A single moment ago, at the end of Anis Maknojia Jack's latest short , when the lead acknowledges the presence of the audience.
It's a brief connection, an acknowledgment of the connection between the viewer participating in on-screen actions and the uncertain role of Maknojia's Bruce.
As the short opens, Bruce, an executive at a tech company preparing to go public, prepares for meetings to establish his company's valuation. By dressing for the next day, he redresses the disarray of the day before. In the boardroom, he is direct, succinct and unwavering. He deflects worries about the company's IPO and downplays his personal life. At lunch with her finances, her personality changes slightly, becoming less direct and more withdrawn.
"There are hidden clues everywhere," Maknojia said. “There are ideas and themes that we included to draw people towards and away from the end of the film. It was a lot of work, but it was fun, and it made me work in a way that I hadn't before.
Unpredictably, the job allowed the actor and producer to find time to put Jack in the spotlight. Earlier this year, he traveled to Houston to help resolve a number of COVID-related issues with his family's business.
"The past year has been...interesting," Maknojia said. “I was pulled in many directions, both creatively and financially. I thought my time in Texas would slow things down, but it gave me the opportunity to move forward on this project, which has been on the back burner for a while.
“The change of pace was a good thing. It allowed me to let go of my other creative distractions and make real progress.
Collaborating with director Frederick Tabiyus Nah IV on the initial script, Maknojia handed the draft to writer Joseph Carlin. Carlin fleshed out the details and filled in the gaps.
When Maknojia finished his job in Houston and moved back to Los Angeles, it looked a lot like his original move to (nickname for the city). In 2019, shortly after moving to Los Angeles, Maknojia
created Terre Ohé! Films in an effort to challenge themselves to expand their creative endeavors and give others the chance to do the same.
“There are so many multicultural talents in the world and Terre Ohé! is about inclusion,” Maknojia said, saying Jack was trying to address that issue by casting a non-white male in the lead role. “From my perspective, I would most often be relegated to a supporting role in a story like this. »
In addition to the counterintuitive casting, Jack's day-to-day approach is intentional.
"We chose this method to tell the story on purpose," Maknojia said. “It goes against a lot of expectations with situations like this and kicks off the end of the day with an unexpected heaviness. The goal was to be both annoying and misleading.
As for the one time he breaks the fourth wall, Maknojia doesn't share a specific sense of the connection between the character and the audience.
"I'm not saying," he said. “I know what I think that means, but I could see how different people could interpret the moment in different ways. There are a lot of things that could play into it.
“And I like it to be ambiguous, but not completely ambiguous. The viewer knows what's going on, but it's how they interpret that moment that interests me.
