Just last week students all across America went back to school to begin another year of education. The end goal, graduation, is on the horizon for seniors in high school and college, bringing an extra level of excitement to the pursuit of a career in their chosen profession. As cliche as it sounds, the youth of the nation are really leading the charge toward a better tomorrow; no matter if it’s in the fields of medicine, science… or film. One such student, Christian Obando – a senior at The Art Institute of Fort Lauderdale, is already making waves with his feature film Catalina, proving that success is attainable as long as you put in long hours of work and have the passion to create a quality product.
Comedies, dramas and action-thrillers are the go to genres for entertainment. As much as we love horror films at HorrorSociety.com, I’m not blind to the fact that our favorite films aren’t always taken seriously. To want to immerse yourself in that world, one filled with gore and rage, one must possess a definite love for all things scary – a trait that Obando possesses and shares with millions of others around the world. “I have loved the horror genre ever since I was very young,” he tells me. “As with any little kid with two older brothers, I was terrified long before I was ever able to appreciate it. However, I’ve always been intrigued by fear. Wes Craven has always been a huge inspiration to me and the Scream franchise has had an enormous impact on my life.”
In fact, Christian’s infatuation with Scream can be seen all the way back to his years in elementary school. “There’s a picture of me standing in the middle of my room wearing the GhostFace costume and holding up a plastic knife while being surrounded by Mickey Mouse blankets, clocks, photo frames, etc. It’s a golden moment.” On August 30, 2015, the legendary filmmaker who also created A Nightmare on Elm Street and The Hills Have Eyes succumbed to brain cancer and passed away at age 76. In a touching tribute to the icon, the college senior currently editing Catalina inked an eternal image of GhostFace into his wrist as a reminder of the love and admiration that will hopefully blossom into a lucrative career in the near future.
Wes Craven isn’t the only driving force behind Obando’s goals and aspirations. He also gives praise to his college professors at The Art Institute of Fort Lauderdale. He fondly reflects, “My professors have been extremely helpful and supportive with their critiques on my work. I love constructive criticism and they never hold back on that. It’s a trait that I really respect.” Luckily, their guidance and lessons paid off when Christian tackled his first feature film this year. Despite the glitz and glamour seen by the outside world, producing a film of any length is almost excruciating, both to the body and brain. The up-and-coming director describes it best as arduous and adds, “Any of my cast members will tell you that once we wrap a shoot, I finish the day completely drenched in sweat, but it’s always worth the pain. I can do whatever I put my mind to and that’s what gets me through the production.”
Catalina, Obando’s directorial debut, is in the middle of post-production edits. A teaser trailer has already hit YouTube, which is the way that we connected for this piece. Based on the clips provided in the trailer, Catalina looks good and deals with the real life occurrence of sleep paralysis, but I definitely want to know more. Obando explains, “Catalina is a young college student who begins to experience extremely disturbing cases of sleepy paralysis which may have rooted from an unsolved death in her family. She becomes very distant towards everybody, including her socialite best friend, Karlie, since she lacks the same essence seen in her family. Family is a very sensitive topic for Catalina, to say the least. That’s something that she tries to work on throughout the film, but there are a lot of secrets that will be revealed and it will all lead up to a vicious battle against another dimension.”
Although making a film is often a stressful situation, there’s always a lot of joy and fond memories to be found as well. Obanda reflects on his days of shooting with, “My favorite behind-the-scenes moments are bonding with my cast. We all get along extremely well and the bloopers are to die for. There was one scene that Kara Saadet Schwarz and I had to re-shoot and I don’t know what happened. It may have been the coffee taking over, but we were so energetic that we couldn’t get this one shot done to save our lives. It was hysterical.” And what was he learned from such a stressful and exciting endeavor? “I’ve learned that being a filmmaker in college is not an easy thing. Even in the real world, regarding big budget films, there will always be obstacles to push through and things come up that may delay the process. It’s been difficult being the only crew member on set, but I’ve learned so much through this invaluable experience.”
Obando is currently in the midst of negotiating contracts in hopes of securing Catalina a distribution deal. He hopes that entering the feature into film festivals will draw more attention to his picture. If all else fails, then he’s already looked into debuting it on Amazon’s services for hard copy sales and digital streaming. More details are on the horizon, so make sure you follow Catalina on Facebook for all the latest updates: https://www.facebook.com/catalinathemovie.
