A piñata is supposed to be the thing that gets hit. In Fiesta No Mas, writer-director Amy Pope flips that arrangement: when an unexpected blood thirsty guest interrupts Max's birthday party, one dad has to find a way to save his son. It is a B horror comedy in the truest sense — gleeful, bloody, built on an idea so absurd it earns its own logic — and it arrives at FilmQuest as Pope's directorial debut, from a story she has been carrying since she was nineteen.
What makes the film land is the stubbornness behind it. Pope spent months building the piñatas by hand, engineering their articulated pieces until they moved exactly the way she saw them moving in her head. Nothing was handed off to a computer. "Most films in this specific genre are low budget, but I also feel like they usually look and sound like they are low budget as well," she says. "My goal was to keep the spirit of a low budget b horror comedy but make it look and sound like a million bucks."
Key Takeaways
- Pope hand-built the film's articulated piñatas over several months, and their movement is the element she points to as unmistakably hers.
- The entire film was shot in two days with no pickups, which cost her a few planned insert shots when the light went on day two.
- With no prior effects experience, she prototyped and tested until the blood shot the way she wanted — a result that looked great and cost almost nothing.
Pope spoke with us about courage, sound design, delegation, and her plan to turn this one into three.
Interview
What drew you to make this film, and why this story, why now?
I've had a love for B horror movies my whole life and I've had this story in my head since I was 19 years old. It's scary to take on a project that you're passionate about because of the fear of failure. However, with every film, TV show, or music video I worked on I gained more knowledge and courage to finally put that director's hat on. I finally felt capable of making my vision a reality.
What surprised you most about the filmmaking process, creatively or logistically?
During post I was surprised at just how much sound design can make or break a film.
What moment in the film feels most like you, or like something only you could have made?
All of the piñata's movements. I spent months building those piñatas and making sure all of its articulated pieces looked and worked how I wanted them to.
What was the hardest creative decision you made while making the film?
The hardest creative decision I made was having to cut some of the insert shots of the piñatas that I wanted to get. We shot the film in two days and we ended up losing light on the second day before we got the chance to shoot them. Thankfully we got the film without needing pickups.
What tool, technique, resource, collaborator, or mindset shift helped most during production?
As a first time director, one thing I realized on set is that being able to delegate is essential. I'm a very hard worker and will always do everything I possibly can to get the job done, but as the director it took me like half of the first day of shooting to realize that in order to be able to focus and get the shots I wanted I had to pass off some of that work to others. Thankfully I have an awesome crew.
What is the greatest strength of independent filmmaking, and how did you lean into it on this project?
The greatest strength of independent filmmaking has to be the kind of creative problem solving that is necessary. The lower the budget, the more creative you have to be to achieve certain things that would otherwise cost an arm and a leg. I definitely leaned into it to get the blood to shoot out like I wanted it to. Having no experience with those kinds of effects, I had lots of prototyping and testing to do before getting the result I wanted. And the result not only looked cool, but it didn't cost much money at all.
What does it mean to have your film selected for FilmQuest, and where do you see this film going next?
To be selected for FilmQuest was so ridiculously exciting and flattering. I have been following FilmQuest for years and it has always been one of the festivals I was excited to enter once I finished this film. So to get this opportunity has been nothing short of a dream. My hope is to turn this bad boy into not 1, not 2, but 3 feature length films. I've got a lot of work to do to achieve that, but it's the ultimate goal for sure.
What Pope wants most from an audience is simple and a little subversive: laughter first, then respect for the work that made the laughter possible. "I really hope the audience has an appreciation for the practical effects," she says. "In this age of everything being done on a green screen or added in post with After Effects, I really wanted to make this film as visually fun and interesting without any of that." The experience has pushed her further in that direction — she now wants to work almost exclusively with practical sets and effects, noting that a few of the simplest shots in Fiesta No Mas "just look so much cooler than anything I could've done on a computer."
Ask her what sits at the core of her work and she doesn't hesitate: a desire to surprise people. "Who thinks a piñata is going to eat people, let alone in such a bloody way," she says. "All of my other scripts have a very similar goal as well." On the evidence of her first time behind the camera, the surprise is holding.
Main Cast & Crew
- Joel Wetterstein — Actor
- Chad Anderson — Actor
- Amy Pope — Writer, Director, Producer
- Pat O'Malley — Writer, Producer
- Matt Welch — Director of Photography
- Douglas Pipes — Composer
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