It’s a marathon, not a sprint, but someone should tell that to the guy in Dieego’s spec spot for Future Shorts.
A frisky young couple burst into their flat and rip off each others’ clothes like they’re on fire. But no sooner has the ‘action’ begun – than it’s all over. The guy has suffered the age-old problem that’s let many men down, and we’re not talking about athlete’s foot. “It didn’t happen to me before. I swear. Maybe to a friend of a friend of a cousin of mine,” jokes the 28-year-old Brazilian director.
While studying marketing and advertising at university in Rio, Dieego planned on becoming a copywriter, or as he puts it, “a Brazilian Juan Cabral.” But during his final year he decided to pursue directing and landed a job as assistant director and production assistant at O2 Filmes (City of God, Blindness). After making a few shorts he moved to Brussels, where he still lives.
You’d never know from watching it but, like the ‘sex’ scene it shows, the commercial itself was a rushed job. Capitalising on the availability of some lenses, lighting gear and a one-day window that DP Bjorn Charpentier had between two different shoots, Dieego had, for once, all the equipment and no story. “Originally we wanted to shoot something for the Philips Parallel Lines competition, but we didn’t have enough time.” So he went through his notebook of ideas and picked the most, “productionable” one.
The idea originally came while watching actress Alyson Hannigan in US sitcom How I Met Your Mother. This got him thinking about sex as he was reminded of her other film roles. “When I saw her on screen it made me think about the scene in American Pie where the guy has this problem.”
Just a few hours before the shoot began everything came together as a post on his Facebook wall searching for actors was answered by a couple he knew. Luckily, creating the passion wasn’t a problem, “They were natural with the camera and the crew. The most difficult shots were the dead moments between the kissing. The smiling, the running, the looking at each other, the giggles. To make that natural took a lot of saliva from their side and a lot of editing. And yes, they got really tired of kissing. You could judge by the redness of their faces.”
Dieego finds inspiration by observing people and loves great ideas. “Sometimes I ask myself, ‘who was the genius who created the colander?’. Or, ‘who created porn?’. It’s cheaper and simpler than a normal film and it probably makes way more money. Who are those people? Daily geniuses fascinate me.”
He’s also a huge Rupert Sanders fan. “Whenever I approach something, I first ask myself, how he would approach it. It doesn’t mean I want to do the same kind of work he does, but my point is, I do try and achieve the same power, sense of truth and feeling he always reaches with his films.”
Dieego is currently unsigned but is pitching on a commercial with Black Zeppelin in Belgium. He has a book full of projects that he’s dying to make and also writes/illustrates his own blog, Selfish Bastards, which some women might think is a relevant name for the guy in the Future Shorts spot.
