Making of the Proof of Concept trailer

HI everyone! So, I'm sure you're all curious as to how I made my Proof of Concept Trailer! It's interesting how it all happened, so I hope you enjoy the read.

Really quick, why do I call it a Proof of Concept? For those of you who don't know,  proof of concept is basically showing the idea of your story. Most trailers are like that, but POC's are specially for Indie creators to make themsevles. It's normally when you don't have a big studio backing you up.

Now, onto the story.

I had thought about creating a POC of my story gor a awhile, but i didn't have any confidnce in making it. At first, I though nobody would like the story, or be interested in acting in it.

But one day, a friend I met on the set of the iCarly season 3 reboot, (yes, THAT iCarly, a story for anotehr time) messaged me in Instagram.

"Hey Crystal, what are you up to?"

"Not much. Just been working on this story i'm writing."

"Oh cool. What's the story?"

So i told him about You Fight Like A Girl, and so he convinced me to make it myself.

I was shocked. How in the hell could i make it myself? And so he told me about Proof of Concept Trailers. He said it could even just be a few minutes, and he would gladly help me out with the fight scenes.

He got me all pumped up, and so, I created a casting call on Facebook! I created a poster, and asked if anyone would like to act in it:

Originally, I had put the blurb of my book on the poster, but I changed it to my logline for an easier read. I was surprised that there were some people who were interested in my project!

The very first person I auditioned was Hector Zapata, the man who played Angel Guerrero. He was very excited for the role, and he said he loved the idea of my story! It touched him becuase he said he was a gay man, and he loved how I showed men like him being strong.

I was so flattered! I gave him the role. i liked his look, and his enthusiam for the part!

Now finding a Patrick was kind of hard...

I will circle back to that, but the next actor I got from Facebook was Josh Medina, the man who plays Noah Gracey. Now, what's crazy is, when I auditioned him, i was debating on letting him be Patrick, but with his look, I knew he looked alot more like Noah in my head. 

When I had asked him for his availibility, he said that he worked as a tour guide at the film studio I worked at. 

And I was SHOOK. 

I won't say which one, but I work at a major film studio as a security guard. And it was absolutley wild that we both worked at the same one! We've both worked there for 3 years, and we had never noticed each other!

And so, I gave him the part of Noah! He was also enthusiastic about the project as a queer man, and it warmed my heart that my story had touched these guys so personally.

Unfortuntely, I wasn't finding the other characters on Facebook, so I created a casting call on actors access.

There, i got my Stephanie. Adrianne was perfect, and she too felt strongly about the story and the role she played. We joked about how easy it is to get the "mean girl" role.

And then there was Patrick...

So, I did get a few guys intererested, but then they bailed on me when they realized that it's a gay role. It was frustrating. But I persisted, and kept looking. 

And then I came across Cooper lee Freshwater's headshot. I liked his look, and so I asked him to audtion.

The other thing I forgot to mention, I only adutioned them on video call. I didn't want to do self tapes. I did it this way so I could assess the person, and give them direction on how I wanted them to say the lines, and explain why the story was so important to me.

Cooper was great! i could tell he was very interested in the role, and he even flew down to California to film it!

He is also the baby of the group, he's 21! 

Once i secured Cooper, I did a chemistry test between him and Hector, and i loved how they worked together!

Slowly but surely, everything was falling into place. 

There were a few snafus. It was easier to secure the guys than it was to secure the girls.

I was sweating bullets cuz I really needed a group of girls for the fight club. So many girls I talked to had to bail on me cuz of other stuff.

Thankfully, i got lucky when Leticia, who played Hailey, managed to hook me up with four other girls! (Not in that way lol)

I almost cried in relief! And one of the girls was also another tour guide from the studio I worked at!

I also got my little brother to be in the shoot, too! Nick Naldi! He played the robber in the beginning of the trailer, he technically plays a few characters in the trailer.

Another thing I wanted to mention, the fight scenes were the toughest to film. Most of us weren't that familiar with fight scenes, but we did a pretty good job. My fight choreographer is a great guy, and he was so helpful throughout the whole process. 

We didn't have a lot of time to rehearse the fight scenes, honestly, we could barely spare 2 days to make the trailer. I'm hoping the next time that I do something like this, I have a much bigger budget, so I can have more time to make things smoother. But for what we were able to do, I'm very proud of it. 

There was also fun moments during rehearsal where Cooper was a little worried about the intimacy between his character and Hector's character, and he was cute when Hector said that he could tell that Cooper had never been with a man before. 

"Don't worry, I'll teach you."

I lol' hard when Hector told that to Cooper, he had grabbed him and hugged him and it was awesome LOL. It was so cute 🥰 

Hector also helped out to get us a cameraman, Luis who did a great job with filming the fight scenes. We filmed the dialogue scenes on Josh's iPhone, just to save on footage cuz there was so much that I wanted to shoot. 

There's honestly so much to talk about with how the proof of concept trailer was made, that'll probably do a video on it, or I could even do like a live q&A. If that's something you guys would want, go ahead and email me and let me know 😁