripod. But there is also a lot of work that goes into postproduction, adding elements that where not there or removing some undesirable ones, which you might not have control over while you are shooting on no budget.

Edmundo Desnoes’ Memories of Underdevelopment was a crowning achievement of Cuban Filmmaking in the 60s receiving worldwide distribution. I understand that your directing its sequel Memorias del Desarrollo (Memories of Overdevelopment). How do you go about securing the rights to this classic?

MC: After seeing RC at the New York Premiere, Edmundo gave me the rights for his new novel, follow up to the original, and that was it, I started shooting.

What kind of advice would you give screenwriters who wish to adapt novels to the screen?

MC: Remove as much dialogue as possible, and translate as many words as possible in one image. That’s the key.

Blue Road is slated to be 1.85:1 widescreen while Red Cockroaches was full-frame. What made you decide use different aspect ratios for your trilogy? Will Oceans also be in widescreen?

MC: When I started shooting Red Cockroaches widescreen TVs were not very common or that affordable, so I thought that since the film was mostly going to be viewed on full screen TVs, it wouldn’t make much sense to do a widescreen. Now of course that is changing, and I love to frame shots in a panoramic format.

In other interviews, you mentioned that you've never made a cent from your films, do you believe that Memories of Overdevelopment or Blue Road will be theatrical releases or mark the beginning of your success?

MC: Well Memories of Overdevelopment is a real art house movie, frankly I don’t think it will make too much money. About Blue Road, I can’t really say/ I know that eventually all these films will find an underground audience, the right people would respond to an uncompromised vision, for me that the biggest success I can achieve. And for me Heretic Films has done that by making available to the public.

During the production of Red Cockroaches a fiasco ensued. Police roughed and handcuffed you and your crew. Because of this, are you expecting to get permits for Blue Road or Memories of Overdevelopment?

MC: No, I’m still trying to avoid that. It’s not just the permits, but also the insurance and that can eat up all your budget. In Red Cockroaches it was entirely my fault, I had just arrived to the US and didn’t know the mechanics very well. But now I’m much more careful when filming in public places.

With every subsequent film you direct, as your craft improves, do you ever have regrets of your prior films having “missing” or “removed” scenes that you would have incorporated if you had the skills before?

MC: Yes there is always stuff that you would have liked to add or remove, to your older films. But unlike other filmmaker I always go back to watch my first films, to get inspired. I really think that film school “squares” your creativity in a way. It teaches you to think “inside the box” and kills you inner impulses, your intuition. No matter how liberal the school might be. That’s why going back to my pre-film school shorts is always refreshing for me.

Making movies hasn't been about financial gain as much as Miguel Coyula's artistic presentation. Do you think that money could corrupt your vision and any future films made? Do you feel other directors have fallen into this trap?

MC: I don’t think they’ve fallen in the track. There are two kinds of directors: The one that adds talent and creativity to any project or screenplay that is presented to him/her. And the one that has a voice and basically keeps doing the same film over and over, with new ramifications each time, as tree that grows steadily. The first one can succumb to Hollywood more easily, because that person won’t care about the story as much as their craft in bringing any story to life. For example I know that there are film I would never do, because I can’t feel the scripts, they don’t affect me in any way.

“You can't buy talent with technology” is a statement made on your website. Do you think it's better for the artist to strive to tell his message any tangible way or do you think technology should supplement his message?

MC: If you have the technology/budget fine, but I see a lot of people that say they wont shoot if it’s not on 35mm or HD or because they don’t have a full crew, and they spend 10 years without making a movie. I think you can make a good movie with a VHS camera. But you do need to know the technology to achieve maximum impact, you just can’t become a slave of the latests innovations and learn to do more with less.

Who do you feel are your contemporaries?

MC: That’s an interesting question; most of the filmmakers that talk to me are from the past. Tarkovsky, Bergman, Antonioni. Their views on the world are missing by many contemporaries. On a complete different level and I really admire Robert Rodriguez because of the setup he has created for himself. Even if his films are just pure entertainment, I think he represents a good example of someone that has adopted Digital Technology really well, and people should strive to achieve a similar structure even at a lower level. I feel I have things in common with different aspects of several filmmakers, and that conforms my eclectic style and working methods.

What kind of advice would you give directors who don't know their voice therefore produce nothing?

MC: Digital technology has been good to make the means available to the masses, but being a filmmaker or an actor is a phase for a lot of young people. I think if you really have a voice you will go out of your way, like a madman, a fanatic, and make your movie, and not all of the advise against it could stop you. I can only talk from my experience: It becomes an obsession, of having no choice but to simply do it. And this feeling has to come naturally. If you hesitate or wait too long, maybe this is not what you should be doing. In my case the most difficult step is to make the first move, shoot the first scene, after that nothing can stop you until you finish, even if it takes years.

Click here to Purchase your copy of Miguel Coyula's Red Cockroaches released by Heretic films.

See Production photos and read the complete interview at 10kbullets.com.