Miguel Ortiz talks getting past the block with ‘Bloqué’

Malick Koly in Miguel Ortiz s Bloqu Photo provided by the Atlanta Film Festival Miguel Ortiz has invariably needed to be a storyteller In fact he narrated his mom he would be a filmmaker when he was just years old I loved dialogue the New York-based filmmaker stated in a newest interview with Rough Draft Atlanta Which is funny because Bloqu has like no dialogue Bloqu is Ortiz s short film about a drummer played by Malick Koly struggling to push through a creative block of sorts The film is playing in the Black Boy Fly shorts block at this year s Atlanta Film Festival on May at the Plaza Theatre Up until around he turned Ortiz who is also the co-founder of TheTelly the production company behind his film had been working in video production making music videos commercials and the like But after seeing The Fabelmans Steven Spielberg s lightly fictionalized movie about his own life Ortiz decided he required to make the jump back into the narrative space The process of trying to write eventually became the inspiration for Bloqu I sat in front of my desk and I started trying to write something so that we could shoot he declared I was having such a struggle writing these things out because my mother and I had kept going over conversations about me only remembering the negative aspects of my childhood and not remembering the good stuff I think that was sitting with me Bloqu is about a drummer trying to find creative inspiration and the avenues in which he finds that inspiration make up the meat of the film Over the program of seven minutes Malick reflects on his parents both their relationship with each other and his relationship to them when he was a child He reflects on the bad but also the good the rhythmic beat of his drumming paralleling the emotions that his memories conjure Bloqu is really an apology letter to my parents Ortiz announced It s acknowledging hey there were arduous moments there but if I take a moment if I take a breath if I m reminded then I know there are moments that I cherish as well Part of the appeal of Bloqu is how it connects the language of music to the language of cinema Initially the film was about a writer suffering from writer s block but Ortiz determined that a drummer would provide the film with more action and more movement As you watch Malick drumming his way through his past you ll notice that the film s editing style doesn t inevitably line up with the beat of the music Ortiz comes from a music video background and with the help of editor Danni Juhl was able to switch up the rhythmic patterns of the film to keep the audience engaged With Bloqu we were very specific on when we want to cut to the beat and when we truly want moments to be off beat in terms of cutting just to keep emphasizing the chaos that s happening within Malik and everything he noted Getting someone like Malick Koly signed onto the film helped bring a level of authenticity to the drumming Ortiz originally met Koly whose other film credit includes playing folk musician Bruce Langhorne in James Mangold s A Complete Unknown last year at an art gallery The two exchanged numbers and when the time came to cast Bloqu Ortiz right now thought of Koly I explained if someone doesn t put this man in front of a camera soon that ll be the worst thing anyone could do Ortiz mentioned He s a magnet when you see him onscreen Ortiz explained that he hopes Bloqu can serve as a template for the type of independent filmmaking he hopes to help put forward through TheTelly not just for his own work but for other artists as well I m excited for more people to finish writing their pieces so that we can continue to keep moving that process forward he disclosed The post Miguel Ortiz talks getting past the block with Bloqu appeared first on Rough Draft Atlanta