08/10/2018 VHMOR
Thiago Moyses has worked in countless short and feature films as cinematographer, film editor, special effects designer, scriptwriter, and animator. His feature film “Sindrome de Pinocchio” (2010) was one of the only ten movies pre-selected in Brazil to represent the country in the running for an Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. Thus far, he has directed eleven short films and five features. His feature-film “Z.A.N.” was selected in STUFF Film Festival in Mexico, and distributed in the United States, United Kingdom, Germany, and Japan, available in streaming by Amazon Video and Amazon Prime.
He has just finished his two last feature films: Hopekillers and Love Circumstances, which are being distributed and submitted at festivals. He is currently in pre-production for his two new projects, the post-apocalyptic “Down Earth” and the animated series “Hopekillers – The Animation”.
How do you define your creative process?
A creative person learns how his creative process works when he decides to turn it into his profession. I’ve always been creative, from before I was literate. My first creations were drawings and oral stories that I used to tell as if I was experiencing them. Many of my current scripts began when I was a child or a teenager – they are storytellers I wrote, comic books I drew, Role Playing Games that I was the game master, including some main characters that I based on fictional characters played by real people. I understood afterwards that those experiences worked as a creative lab, and it comes before any script lab. I define my creation form as chaotic, timeless, which is organized today in conscious stages: 1. The original point of inspiration, 2. The play with ideas derived from inspiration, 3. The creative leisure to develop them consistent and rich. Then the work created goes to the paper – digital paper to be more precise.
I begin to write the storytelling, and I make the first outline very fast because it is packed with a creative urge. This is the Fourth Step. After that, I feel that the material is very raw and need reference and more inspirations. In this second stage I watch more movies, mainly in the cinema, I go to the theater and museums; I hang out and also seek sexual relations, because all of those opens my mind to a dense and focused creativity in the work in progress. The Ideas are empowered and nurtured.
What tools / habits do you use when you begin to create a script for a movie/series?
I isolate myself from minor disturbances. I clear my mind, that is why I look for an isolation, even from bigger problems. I try to solve them before or later. If I cannot do that, I decide to ignore them during the process. Although it seems random, I do follow schedules because I respect the deadlines. Actually, it is essential to have strict deadlines, the loose creativity does not progress, it does not become anything. My creation is linked to the dream and playful universe. Seeking satisfaction, as a child does, helps to rescue this universe. The more computer/television screens I have to work better my production will flow. By social networks in my Mobile, I talk about all kind of subjects with friends who often inadvertently leads to an idea. And when not, it makes me rest my mind from the continuous creation and execution.
Where do your inspirations and motivations come from?
Firstly they come from dreams. In many times I dream a complete movie, with everything, every detail. At other times an idea or a movie or a play, or the whole of what I have seen over a period of time bring up an original idea. Sometimes, by demand, I put what should be created in the head, like a seed and I end up dreaming an idea. Rarely, I create in a laboratory process, analytically, putting pieces together as a creative puzzle, using my studies and a decoupage of my own creation structure to do so. My motivation is something simple and sinister. Creation is like a curse, whole movies, stories, and etc., are tormenting me and I need to get them out of my mind and throw them into the paper and into the screen.
How do you deal with creative blocks like perfectionism and anxiety?
About anxiety, the experience helps with that. I was always very anxious and this feeling almost drove me crazy in the preparation, execution and finalization of a feature film. This led me to create a “rapid production” method – a method I developed together with Raphael Farias – assistant director and project partner – by which we could film very fast. This way, we would reduce the minimum amount of budget required to make the project viable and move into post-production as soon as it is filmed. However, post-production was long because of the innumerable shortcomings resulted from these fast filming, with little staff and no money. I learned to wait. In this new stage, my team, partners, myself, we try to perform in the best way, deliver as close as possible to the perfection and do not compromise the work because of the lack of resources or time. The pursuit of perfectionism begins in the script. I’m not satisfied to write anything reasonable. When the work is already more structured and I am able to visualize the end and the beginning, characters, etc., it is easier.
But when I’m at the beginning of a script, it’s more complicated to create cohesive and solid narrative links; the scenes need to be striking, incredible. I’m not afraid of not meeting expectations because I always demand more from myself than others do.
How do your movies / series are related to you?
They are parts of me, nonbiological children, mirrors, rebels, free, even when they are born bent and malnourished, as many productions that I did, unfortunately, because of lack of resources and structure. Even so, I still see myself in them and they represent the situation that I found myself in those moments. The new films that are coming will show a new facet, a maturation, and they are totally integrated with my life. I’m going to do two series, one of them is an animation, which, like in the movies, it’s a piece of me, from my point of view, of a humanist vision of the world that I try to have, but without getting stuck in my own.
What is your last job? Tell us a little about its creative process.
Down Earth was an idea I had on the flight leaving Brazil to come to Germany. I thought I needed a cheap and very good movie, with a few characters, that could have beautiful visual effects and a strong and sensitive storytelling. I’ve been writing the script and I’ve picked up a lot of things about how to raise a child and put them there, building a story about a child that has no one to raise him, and he wants to be raised by someone, so these elements create interesting moments in a sci-fi movie in a desolate future. It also talks about the solitude, something very common in my life. I have no friends or family here, so the experience is very deep and has been transplanted to the text and to the film. Solitude, by the way, is a recurring theme, it is in some of my other projects as well. The creative process also includes the crew, which creates alongside me or add ideas or creations on top of my text, helping the movie to grow, even more, to be deeper in content.
To know more about the work of director Thiago Moysés click here.
