Cristina Nava, In Other Words Screenwriter and Producer on making her Indie Romantic-Comedy Feature Film

For Cristina Nava, it all began with a phone call. “Our friend, Ruben Islas, wanted to make a movie – a RomCom – loosely based on his good friend’s story of how they met. I got on a train and traveled to San Diego to interview the couple. From there Ruben invited us to Valle de Guadalupe, where he thought the story should take place. Now, I had grown up going to Baja- Tijuana for Tacos, Puerto Nuevo for Lobster, and Ensenada for La Bufadora, but I had NEVER been to Wine Country – Valle de Guadalupe.” says Cristina Nava

Cristina Nava says, “I was blown away. It was here that the story for IN OTHER WORDS began to unfold. Characters were based on people we were meeting and the places we were visiting. The first stop we made was at Tras Lomita where we met Chef Sheyla Alvarado. She was the inspiration for the character of Karina, but in the story she’s a sous-chef and a single mom. Next we met Tru Miller at Adobe Guadalupe. She was the grand dame of this amazing high-end hotel/ restaurant. It was here that we learned that she provided scholarships for aspiring chefs. This is where our competition from the movie was envisioned. My husband and I went back a few more times to Valle de Guadalupe for our research and every time a new experience spawned a new situation or character. “Nos sacrificamos,” (we sacrificed ourselves) as I like to joke as this was the best research we’ve ever been a part of.”

My husband and I have similar backgrounds in that his mother was born in Mexico as were both of my parents. I grew up spending time in Mexico City, I’ve been to Guadalajara and lots of places all over Mexico, and we wanted to infuse this love that we both have for the country into this movie. We wanted to show how we straddle both worlds, and that it’s not as Mexico is portrayed many times in the movies.

The Official Trailer for In Other Words written by Cristina Nava

---

“Once we finished the script, we began to dive into pre-production. Now, just as a reminder, Patrick and I are Independent filmmakers, and we were given an indie budget. We had never shot anything outside of the United States, so this was an eye opener for us. The one-lesson we learned from our first few projects was that we wanted to definitely use SAG Actors to be able to work with great talent. What we didn’t know is that if you take a SAG actor out of the United States, you MUST abide by the SAG minimum basic agreement. This TRIPLED our budget. It was going to be impossible to shoot in Valle de Guadalupe.

Indie filmmakers are resilient and Patrick ran across a beautiful home and winery in Malibu that looked like those we had seen in Valle de Guadalupe. We then researched and discovered Agua Dulce in the San Fernando Valley and we inquired about shooting there. We were off to the races.

Did you start writing with a cast (You or any) in mind?
Cristina Nava (CN): No, not really. But the first actor that we thought of once the script was complete was Edy Ganem as the role of Karina. We had worked with Edy on our first feature film, and we knew she would be perfect for the part.

How long did you take to complete the script? (do you have a process)
Cristina Nava (CN): I always begin with the treatment. In this case Patrick and I beat the story out, and it took us about three weeks. Then we packed up the family, rented out a house in La Misiòn in Baja and I wrote the first half of the “vomit draft”, as I like to call it. I would write all morning while Patrick took our children out to the beach, and then in the afternoon our family explored Baja.

I call my first drafts a “vomit draft” because I write without stopping, and even if a scene is not going as planned, I plow through it and just get it out. The vomit script I completed in about two weeks. After that, Patrick and I read the draft, we incorporated notes, and then sent it off to our executive producer. Shortly thereafter, we had our first reading and invited people we knew and trusted who would give us honest and constructive criticism for the next draft. I would say I had about two or three more drafts after this, and in retrospect that’s really nice. In indie filmmaking, there aren’t a lot of people, like studios, giving you note after note, which wasn’t the case here and was actually really refreshing.

---

What was the first writing project that you were involved with or that was out of the gate?
Cristina Nava (CN): The first writing project that was entirely my own was “Rocks in my Salsa”, my one woman show about being a single Latina living on her own and trying to live out her dreams. When I was a teenager I had always dreamt about living on my own and having roommates like the characters from “Friends”, and what I found interesting was that as a Latina, you have all this… Catholic GUILT! Guilt about leaving your parents, especially when they weren’t entirely financially stable, guilt with dating and your sexuality, something that I didn’t see in movies or TV shows in Anglo-American characters. What I discovered is that show after show, Anglo-Americans came up to me after and told me that they really connected with my characters, and I realized that I wanted to continue writing more material like this- from a Latino perspective with universal themes to which people from all cultures can connect.

You wrote and produced the film, what measure of input did it take to don these two hats?
Cristina Nava (CN): Being that I was the writer and the producer, since I already knew the budget that we were dealing with, I had to be very careful in my writing. I had to be careful that I wasn’t being too extravagant, but also finding the balance with making sure that the writing was entertaining and fulfilling the mission that we had set out.

Is there anything about the independent filmmaking business you still struggle with?
CN: Financing. Finding financing for my own passion projects is probably going to be a struggle for a very long time.

Where do you think your strengths lie as a filmmaker?
CN: I’m a team player, and I believe in fairness. I know my weaknesses and have learned to hire people who are better than me to help me with these weaknesses. I also learn from my mistakes. That’s a big one, because as an indie filmmaker you make a lot of mistakes. If I had a word of advice to up-and-coming indie filmmakers, when you find a mentor listen to them. It will save you a lot of wasted time and heartache.

Let’s talk about finance. How did you finance the trailer for the film?
CN: We invited our friends, whose opinion we deeply respected, to watch our first final cut of the movie and give us notes. They loved our movie and are big supporters of both Patrick and myself. They offered to cut our first trailer. Mind you, this particular friend was a professional trailer editor.

How much did you go over budget? How did you manage it?
CN: We didn’t go over budget. We had a kick ass line producer, Adan Garay, and he was a stickler with the budget, and I will love him for that forever.

---

How important is marketing? Do you think a project can make any dent without it these days?
CN: I think marketing is important, and something that I still haven’t been able to really even remotely master- I think because as an indie film maker, you invest your entire budget into completing the film from beginning to end including music and titles. But again, having learned my lesson, this time around we invested some money in a PR Firm and it has really helped us in getting our name and brand out.

With ”In Other Words” I do have to say and give immense credit to our executive producer. He has made relationships and surrounded Patrick and myself with amazing and talented people like a sales rep who went to bat for us and really believed in our film. We trust her wholeheartedly, which hasn’t been the case with other sales reps in the past.

What else have you got in the works?
CN: At this exact moment, I am writing a comedy and Patrick and I have a thriller that we co-wrote that is slated to be shot in the spring of 2020.

---

Tell us what you think of the interview with “Cristina Nava” What do you think of it? What ideas did you get? Do you have any suggestions? Or did it help you? Lets have your comments below and/or on Facebook or Instagram! Or join me on Twitter @oladapobamidele

Follow Cristina Nava on Social Media
IMDb
Twitter
Instagram
LinkedIn