Meet Giancarlo Lobo, a senior attending Boston University. This fall semester, he took the initiative to bring his creative vision to life via a visual album titled Guerrilla.
Image Credit: Giancarlo Lobo
Originally from San Francisco, Giancarlo Lobo came to Boston University to pursue a major in Mass Communications and minors in Political Science and French. After working on the set of Guerrilla, I took to conducting an interview with Lobo in order to discover more about the visual album’s origin story and his experience with creating this passion project.
HC: Since Film and TV isn’t your major, what made you decide to start this project?
GC: I originally started this project in September of 2018 as a fun video project. Originally it was supposed to be a concept where I tried to juxtapose a bunch of different images via split-screens. It was also influenced by dance and music videos since I had always wanted to film one, but I never had the means to. As the year went by, I decided to expand the concept to a 10 to 12-minute video with three different songs and the same visual components. And so I figured that if I was going to go through with this, I had to go all out. I set up a meeting with a couple of friends who are now crew members of Guerrilla, got organized, and wrote out a script that became this whole autobiographical story. And when I finished the script in June of 2019 I decided, let’s make this happen.
Image Credit: Giancarlo Lobo
HC: You talked about how dance and music videos inspired you a lot in the beginnings of this project. Is there anything else that inspired you to finally take a leap of faith and put forth action to make Guerrilla?
GC: Totally. I’ve always loved videography and photography, but I never planned on pursuing that as a career option. In college, I was really conflicted and I kept switching between a Film and TV major and PoliSci Major, but I eventually gave up Film and TV. I was really sad about it in the beginning, but I always told myself I could still pursue film outside of my classes, so I really tried to stay true to that. I knew I had the capacity and vision to make a film and the thing that set me apart from others was taking the initiation to pursue my vision. It doesn’t matter whether or not you know how to use all the best equipment—what matters is having a vision and following through with it and that’s what I preach on set. I don’t care how cinematic it looks as long—as we’re getting the story correct, then I’m happy with that.
HC: When you eventually wrap up filming, what do you hope to accomplish through your film?
GC: I hope that I’m able to look back at it and be proud of how I developed. It’s really a coming-of-age film and I feel like I’ve developed as a person through directing it. I kind of see this film as my son and as it grows, I’ve grown with it. I also really [hope] people relate to it, because it touches on a lot of coming-of-age themes that no one really pays tribute to.
HC: What was the biggest obstacle you faced during production and how did you overcome it?
GC: Oh my god, one day we had a really early shoot at three in the morning and my DP (Director of Photography) didn’t show up and I kind of knew it was going to be a bad day. I didn’t know my DP wasn’t going to show, so I just started recording on my phone and pushed through. Another time we were doing a take during sunset, and one of my actors couldn’t ride a bike, so I told her just to jump on another character’s back as they rode the bike. Everything has really been on the fly. So many things go wrong. There are long days and coffee highs, and though I don’t recommend it, I’ve put my heart and soul and body on the line for this film and I think my crew members see that and give back the same energy. Oh yeah, I also fell off a skateboard once.
HC: Oh my, were you okay?
GC: Yeah, I landed on my feet, thankfully.
HC: That’s a relief. To end on a happy note, what’s the greatest memory you’ve had while creating Guerrilla?
GC: There have been so many great moments. One weekend I remember, in particular, we were supposed to have four shoots scattered over the course of three days, but then my main actor said he could only show up for one of those days. To stay on schedule, I had to reorganize everything and we ended up having to film all four scenes in one day. We had three separate call times, started at 6 a.m., ended at 8 p.m. and…everyone that was on set that day was so on board. I know none of the shoots could’ve been done without them. My favorite moment was actually that night. After a 14-hour day, I napped in my living room with a bunch of the cast members and the producer came over and we all just hung out together.
Image: Giancarlo Lobo
When I’m shooting I feel like I’m with my friends and that’s what makes filming so amazing. I’ve gotten so close to people on my set, and it’s a cliche to say, but it’s really not about the destination, it’s about the journey, and I’ve enjoyed every second of it.
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