The Big Picture

Collider’s Perri Nemiroff sits down with the team behind
Música
at SXSW 2024.
Rudy Mancuso, Camila Mendes, Francesca Reale, and Maria Mancuso discuss bringing this unique and hugely creative love triangle story to screen.
The film follows a street performer with synesthesia “who must come to terms with an uncertain future, while navigating the pressures of love, family and his Brazilian culture.”

One of the most exciting and beautiful aspects of filmmaking, and storytelling in general, is getting the opportunity to step into someone else’s shoes and experience a reality that’s different from your own. In Rudy Mancuso’s case, however, the reality he’s trying to pull viewers into — and have them see, hear and feel — is a rather tough thing to communicate. Mancuso’s feature directorial debut puts a spotlight on a condition he has, Synesthesia.

As he described it himself, “Synesthesia is a condition that’s being researched and studied continuously. There’s, what I learned, a hundred different types and counting.” He went on to note that it’s a challenging condition to diagnose, so it’s likely that many out there who have it, don’t even know that they do. He continued, “By definition, it’s when one sense involuntarily stimulates another. So some Synesthetes can taste colors and others can smell numbers. For me, I have what’s known as rhythmic association, whereby I try to organize sounds and situations into music almost in an obsessive fashion.” That’s what Música is about.

Executive produced by Riverdale’s Camila Mendes, Mancuso leads Música as Rudy, a young Brazilian street performer with synesthesia from Newark’s Ironbound neighborhood. When he’s not trying to finish up his college degree, he’s staging puppet performances for commuters. Rudy tries to convince his girlfriend, Haley (Francesca Reale), that his ambitions will eventually lead toward some sense of creative fulfillment and stability, but their definitions of and timetables for finding success don’t quite align. Then there’s Isabella (Mendes). Not only does she instantly catch Rudy’s eye, but the more he gets to know her, the more he comes to suspect that she might understand him better than anyone. As described in the film’s production notes, “Caught in a love triangle, Rudy tries to balance his cultural heritage, the women in his life and the música inside his head.”

While in Austin celebrating Música’s world premiere at SXSW 2024, Mendes, Reale, Mancuso and Maria Mancuso, Rudy’s mother who also plays his mother in the movie, all visited the Collider interview studio to give us a little insight into the making of the film.

How Being “Professionally Born on the Internet” Helped Rudy Mancuso Make ‘Música’

Música may mark Mancuso’s feature directorial debut, but he’s been enjoying great success as a musician and Internet content creator for years.

He’s a self-taught musician, he opened for Justin Bieber in Brazil on the Purpose World Tour, he performed at the Hollywood Bowl for the Coco Live-To-Film Concert Experience, has a YouTube channel with over seven million subscribers where he shares sketches and original music, and is also responsible for Awkward Puppets, a popular puppet series available on YouTube.

As one might expect, making the pivot to feature filmmaking came with learning curves, and Mancuso found he had a lot to gain from one in particular:

“
I’m professionally born on the Internet, and speed is synonymous with creating content for the Internet.
I was conditioned to have an idea on Monday or compose something the beginning of the week, and it be public the next day. And here in the world of filmmaking and film development, time is, even though it’s the most valuable asset during production, it also can take a lifetime to develop something.
I think that was the biggest obstacle for me was how long everything takes, but ultimately, very rewarding because it taught me patience.
The more time it took to do another draft of the script or get another round of notes or put another meeting in the books, the closer I got to the material, so by the time we got there, on the day, day one of production, I knew this thing so inside and out that there was really no room for error.”

How Rudy Mancuso Crafted ‘Música’s Stunning & Hugely Ambitious Oner

Everything about Música is ambitious, but there’s one especially wow-worthy component of Mancuso’s film. In fact, it was one of my favorite scenes of SXSW 2024. Música features a hugely complicated and extremely well executed oner featuring a number of different locations and the entire main ensemble.

One thing that made pulling off such a sequence a bit easier? Mancuso noted, “I’ve auditioned a similar idea in a short that I’ve done. I had done it a few years prior and published it on YouTube.” He continued:

“We had that day of rehearsal, and it’s also a testament to our DP and production designer who collaborated on these schematics. There was a book of schematics in order to pull that off.
I really had to fight for the oner because the big question was, what’s the point? Are you saying anything beyond this just being a cool film technique?
And I was. We could have shot that in multiple different locations and match cut each location and made it more of a classic cut montage, but the theatricality and one-take approach was really reflective of what Rudy’s character is going through at the time, which is trying to balance the chaos of his life and all these people and keep up with the lies — I call it the rhythm of lies — and
what better way to depict chaos and losing control than a chaotic oner
? So from a production standpoint and story standpoint, it was chaos, and it all felt like one long day.”

While it may have felt like one long day, the sequence only took a half day to shoot. Mancuso revealed the grand total; “It was 14 takes, I think. It was only half a day of shooting, actually.”

Again, a wildly challenging set piece to pull off, but it was one that was right up Mendes and Reale’s alley given they both have theater backgrounds. Mendes explained:

“It felt so exciting in the moment because we rehearsed it for an entire day the day before, so by the time we were filming it, we were all very prepared. And it felt like doing theater. Fran and I come from theater. We met at NYU in Tisch, so from a theater perspective, it felt like we were just performing a show and had quick changes in the background, and there was something really exciting about it. I think that when you know you have one take to get something, everyone just kind of turns on and everyone has to make it happen.”

Here’s Why Camila Mendes Is Producing More Movies
Image via Prime Video

Related ‘Upgraded’ Review: Camila Mendes Carries Prime Video’s Romantic Comedy This romantic comedy is more “com” than “rom.”

In addition to Música marking Mancuso’s feature directorial debut, it also marked a major leap for Mendes. With Música and Upgrade on her filmography, Mendes now has two executive producer credits to her name.

What sparked the interest in contributing behind the lens? Here’s what she said:

“
I mainly got into producing as a way to kind of take control of the things I creatively involve myself in.
And, you know, to protect myself, because when you are a producer you get a certain amount of authority that you don’t get just as an actor. So it started off like that, and then as I started doing it, I really started to fall in love with it.
I feel like a lot of natural parts of my personality lend themselves to producing.
I’m way more of a technical, analytical person. I think a lot of actors can be more intuitive and free-spirited, and I’m way more rigid and planned out and strategic, so I feel like producing really fits that set of skills.”

As for her goals working in this particular capacity on films, she’s zeroed in on one especially important personal priority:

“I think something I’ve realized, I really want to, especially after this movie, create more opportunities for — it doesn’t have to be specifically Brazilian — if it is, then that would be amazing for Brazilian actors, because I feel like there aren’t enough roles showcasing the level of talent that there is out there. I want to be able to create projects that give actors that opportunity to show their range of talent.”

Looking for more on the making of Música? You can catch my full conversation with Mendes, Reale, Rudy Mancuso, Maria Mancuso in the video at the top of this article.

Música (2024) Release Date April 4, 2024 Director Rudy Mancuso Runtime 91 Minutes

Música will be available to stream on Amazon Prime beginning April 4th.

Watch on Amazon Prime