Doorways to Another World With Jacob de la Rosa
“I owe a lot to C.S. Lewis for convincing me there’s always a doorway to another world in the most ordinary of places.“ - Jacob de la Rosa
In Today’s blog post we interview Jacob de la Rosa a writer, filmmaker, and owner of Perelandra Pictures. I’ve had the pleasure of working with him and his team on a number of projects over the years and am very excited about his up-coming production: Real America.
About Real American
What is Real American?
Real American is a sci-fi series about a news producer covering politics in an alternate timeline where aliens came to Earth as refugees. She’s at risk of becoming the story when a divisive politician’s rise to power threatens to expose her deepest secret.
Where did the idea come from?
I was in the car driving to work, and I gave myself the challenge of coming up with a science fiction series I could make with limited resources. So I set the story in modern day with humanoid aliens because I figured that made locations, wardrobe, and makeup easier. Then I started thinking about the problems the aliens would face: prejudice, fetishization, scapegoating. It was going to be a small, intimate character piece about one young woman, and it still is at its core, but the project definitely became more ambitious as time went on.
Why did you pursue the Real American project?
Most of my projects tend to fall under the umbrella of science fiction. My primary reason for making Real American is that I wanted to be a showrunner, so I created a microcosm where I could experience that now.
Advice Column: Creativity
“Creativity is expressing the way you perceive something in a way that is surprising.”
We’ve all heard there’s no original ideas, but I think there are always original ways to look at ideas or combine ideas or present them. You have to find a way to keep everything moving.
If you want to make creativity the core of your life, you have to have discipline. You’re not going to feel like being creative every day, but writing and filmmaking are like exercise. You have to work your creative muscles in order to build them, even when you don’t feel like it.
Probably the biggest change I’ve seen to the way I approach creativity is my perspective has grown. When I look back at the writing I did when in my teens through my early twenties, it’s not the silly ideas or cheesy jokes that make me cringe, it’s my narrow worldview. I was in this homogeneous bubble, and it showed in my writing. I’ve met a lot of different kinds of people and also felt a lot of different kinds of pain and it’s broadened how I see the world and what I write about.
Sneak Peak: Behind the Scenes
Jacob continues to work on the VFX and post production of Real American and we look forward to sharing more about the Real American series in the future. Season one will premiere in the coming months. If you can’t wait to get a sneak peak you are in luck! We’ve got a short behind-the-scenes video for you.
