Written and directed by Renzo Vasquez
Produced by Paul Coward
A cab's journey shifts pace when Claire and Hannah discover a bag neither of them had noticed when they climbed in. They are shocked to find out what is inside the bag and argue about what to do with it, anxious to keep their find a secret from the driver.
ABOUT THE FILM
The script for TRIGGER won the Challenge ALEXA 2020 competition supported by ARRI & Directors UK. Once produced it won the Jury Award for “Best London Film” at BELIFF - Be Epic! London International Film Festival. It was also nominated at the Wales International Film Festival & the Making Waves Film Festival. Other notable festival selections include: Crystal Palace International Film Festival & Sunderland Shorts Film Festival
It also received Semi-Finalist status at the Academy Award qualifying Flickers' Rhode Island International Film Festival.
TRIGGER first caught our attention as a submission to our upcoming Kino London Short Film Festival. We gave it Semi-Finalist status & if you’d like to watch it in person with the filmmaker in attendance then you can at our Short Film Open Mic event on Sunday, April 23rd.
ABOUT THE FILMmakerS
Renzo Vasquez is an award-winning director of narrative, commercials and experimental dance films who has worked on both sides of the Atlantic Oceans.
“Trigger” is Renzo’s debut as a writer-director. Born in Brazil and based in London since 2009, he is currently working on a slate of short films while developing his second feature film.
In his storytelling Renzo likes to explore characters that have an angle of complexity and find themselves in situations that often play with the unexpected getting under the audience’s skin when provoked by twists in the story.
READ OUR INTERVIEW WITH RENZO
Tell us a bit about yourself and your filmmaking background.
As a young teenager I had an appetite for cinema and storytelling that started with an interest for crime films, thrillers and Westerns. My career started as a copywriter, then producer, assistant director and director in commercials, and finally moved into directing fiction which coincided with me moving from São Paulo to London in 2009.
Tell us about the genesis of Trigger. What inspired this film?
Sometime ago, I came across a real story about two young women who found a bag of cash in the back seat of a London cab after a night out. I always thought this situation could be a fun short film with a script full of possibilities in terms of twists and unpredictable endings. Eventually, I merged this idea with another about two aspiring actresses who take their scene work a little too far.
You won the Challenge ALEXA 2020 supported by Directors UK, which enabled a two-day shoot with ARRI gear. Can you tell us about that experience?
As a Challenge ALEXA film with ARRI and Directors UK backing us, it gained support from top-level crew, cast and companies. It made a big difference for an indie filmmaker. It was like having a stamp on the project, meaning that it was a solid project with a deadline to shoot and delivery. We shot the film inside a cab at night, so using the ARRI ALEXA Mini LF and Signature Primes helped us to create a cinematic feel and explore different compositions inside the limited space we had.
What tips would you give to other filmmakers submitting their scripts to competitions? How can they also cut through the noise like you did?
Once you have a strong and polished script, it's time to prepare a compelling treatment. It is essential to keep the treatment concise, clear and on point, conveying your vision through a combination of textual and visual elements while ensuring that all competition submission requirements are met.
So Trigger is your debut as a writer, but you’ve previously directed material written by others, correct? How did you find the experience different directing your own material vs someone else?
I’ve previously directed a feature film written by another writer and it was by far a different experience. I’d say it’s like the difference between being a guest and a host at a party. If you write the film you are the host, meaning that you know every single detail, all the guests, the food, the drinks, how loud you can play the music and so on. But if someone else wrote the film, then you are more likely to be a guest at the party. Even if you were an early bird, a close friend of the host and knew a lot of the details, there were still some things you never or only noticed at the end of the party. Either way, directing yours or someone else's script is an amazing experience.
What obstacles did you overcome while in the making of this film?
As soon as the project had been selected I had to act very quickly because part of the Challenge Alexa was to shoot and deliver the film within a couple of months. So this wasn’t an obstacle, but definitely a challenge to get everything in place so quickly. A couple of obstacles we faced was limited shooting time and budget and we used our creative thinking to find solutions in pre-production. For instance, we couldn't afford a low loader, but we found the perfect actor who played the driver who also had real-life experience. During the shoot the weather was another challenge as it rained on the first day, but our art department created rain special effects for the second day. I would say embrace the challenges you are presented with because flexible thinking and finding solutions is an important part of becoming a stronger director and collaborator at the end of the day.
Tell us about the journey of getting your film to audiences. How was your experience in general with the festival circuit?
Watching “Trigger” on that huge cinema screen at Crystal Palace International Film Festival was a brilliant start for our festival run. We then got into a really interesting variety of festivals both in the UK and abroad. Taking part in the festivals in person and remotely online was an incredible opportunity to connect with other filmmakers and industry professionals, as well as receive feedback from audiences and peers. Another highlight was the 5 stars review we received from the UK Film Review Festival. All together, the official selections, awards and reviews really helped to create a buzz around the film and elevate its presence during the festival circuit.
What advice would you give to filmmakers submitting to festivals?
Firstly, don't rush to finish your film just to submit it to a particular festival. Once you're ready to start submitting, you have two options: hire someone to handle it for you or do it yourself. With Trigger, I did it myself, which was great but also hard work, time and money consuming. After two years on the festival circuit, I have a better understanding of how it works and have built a network, but for my next short film, I might consider hiring a company to handle the festival circuit so I can focus on my projects.
What do you think is the biggest challenge short filmmakers face trying to break into the industry?
Funding, getting their work noticed and finding an audience are probably some of the biggest challenges for short filmmakers. And when trying to move from short to long format the challenge is being able to prove that they can tell a longer story as well as manage all aspects of each step of a big production.
Any film recommendations that we should add to our watchlist?
Kore-eda Hirokazu’s Broker, Darius Marder’s Sound of Metal, Asghar Farhadi’s A Hero, Shaunak Sen’s All That Breathes and Luca Guadagnino’s Bones and All to name a few.