René: How does it feel to have your first post-grad film, RAGTIME, out there?

Luis: It feels good, just 'cause I've been making short films since I was in high school with my friend, Victor Gutierrez, and the whole thing about that was like it all kind of started with, just like making projects for school. But then we started doing like the film festivals in our school district, but it was always just kind of like— we would always try to make absurd little videos that we’d hope would win and that way we could say our movie won even though it was kind of stupid. So even through college I tried to amplify that through like the types of short films. It would always be like, “How funny can this be, especially presented to a class where, like, other people are trying to thrive in the industry? Will they laugh at it? Or get that I'm being ironic, in a sense?" But like I'm not really going to make like a- 

RR: There Will Be Blood. 

LRB: I'm not. Yeah, I'm not gonna make like the best movie ever. I want to make something good that kind of, like, showcases me as a filmmaker and so now that I'm out of school, I mean, I didn't have the equipment that I had in college, but I finally had no limit to my creativity. Also, what I've been telling Nick— Nicolas Marin, is that this is the first movie that I've made that I would charge somebody to watch. I know that's a very prideful thing to say, but I'm just so confident in it that like a lot of work was put in.

RR: Yeah, no I remember it, yeah. 

LRB: There was, I mean you were there, it was just very stressful and like, it was a very hard shoot, and you know, like there was no PA. There wasn’t, I mean, until you came. And you know, things like us not really looking at the script and— it was just hectic. But yeah, like a lot of work went into it. It took a long time to make because again, like even on set and post-production not a lot of people were working on it like I put the movie together, and I gave it to Isaac. He edited it and then like he colored it and like you know, the movie was, at most, in the hands of four people. 

RR: Would you change anything to the film? 

LRB: I have a lot of things that I would like to change but I would never, because after I finished the first draft, I gave it to Isaac. So then he edits them and that’s the thing, with people investing their time, which they want their input as well. But there were points where it was like “this is it, nothing else can be done,” you know? Also, I recently like I asked my girlfriend like “what’d you think about the movie? Like wholeheartedly?” 

RR: What’d she say? 

LRB: She didn’t like it! 

RR: Oh wow. 

LRB: Yeah, but I know what her taste in movies and this wasn’t her thing. Then Isaac introduced the idea of datamoshing. 

RR: What’s datamoshing? 

LRB: It's like the pixels of the movie, the screens start collapsing on each other or something and it just looks really distorted.

RR: Oh, you mean the scene where Ragtime himself was distorted? 

LRB: Yeah, so in that scene, Isaac showed me the edit and I said to tone it down, but we met in the middle of how it was going to be.  She still didn't like it.

RR: It’s kind of like a taste thing, but does this make you want to learn how to do shit by yourself without others? 

LRB: It’s stressful to get people to be on the same page as you but that’s what makes you a good director, like being able to handle other people’s points of view and getting your message across. Like I hate to use this example of like, I guess Christopher Nolan like when he made Tenet, I wonder if he liked his own movie.  

RR: Yeah, there's like a million hands on that fucking movie. 

LRB: Yeah, like he had all these people, all these heads around him but like was the final product what he wanted? Which is what I think when I watch more movies, like is this what they intended to have? 

RR: To give people an idea of the work it took to make this movie, how long did it take to make? 

LRB: When I went to high school, I qualified for a Letterman jacket, but it wasn't like a sports thing or nothing, it was if you had good grades, you qualified. I paid $50 for it. Anyways, after the fact, my mom gets a call like 2 years later from my school saying, “We have your son’s jacket.” So, I got two jackets for the price of $50. Then I thought what the fuck was I gonna do with two expensive jackets, you know? I’m not wearing this out. I’m 21 years old.

RR: Yeah, if you’re 21 years old still wearing letterman jackets, something’s wrong with you. 

LRB: Yeah, so I had the jackets, and then Isaac had recently bought the VHS camera. And we were both talking and I was like, “I want to make something for that camera”. Which— you were there, but it would eventually fuck me.

RR: Okay, yeah, so can you please tell the people exactly how stressful and frustrating it was to have that camera malfunction on us? 

LRB: So, second day, we put the battery in the camera, and it just dies, but Isaac said he charged it all night. So, then we put the other battery in, but then it dies quicker. Turns out it was the charger that was messed up.  

RR: What was the substitute though?

LRB: Well Isaac, on that first day, had his Blackmagic and his Hi8, but second day when the camera malfunctions, he brought nothing. Luckily, Nick had his Canon, so we just used that and then put it onto VHS later. It still looks cool. 

RR: It does. 

LRB: I mean yeah, I don't mind it. But during the shooting of it, I didn’t know what it was going to look like later.  

RR: Is there a movie in specific that inspired you to make RAGTIME  look like that? 

LRB: Toxic Avenger by Lloyd Kaufman. It's this movie about a nerd set in a gym like RAGTIME and he's just like the nerdiest dude ever and there’s these jocks that bully him. I forgot some of it but basically the nerd falls into a vat of acid, and becomes this toxic, huge, weird monster. He then turns into the Toxic Avenger who helps people out or whatever. He's just killing and just helping people out and he's hideous and I don't know, I think I really like the 80s. 

RR: I love the 80’s. 

LRB: I know a lot of people don't, which I think is weird. 

RR: Some of the boldest ideas came from then. 

LRB: Definitely, in terms of fashion and art and everything going on at the time. With RAGTIME, you know I wanted to go for that 80s look, and Desmond's outfit, especially in the gym scene. The headband, jersey with the rings on the sleeves, short shorts, and Converse, I like that look. I pitched that idea to Isaac, and he thought that people do not dress like that now, but I think it fit the theme well within the movie. 

RR: So, in the end, is Ragtime really all of us? 

LRB: Everyone can identify with somebody in RAGTIME, you know? Also, like the movie can be an anti–masturbation or it can be a pro-masturbation movie. 

RR: At the end of the movie, does the scene where Desmond [REDACTED] Ragtime and he’s covered in all the [REDACTED] signify post-nut clarity? 

LRB: In a sense, yeah, well, I guess the biggest post-nut clarity scene for me would be whenever Ragtime finally presents him the jacket and he starts getting scared like, “I regret.” 

RR: When you’d masturbate, did you ever think about this movie? 

LRB: Did I ever think of Ragtime when I masturbated? 

RR: No, no, not the monster, but the movie itself? 

LRB: No, why would I do that?

RR: You never know, because I genuinely was just like, “Man, this guy was making a movie about jacking off a lot. You ever just wonder like maybe after, at the end of the day, when he wraps up shooting, is he thinking about this movie inherently?”

LRB: No, it's a good movie, it's fine. 

RR: OK, well, were the dicks real? 

LRB: We had one dick on set, and it was not real. I still have it, and we got it at SMOOCHEE’S in Houston. I was initially gonna cheap out because a dildo was $40.  

RR: $40 for a dildo you were never gonna use again. 

LRB: Yeah, but in the end I’m glad I bought the prosthetic. 

RR: Are you curious to return to Desmond? Because to be honest it felt open-ended.

LRB: I just remembered, I wanted to put something in the end like “Oh, I never go away”.   

RR: That would make sense. 

LRB: Yeah, but I have so many other ideas I wanted to get off the ground, cause initially RAGTIME was a 30-page script and it got condensed to 16 pages, so maybe in like 5 years, who knows. I like the idea of RAGTIME actually being shot on film, better prosthetics. I actually have an idea of- wait I don’t wanna say too much.

RR: Alright well, this is a very important question man. Would you let me play a grown-up Frankie? 

LRB: No, yall have very different skin tones, if I were to do a Desmond revival, it would have to be a grown man. 

RR: Ah well, thanks for coming. 

LRB: No pun intended.