Jesse Harris, Filmmaker: It's a very maybe outdated system I think there's a lot of problems
with it I mean it means a lot of really good films probably don't get made and a lot of films with
the same silly actors we've seen a million times over always in the same movies because
Film Courage:
How confident were you that you could pitch this movie [Borrego] and sell it to investors?
Jesse: I think having this proof of concept that I made was super helpful to both give me
the confidence because I knew I'd made something really great with that but then I just knew it
was also going to make it so much easier to sell the movie to people but I knew no one,
I have no friends or family connection to the industry, I have no agent or manager (I
still don't even as of right now). It's such an outside world Hollywood the true system right
it's not very welcoming to outsiders. I mean it's very tough to break those walls and so
it just took a lot of time and being super persistent I mean I just never gave up and
that's really how this movie got made because there's plenty of times where I thought
man this is never gonna happen I should give up but I didn't I just kept going and that's really
how this movie got made no almost no other of course their script was good the proof of concept
was good I got lots of luck along the way but more than anything it was just this persistence of not
giving up and continuing to fight for it and just telling myself I was gonna make this movie doesn't
matter if I was like a hundred years old by the time I got made like I was gonna make this movie
one way or the other at some point and I think that's just how how it got made so no agent
or manager and the film opens in 10-ish days in theaters and on-demand right you basically rent it
wherever you can rent things and then it'll be in I think 10 different cities the first weekend
yeah playing wow okay so when you hear people say well I don't have an agent or manager was that you
at one time saying that or was that never again resourcefulness you don't worry about that I think
after having a little bit of a window into it when I made this first feature when I was in high
school basically and then spending a decade or so kind of adjacent to the industry but not really
in it by doing a film festival and directing commercials I think I just I realized enough that
it's very difficult to do anything but that this industry it doesn't really want to go and find
people it really wants to wait until you already have something for them and they'll maybe find
you and so I kind of knew I never even tried to get an agent or manager because I just knew
it was probably a waste because I don't know I i guess I didn't think until I had something
that I could really show as a success that I would be able to be of use I guess to them in
that way and so maybe that's just my own I guess thinking or being too critical but I just think
that's there's no guarantee just because I know plenty of people who've gotten agents or managers
and nothing happens and so I think more than anything it's just about what are you going
to create yourself and I think that's the key to everything of course that could open a lot
more doors and that would have probably sped up the process if I had had that for sure because
it took still probably four years from the time i'm starting to write it to getting to finance it
which that's still a long time I'd like to get that a lot shorter hopefully for the next one
but yeah I think above all you just need to kind of go go at it and and figure out a way
and and you'll eventually if you're if your script and your thing is good enough I think
people will eventually take note and it'll get get made it just might take quite a long time
can you take us through the process of how you got the money for Borrego like step by step sure so
I think with anything with features the financing is so much based on the cast
and this kind of perceived value that the cast has so for better or worse that's how a lot of
movies get made I would say that there's even movies that made where the financing
folks or the distributor maybe doesn't even read the script all the way they look at what is this
film and who's in it that's not all the cases but so many ways that's how films get made and so
that was really clear that we needed some sort of talent to kind of finance this movie now my film
consists of one female lead who was written as caucasian then the rest of the cast is all Latino
and this kind of sad reality of holly Hollywood is that neither of those people have
as much value as maybe like a white man actor and especially the Latinos was hard because
there's a couple names who we all know who are really famous right
but unless it's one of those names everyone else in Hollywood 's eye has basically no
foreign value or no kind of I mean value in the sense of what they think is value right
and then there's also not as many probably female actresses who also have the same value as like as
a male actor and so it was a tougher position to be and I even had a few producers tell me like hey
you should change one of the characters to like the sheriff in my movie who is also Latino even
though he's not a drug dealer or anything like that but it just it was authentic to this world
and this town we were in right I didn't want all the bad guys just to be Mexican or whatever and so
but multiple times someone said well change that guy into a white guy and we can get someone who's
more famous to play that part and that will help you finance the movie or even the lead
character maybe if that was a man I mean it sounds cliche and kind of crazy but that was still really
what people were saying and it's it took a lot of pushing back too because I really wanted to
make this film authentically with especially the the Latino actors I wanted them to be
totally authentic and so these were these were I spent a year plus looking for for actors
from Central America and Mexico where they were just amazing actors but maybe were kind of under
under undiscovered in a lot of ways so like one of our actors this was his first American
film he'd ever been in but his so his value was basically zero we'll say in terms of dollar and so
what that meant is we had to put all the value into our leading actress and that eventually ended
up being Lucy Hale who got that part and so it was basically her value financing the film and she for
her this was a really also a really kind of big stepping stone film in terms of performance in her
kind of career too because she had never done a film like this she came from a very famous tv show
that was she was on for a decade or so that became very famous and she's done other features but
she's never done something quite this serious in this kind of media she was really excited about it
but she does have a lot of value because she has a huge fan base and her films that she has been
in have done pretty well and so we were basically had to use her value because I as a director had
no value because this was really my first real real film and so that's how they looked at it the
we'll sign by they I mean Hollywood and the financiers how they looked at how this film
should get made and so that basically gave us a number that we could then kind of create to what
is the budget of this movie it was almost working backwards like this is how much we'll pay you and
this is what the movie can be made for kind of and it's a it's a very maybe outdated system I think
there's a lot of problems with it I mean it means a lot of really good films probably don't get made
and a lot of films with the same silly actors we've seen a million times over are always in
the same movies because they get made or you see these really kind of crappy action films
with one famous person and get made because of that so it's not a great model but unfortunately
at least as at the time I made this movie that's the model I had to fit into to get this movie made
and so that's how I did it we had to kind of work in that system but I was lucky to be able to by
getting this one actress who had enough value she then allowed me to then cast the rest of
the movie with people who were not as as famous and were more just really talented compelling
actors who authentic and and could bring so much to the movie so in the end it all worked out but
it was really hard and just very thankful that Lucy got excited about it and wanted to join it
because she's really what from that point on is really what compelled to get this movie financed
right and sorry this came from a casting director that you were able to get her the script yeah so
I had I'd said I was sending my proof of concept short film and my feature around to various people
one person who I met probably ten years ago who was an assistant at the time was now like
an executive and she was working in tv but she knew some people in film and so she sent it to
this producer he liked the both the script and the short I had done and so he wanted to
try to help me get it made so he had a casting director that he was working with all that often
where she we had no money to start paying anyone so she agreed to kind of help us out
on as a favor and just send the script to a few of the agencies and get their feedback and see
if there were some names that they had that they thought might be
interested in this kind of project and so that's how we kind of started the process so we got
different names of some actors and from there Lucy's name was was in that list and at first
I mean I knew her name I knew she was but I was I was not it wasn't like oh my god that's her
she's she's Elly because she had been in pretty little liars and there's other shows where it
was very much kind of teen drama kind of type stuff and that's not what Borrego is
but I watched some of her work and I realized that she's this incredible actress that just hadn't
been really given these high quality scripts and and projects to to seek her teeth into because
she is a really amazing actress and I knew that this would almost be as good as working with a
undiscovered person because no one has would have seen her do this kind of role so
it instantly became super exciting for me to have her because I knew she would have the kind of
the famous clout or whatever to get us get the movie made and market it but she would almost
be like introducing someone to the world again because she had never done something like this
and that's what it was I mean she's incredible in this and i'm so excited for people to see
it because it she is amazing in it so yeah that's that's really kind of how it how it worked for me
and the sheriff the decision to have him as a single dad I thought that was interesting
we don't really hear too much about single dads that's kind of interesting yeah I am I don't know
I don't know where that personally came from that wasn't my experience but I guess I liked
this idea of the dad and daughter relationship I kind of liked I wanted all the characters to have
something they were struggling with and so him he's this sheriff deputy sheriff in a very small
little town where there's not very much action he hands out speeding tickets that's kind of his his
job right and we don't really talk about it in the film but the idea is that he's probably also kind
of run away from something or has come here to have kind of a safe place for him and his daughter
and he's not looking for any trouble and doesn't see much action and so
he's kind of thrust into this action and is totally out of his comfort zone
his daughter then ends up getting caught up in two and so his worst fears have all come
together with that and so I think I just like the idea that he had so much on the line with
just being fully responsible his whole life was really being taken care of her and that
was was what he was fighting for in it so that's kind of where his kind of backstory came from.
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