Chiko Mendez and "The Project"

I met Chiko Mendez back in 2004 while working on my college thesis project entitled "The Night They Came Back" where we have since worked on many films... In the recent months I did some audio work and interview footage with him for "Mr. Mullen" and "In Production" but nothing really in the realm of visuals for a film, so we shot some scenes on Friday at Welwyn with Chris Margaritis and Chiko Mendez - mostly focusing on the Chiko Mendez interview answers which take place during the film "The Project" and wanted to extend a little into the Montauk scenes to finish off that segment of the film which includes them both going to Montauk to look for their friend Scott Jordan (played by Paul Kratka) who allegedly "commited suicide" which is what the news media has stated but they feel something weird went on out there - so there's a scene at the Welwyn bay area that we shot Paul's death scene at that I am trying to plan to shoot on a cloudy day to match previous shots in where they both meet up and a scene out in Montauk where Chiko explores Camp Hero and calls up Chris' character telling him to meet him in Montauk.

The interesting thing is you shoot a lot, and most of the time you use very little - but I suppose it's different for every filmmaker as some might use more footage from their day of shooting than others would.

Last week when Chris and I went to Montauk we didn't have the chance to shoot for as long as we wanted - it started to rain, although it was a good start, and since Chris' character breaks down, I feel, as of now it might be best if Chiko's character had just gotten up when he heard the news and went searching for any clues - that I feel add's to his character and his decision to get up and go without thinking twice - just to hop in the car and go out to Montauk I feel would be best for his character.

Then you have the Chris Romero character who is the type of person who would sit at the training compound in Glen Cove and sit and think about the death of his friend for a bit. Upon recieving Chiko's ("Enrique" in the film) phone call, he decides to take the drive out to Montauk.

So those are the ideas that I have in mind for the sequence and I feel it can work to recap that sequence. I am also looking forward to shooting more of the Mind Control / RFID / "all hell breaks loose" scenes that I feel are the most important parts of the film.

There is also a final sequence that still needs to be shot that I'd like to shoot towards the end - that way we can cover all bases on what was shown in the film.