The Making of AFTERSHOCK with Chilean Director Nicolás López
- Details
- Category: Interviews
- Created: Friday, 17 May 2013 13:47
- Published: Friday, 17 May 2013 13:47
- Written by Lupe Haas
Chilean director Nicolás López teamed up with American producer/writer/director Eli Roth for AFTERSHOCK, a 70s style disaster film shot with practical effects rather than use expensive computer-generated effects. The director reveals his secrets to creating a low budget movie that looks like a $30 million Hollywood film.
Chilean native Nicolás López was a child protegy, having started his career at age 12 as a columnist for Chilean newspaper El Mercurio. At 16, he created a comedy pilot for MTV Latin America, directed music videos and formed his own production company, Sobras International Pictures. His first feature film, Promedio Rojo, a dark teen comedy got the attention of Eli Roth and Quentin Tarantino.
Eli Roth joined forces with the Chilean filmmaker for his first English-language. Eli Roth traveled to Chile to work with Lopez in co-writing and producing the indie film. CineMovie’s Zay Zay sat down with the filmmaker who says he was inspired to make the movie about the aftermath of a earthquake after Chile experienced a shaker in 2011 that caused extensive damage. Together with American filmmaker Eli Roth, they set out to make a low-budget, but high-quality film for under $4 million. "Let's make a movie for under $4 million that can look like it had a budget of $20 or $30 million. And that was the goal," he tells Zay Zay.
Hollywood-style disaster films don’t come cheap, so the team decided on practical effects over computer-generated destruction. The crew actually did destroy sets and a city for the story, using five cameras to shoot the action since they couldn’t afford to do retakes or coverage one angle at a time. AFTERSHOCK actresses Lorenza Izzo and Andrea Osvarat also tell CineMovie, the falling debris and other practical effects made it easy for them to react since it seemed “real.” “They were so intense we only had to react. It was really scary and realistic,” admits Lorenza Izza.
Nicolás López did use CGI to retouch a few scenes, but for the most part the on screen destruction was real. However, the disaster is merely the background, since the real terror is what happens when human nature becomes more terrifying than mother nature.
Up next for the director, writer, and producer is to continue working with Eli Roth and bring Hollywood to Chile with their own Chile-Wood. Watch our interview with Eli Roth.
AFTERSHOCK is now playing in movie theaters.
More About Nicolás López
Born in 1983 - Santiago, Chile
At 12 years old López started writing for Chile's most prestigious newspaper (El Mercurio). With his column ‘Memories of a Penguin,’ he gained devoted followers and ultimately an expulsion from school for poking fun at the Chilean education system.
In 1998 he founded the site Sobras.com, which commented on films, television, video games, and comic books. Sobras grew and became López's production company, Sobras International Pictures. Through Sobras he started directing music videos (Nominated, MTV Video Music Awards, 2002) and screenwriting (MTV Latin Awards, 2003). He also created the comedy show ‘Piloto MTV,’ (MTV Latin America) which he wrote, directed, and starred in.
In 2004, López wrote and directed his first feature film: ‘Promedio Rojo,’ a dark teen comedy that Quentin Tarantino called, "The funniest movie of the year.” ‘Promedio Rojo’ was a box-office smash. It was selected by film festivals across the world including Mar del Plata IFF (Argentina), Tokyo IFF, Sitges IFF (Spain), and the SXSW, Los Angeles Film Festival (US).
López’s second feature, the sci-fi romantic comedy ‘Santos’ (2008) was co-produced by Troublemaker Studios (‘Sin City’) and Telecinco Cinema (‘Pan's Labyrinth’) with a $6 million budget. Santos won the Special Jury Prize at Fantastic Fest.
After ‘Santos,’ López wrote and directed the highest grossing Chilean film of 2010: ‘Que Pena Tu Vida’ (F*ck My Life), the romantic comedy inspired a successful trilogy: ‘Que Pena Tu Boda’ (F*ck My Wedding, 2011), and ‘Que Pena Tu Familia’ (F*ck My Family, 2012).
‘Aftershock’ is López’s first English language film, produced by his company Sobras by Miguel Asensio, Eli Roth, and Brian Oliver.
López has a large internet fan base in with more than 50,000 followers on Twitter.